The Mermaids Singing by Val McDermid
Apr. 9th, 2007 01:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
quippeThe Blurb On The Back:
You always remember the first time. Isn't that what they say about sex? How much more true it is of murder ...
Up until now, the only serial killers Tony Hill had encountered were behind bars. This one's different - this one's on the loose.
In the northern town of Bradfield four men have been found mutilated and tortured. Fear grips the city; no man feels safe. Clinical psychologist Tony HIll is brought in to profile the killer. A man with more than enough sexual problems of his own, Tony himself becomes the unsuspecting target in a battle of wits and wills where he has to use every ounce of his professional skill and personal nerve to survive.
A tense, beautifully written psychological thriller, The Mermaids Singing explores the tormented mind of a serial killer unlike any the world of fiction has ever seen.
I can see why this book won the CWA Gold Dagger Award for Fiction. It's tightly plotted, the tension is well maintained and the central characters of Carol Jordan and Tony Hill are interesting without ever becoming too dominant. McDermid has a particular gift for gruesome imagery and the torture scenes were very well conveyed - horrifying without ever becoming so gory that you felt the need to put the book down and hide somewhere.
Saying that, I did get who the murderer was quite early on because the device that McDermid uses makes it easy to tell that the culprit is integral to the case. Having not read any other of the Tony Hill series (and in fact, I'm not clear whether this is the first in the series), I don't know whether the character and the situation has appeared in previous work - if they have, then I suspect that I would not have got it. Getting who the murder was did not ruin my enjoyment of the book though, because it's not just the who but also the why and the how that drives the reader's interest and these are well paced in terms of revelation.
I do have two criticisms of the book though. Firstly, McDermid goes for an obvious attraction between Carol and Tony. Personally, I'm not so much of a fan as UST between the two main characters - particularly when McDermid keeps coming back and referring to it. I would love to read a crime thriller where the male and female characters don't like each other particularly much but have to lump it. Saying that, she does at least give Tony a good reason for not acting on his attraction to Carol - I've never read a book where the central male character is impotent before and whilst there were a couple of scenes where she overeggs it a little, on the whole it was quite credibly brought out.
My second criticism relates to the denouement. Without wishing to spoil it completely, I felt that the big rescue was rushed and it was surprising that McDermid didn't write more about the immediate aftereffects of it on either Carol or Tony (although I appreciate that this could well be something that features in further books in the series). For all the build up about the murderer's intelligence and cunning, I also thought that they fell for Tony's ploy just a little too easily - I would have liked to see him sweat for it more.
The Verdict:
Creepy, gruesome and tense - definitely worth a read if you'e into twisted psychological crime thrillers.
You always remember the first time. Isn't that what they say about sex? How much more true it is of murder ...
Up until now, the only serial killers Tony Hill had encountered were behind bars. This one's different - this one's on the loose.
In the northern town of Bradfield four men have been found mutilated and tortured. Fear grips the city; no man feels safe. Clinical psychologist Tony HIll is brought in to profile the killer. A man with more than enough sexual problems of his own, Tony himself becomes the unsuspecting target in a battle of wits and wills where he has to use every ounce of his professional skill and personal nerve to survive.
A tense, beautifully written psychological thriller, The Mermaids Singing explores the tormented mind of a serial killer unlike any the world of fiction has ever seen.
I can see why this book won the CWA Gold Dagger Award for Fiction. It's tightly plotted, the tension is well maintained and the central characters of Carol Jordan and Tony Hill are interesting without ever becoming too dominant. McDermid has a particular gift for gruesome imagery and the torture scenes were very well conveyed - horrifying without ever becoming so gory that you felt the need to put the book down and hide somewhere.
Saying that, I did get who the murderer was quite early on because the device that McDermid uses makes it easy to tell that the culprit is integral to the case. Having not read any other of the Tony Hill series (and in fact, I'm not clear whether this is the first in the series), I don't know whether the character and the situation has appeared in previous work - if they have, then I suspect that I would not have got it. Getting who the murder was did not ruin my enjoyment of the book though, because it's not just the who but also the why and the how that drives the reader's interest and these are well paced in terms of revelation.
I do have two criticisms of the book though. Firstly, McDermid goes for an obvious attraction between Carol and Tony. Personally, I'm not so much of a fan as UST between the two main characters - particularly when McDermid keeps coming back and referring to it. I would love to read a crime thriller where the male and female characters don't like each other particularly much but have to lump it. Saying that, she does at least give Tony a good reason for not acting on his attraction to Carol - I've never read a book where the central male character is impotent before and whilst there were a couple of scenes where she overeggs it a little, on the whole it was quite credibly brought out.
My second criticism relates to the denouement. Without wishing to spoil it completely, I felt that the big rescue was rushed and it was surprising that McDermid didn't write more about the immediate aftereffects of it on either Carol or Tony (although I appreciate that this could well be something that features in further books in the series). For all the build up about the murderer's intelligence and cunning, I also thought that they fell for Tony's ploy just a little too easily - I would have liked to see him sweat for it more.
The Verdict:
Creepy, gruesome and tense - definitely worth a read if you'e into twisted psychological crime thrillers.
