Slowly re-reading a number of Val McDermid crime novels and they are even better the 2nd time around :) A regional reMIT murder investigation team has been set up spearheaded by Carol Jordan. Carol is awarded carte blanche to recruit and operate as she wishes, and is soon joined in her new offices by DS Paula McIntyre, Doctor Tony Hill, hi tech wiz Stacey Chen, and ex demoted newly retired DCI Kevin Matthews. A number of unexplained suicides (linked to famous authors/poets) by strong independent women with a very notiecable online presence, soon has the team fully occupied. In the meantime Carol commits a stupid act, that could put her whole career in jeopardy, and will prove to have long and lasting consequences.
Once again Val McDermid shows her undoubted skill as the queen of crime with a tighly plotted, imaginative, and highly readable novel. Carol Jordan is a true survivor, operating in a misogynistic police world, but refusing to be blindsided in her search for the truth. Truly wonderful story telling and a joy to read. ( )

Tony Hill book 9

Splinter the Silence by Val McDermid is the 9th book in her Carol Jordan/Tony Hill police procedural series. This book takes us into the world of cyber-bullying as Tony and Carol look into some recent suspicious deaths where the dead were victims of on-line predators. This starts off as an exercise to occupy their minds while Tony helps Carol start to put her life back together. But Tony is an expert on recognizing patterns, and before long, they realize that they have stumbled onto something.

At first former DCI Carol Jordan is too busy messing up her life to care but once she is given a second chance at police work, and is able to start rebuilding her team, they get on with the hunt. It was very satisfying to have the team being brought back together and with a new brief that will not totally help them avoid the political infighting but certainly will give them a leg up.

I find Val McDermid is an author that I can rely upon to deliver a fast moving, intricate police procedural that keeps the pages turning and the reader absorbed. I find Tony quite an admirable character and while I can’t say that I like Carol Jordan, she is a force to be reckoned with. The rest of her team are much more likeable. This 9th entry brings the team full circle and I am looking forward to seeing what McDermid has planned for them next. ( )

Excellent writing as is usually the case, but a lackluster main plot and underwhelming/unimpressive villain. Most of the book and most of the story is about Carol getting her life straightened out so the thriller part which doesn't really get moving until the final act feels like an afterthought. If you care about the series and the characters though (as I do) then I still give it 4 stars. Could have been a 5 if the thriller plot had been more, well, thrilling. ( )

Splinter the Silence is the ninth book in the Tony Hill & Carol Jordan series and after last books trials are Tony and Carol slowly mending their relationship and it looks like Carol is getting a second chance by getting an offer that is hard to refuse. All she has to do is not screw anything up. Tony meanwhile is troubled with a lot of women committing suicide. They have all been targeted by internet trolls. But Tony thinks that there is more to the suicides than that...

It seems that finally Tony and Carol is back as friends after everything that happened with her brother's murder. I quite enjoy having them back to speaking with each other again and it seems that Tony is finally getting to Carol that she has a drinking problem. Of course, it had to go so far for Carol that she has to be arrested for drunk driving before Tony frankly told her that she had to quit. But by then the arrest had already damaged her reputation, which was really bad because the powers that be in the police wants her back, but not with a driving drunk sentence. But everything can be fixed. Besides that is Tony discovering that there is something wrong with the suicides of a couple of women and soon he, Carol and Paula are investigating the suicides.

I found this book story especially good because it finally brought the old team together. I have missed reading about them working together under Carol. The case in itself took some time to get somewhere. And it felt like most of the time the book concentrated on other things than finding a killer. Carol and her drunk driving and the consequences of that took up a lot of the book and I did enjoy reading about Tony finally confronting Carol about her drinking problem and moving into the barn to help her the first couple of days and of course, getting rid of all the alcohol at her her place which didn't make her happy. I do wish that case had taken a bit more priorities it was first towards the very end that books story really started to get intensive. Not that the book was bad, I just got a bit impatient with all the personal stuff. I did enjoy that part when the new team was finally started to put all the pieces together and the manhunt started.

The ending was fitting, I don't want to give it away, but there had to be some consequences to Carols drunk driving and what happened after that. It will be interesting to read the next book to see how it will be dealt with.

Thanks to Witness Impulse and Edelweiss for providing me with a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review! ( )