I'm loving Val McDermid and am steadily working my way through this series. Her writing is excellent, her characters real and (in some cases) terrifying. Her plots are tight and the pacing is perfect. ( )

(2002) Very good. Carol is drawn into an undercover plan by the police to bring down a criminal csar and his organization. The hook is that she looks identical to his former girl friend who had died in a car/motorcycle accident. Carol does not know that the police had caused this accident, in effect murdering the girl friend. The target of the scam finds this out and brutally attacks Carol and goes after Tony. Only the good police work of German and Dutch police women saves Tony from certain death. KIRKUS REVIEWWhoever he is, Geronimo¥the code name psychological profiler Dr. Tony Hill uses for the latest serial killer in his sightsÂ¥doesn't have much use for psychologists. Beginning with Dr. Walter Neumann of the University of Heidelberg, he's been knocking them out, tying them to their own desks, stripping them, drowning them, and shaving their privates. Geronimo's macabre ritual is so distinctive, in fact, that it's not long before cops in two European countries sense that their victims are only part of a larger pattern and start sharing their information through Europol. As luck would have it, their investigation is gathering steam just as Detective Chief Inspector Carol Jordan, long in love with unresponsive Tony, arrives in Germany on her first assignment as Europol Liaison Officer: to capitalize on her uncanny resemblance to Katerina Basler, late mistress of mobster Tadeusz Radecki, to go undercover as a partner in Tadzio's operation smuggling illegal Chinese in order to make him an offer he'll be too entranced to refuseÂ¥an offer that will smash his whole immigration ring. As Carol worms her way into Tadzio's confidence, Tony is building up a portrait of Geronimo from the evidence the police have painstakingly amassed. Then suddenly, on page 338, both Carol and Tony begin to act accountably reckless, setting the stage for a melodramatic third act that undercuts the considerable ambitions McDermid (Killing the Shadows, 2001, etc.) has for this dark tale.A successor to The Mermaids Singing (1996) so densely packed that the poor serial killer almost gets dropped between the cracks.Pub Date: Sept. 1st, 2002ISBN: 0-312-29089-6Page count: 448ppPublisher: MinotaurReview Posted Online: May 20th, 2010Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1st, 2002

Tony Hill Book 3

Only finished this because I was away on holiday and didn't have anything else to read. Val McDermid has been on the radio quite a lot recently and she is just fantastic. Also I heard a few minutes of a radio drama she wrote called 'Deadheading' which was wonderful. If anyone is going to get rich writing pot boilers then I am glad it is her. However the main characters in this book - Carol and Tony - are just so awful I can't bear to think back on it too clearly. ( )

Read it a while ago and found it good as always. I am officially addicted to this series. ( )