The Torment of Others by Val McDermid
Apr. 14th, 2007 01:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
quippeThe Blurb On The Back:
A dead girl lies on a blood-soaked mattress, her limbs spread in a parody of ecstasy. The scene matches a series of murders which ended when irrefutable forensic evidence secured the conviction of one Derek Tyler. But Tyler's been locked up in a mental institution for two years, barely speaking a word - except to say that 'the Voice' told him to do it.
Top criminal psychologist Dr Tony Hill is prepared to think the unthinkable - this is not a copycat murder but something much stranger. While DCI Carol Jordan and her team mount a desperate and dangerous undercover police operation to trap the murderer, Hill heads towards a terrifying face-off with one of the most perverse killers he has ever encountered ...
There is no denying that Val McDermid knows how to create tension and pace, but I did not enjoy this book as much as I did The Mermaids Singing, even though it's part of the same series. I think that this partly due to the fact that I've missed the 'in-between' books in the series (The Wire In The Blood and The Last Temptation), which would give more flesh to the developing relationship between Hill and Jordan, but even so, the series seems to have been transformed into one of those 'will they/won't they' crime series, which rests on the sexual attraction between the two main characters. I'll say it from the outset, but I really don't like will they/won't they series. I find them artificial and emotionally manipulative but they're also a fast way of seeing your characters get written into a corner - if they do consumate the attraction, then it's difficult to maintain the tension between them moving forward (which is why you see so many series end with the protagonists settling down together) and if they don't consumate the attraction, then you get stuck in a repetitive rut of mutual attraction that never goes anywhere, which rapidly becomes boring.
This book begins with Carol having moved to London, having been betrayed in some kind of police operation, which resulted in her being raped. The way in which Jordan tries to deal with the rape and it's effect on her relationship with Hill (who seems to bear some kind of guilt about it) is one of the main themes in the book, and I feel a little guilty for my lack of patience with it. I would stress that this is partly to do with having missed the intervening books, but it's also something to do with the fact that having a strong female character having to deal with a rape is, in my opinion, becoming something of a cliche in crime fiction. It's to McDermid's credit that she doesn't drag it out or wrap it in sentimentality (in fact, Jordan is remarkably resilient about the whole thing which is refreshing), but it did feel too much blah blah blah to me and as it kept recurring as a theme, my eyes began to glaze over. Jordan is persuaded back to Bradfield by Brandon (her former Chief Constable, making a welcome return from The Mermaids Singing) to front an elite investigation squad looking at serial killers and re-opening cold cases when times are quiet. Hill, who apparently moved to St Andrews to teach, hears that she's coming back and gets a part-time job in Bradfield's local high-security hospital (where it just so happens that Derek Tyler from the Blurb on the Back is a patient) so he can support her - including by buying a house and converting the ground floor into a flat for her, which struck me as a bit weird.
Jordan's first two cases are a cold case concerning the disappearance of two boys (an investigation headed up by Merrick, also making a welcome return from The Mermaids Singing) who was clearly personally invested in the investigation, which makes things awkward given that he's serving as her Inspector in the new unit. Her second case concerns the gruesome murder of prostitutes in a way echoing a previously solved case. One of my big problems with the book is that the cold case is very much the poor relation in terms of investigation (it's solved much too easily) and emotional impact (there's no look at the effect on the parents or indeed, any relationship with the people really suffering) and I think that structurally, it would have been more effective to just focus on the serial killer, which is clearly what she's more interested in. The reason why the cold case is there is to provide a Big Shocking Twist at the end (which was over too quickly to be effective and whilst I will miss the character concerned, they'd had such a poor ride throughout the story that it was really a relief) and to give Jordan a Potential Love Interest to help her get over her rape and force her and Hill to acknowledge their feelings for each other. Yawn.
Like I said, the serial killer story is more effective - McDermid is never better than when she's drawing on the gruesome and chilling and she gives just enough detail about the killings and the killer's motivation to make you keep your legs tightly crossed as you're reading the scenes. However, I was very disappointed by the way in which she rushed the ending. For starters, there is v. little explanation for how The Voice was controlling the killers - McDermid says it's to do with hypnosis or psychological suggestion, but there's no real explanation for how this was accomplished and it felt uncharacteristically ham-fisted. Then the denouement itself was incredibly unsatisfying - we literally go from having a face-off between Hill and the killer to the end of the book to a twist that the killer had killed Tyler to a further twist that Tyler had made a confession implicating The Voice and providing handy evidence to bring a conviction in the space of 4 pages. From someone like McDermid, I really expected better.
I'd also like to comment on how McDermid seemed to lose control of her character POVs towards the end - in order to bring the book to a conclusion we started getting inundated with perspectives - from The Voice, to her tools, to Hill and Jordan, to random policemen, to prostitutes with key pieces of evidence - it's a mess. Also a mess is the fact that the Big Reveal is dependent on the prostitutes being afraid of one of the members of Jordan's team - so afraid that when they can potentially reveal the killer to Jordan, they don't. Unfortunately, this fact comes at the end of the book and in going back through the scenes where you see the prostitutes interact with this character, there's nothing at all to indicate that they're any more afraid of them than they are the 'good' policemen. That's sloppy and unconvincing and again, I really expected better from McDermid.
The Verdict:
Whilst I still have a lot of respect for McDermid's ability to pace a novel and write tension, I thought that the plotting of this left a great deal to be desired and can't help but feel that the Jordan/Hill dynamic has reached the end of its course. In fact, given that there has been no further book in this series since this was published in 2004, I'm hoping that McDermid will only need one to wrap it up completely.
A dead girl lies on a blood-soaked mattress, her limbs spread in a parody of ecstasy. The scene matches a series of murders which ended when irrefutable forensic evidence secured the conviction of one Derek Tyler. But Tyler's been locked up in a mental institution for two years, barely speaking a word - except to say that 'the Voice' told him to do it.
Top criminal psychologist Dr Tony Hill is prepared to think the unthinkable - this is not a copycat murder but something much stranger. While DCI Carol Jordan and her team mount a desperate and dangerous undercover police operation to trap the murderer, Hill heads towards a terrifying face-off with one of the most perverse killers he has ever encountered ...
There is no denying that Val McDermid knows how to create tension and pace, but I did not enjoy this book as much as I did The Mermaids Singing, even though it's part of the same series. I think that this partly due to the fact that I've missed the 'in-between' books in the series (The Wire In The Blood and The Last Temptation), which would give more flesh to the developing relationship between Hill and Jordan, but even so, the series seems to have been transformed into one of those 'will they/won't they' crime series, which rests on the sexual attraction between the two main characters. I'll say it from the outset, but I really don't like will they/won't they series. I find them artificial and emotionally manipulative but they're also a fast way of seeing your characters get written into a corner - if they do consumate the attraction, then it's difficult to maintain the tension between them moving forward (which is why you see so many series end with the protagonists settling down together) and if they don't consumate the attraction, then you get stuck in a repetitive rut of mutual attraction that never goes anywhere, which rapidly becomes boring.
This book begins with Carol having moved to London, having been betrayed in some kind of police operation, which resulted in her being raped. The way in which Jordan tries to deal with the rape and it's effect on her relationship with Hill (who seems to bear some kind of guilt about it) is one of the main themes in the book, and I feel a little guilty for my lack of patience with it. I would stress that this is partly to do with having missed the intervening books, but it's also something to do with the fact that having a strong female character having to deal with a rape is, in my opinion, becoming something of a cliche in crime fiction. It's to McDermid's credit that she doesn't drag it out or wrap it in sentimentality (in fact, Jordan is remarkably resilient about the whole thing which is refreshing), but it did feel too much blah blah blah to me and as it kept recurring as a theme, my eyes began to glaze over. Jordan is persuaded back to Bradfield by Brandon (her former Chief Constable, making a welcome return from The Mermaids Singing) to front an elite investigation squad looking at serial killers and re-opening cold cases when times are quiet. Hill, who apparently moved to St Andrews to teach, hears that she's coming back and gets a part-time job in Bradfield's local high-security hospital (where it just so happens that Derek Tyler from the Blurb on the Back is a patient) so he can support her - including by buying a house and converting the ground floor into a flat for her, which struck me as a bit weird.
Jordan's first two cases are a cold case concerning the disappearance of two boys (an investigation headed up by Merrick, also making a welcome return from The Mermaids Singing) who was clearly personally invested in the investigation, which makes things awkward given that he's serving as her Inspector in the new unit. Her second case concerns the gruesome murder of prostitutes in a way echoing a previously solved case. One of my big problems with the book is that the cold case is very much the poor relation in terms of investigation (it's solved much too easily) and emotional impact (there's no look at the effect on the parents or indeed, any relationship with the people really suffering) and I think that structurally, it would have been more effective to just focus on the serial killer, which is clearly what she's more interested in. The reason why the cold case is there is to provide a Big Shocking Twist at the end (which was over too quickly to be effective and whilst I will miss the character concerned, they'd had such a poor ride throughout the story that it was really a relief) and to give Jordan a Potential Love Interest to help her get over her rape and force her and Hill to acknowledge their feelings for each other. Yawn.
Like I said, the serial killer story is more effective - McDermid is never better than when she's drawing on the gruesome and chilling and she gives just enough detail about the killings and the killer's motivation to make you keep your legs tightly crossed as you're reading the scenes. However, I was very disappointed by the way in which she rushed the ending. For starters, there is v. little explanation for how The Voice was controlling the killers - McDermid says it's to do with hypnosis or psychological suggestion, but there's no real explanation for how this was accomplished and it felt uncharacteristically ham-fisted. Then the denouement itself was incredibly unsatisfying - we literally go from having a face-off between Hill and the killer to the end of the book to a twist that the killer had killed Tyler to a further twist that Tyler had made a confession implicating The Voice and providing handy evidence to bring a conviction in the space of 4 pages. From someone like McDermid, I really expected better.
I'd also like to comment on how McDermid seemed to lose control of her character POVs towards the end - in order to bring the book to a conclusion we started getting inundated with perspectives - from The Voice, to her tools, to Hill and Jordan, to random policemen, to prostitutes with key pieces of evidence - it's a mess. Also a mess is the fact that the Big Reveal is dependent on the prostitutes being afraid of one of the members of Jordan's team - so afraid that when they can potentially reveal the killer to Jordan, they don't. Unfortunately, this fact comes at the end of the book and in going back through the scenes where you see the prostitutes interact with this character, there's nothing at all to indicate that they're any more afraid of them than they are the 'good' policemen. That's sloppy and unconvincing and again, I really expected better from McDermid.
The Verdict:
Whilst I still have a lot of respect for McDermid's ability to pace a novel and write tension, I thought that the plotting of this left a great deal to be desired and can't help but feel that the Jordan/Hill dynamic has reached the end of its course. In fact, given that there has been no further book in this series since this was published in 2004, I'm hoping that McDermid will only need one to wrap it up completely.
