Scan barcode
A review by futurelegend
Cross and Burn by Val McDermid
2.0
I've always enjoyed reading Val McDermid, although it's been a while now, so when I saw this one I really wanted to enjoy it too. It was ok. It just about kept my interest but it felt tired, as if Val was just going through the motions to keep her publishers happy with yet another Tony Hill moneyspinner.
The author has a problem with Tony Hill, and she's well aware of what it is because I heard her say so in person more than ten years ago. He was intended to be a one-off, in a standalone book The Mermaids Singing. In that excellent but harrowing thriller she'd said everything there was to say about Tony and his foil Carol Jordan, and it was a struggle to develop them in one followup, let alone seven. There's also only so many ways you can repeat the sadistic serial killer theme. The first time shocks, the second titillates, and after that you just tighten the screws, as Philip Marlowe might have said, but didn't. It's the curse of the TV franchise of course.
Still, it's good to see McDermid appropriate the character created by and for the TV series, DCI Alex Fielding, and bring her down a peg or two.
The author has a problem with Tony Hill, and she's well aware of what it is because I heard her say so in person more than ten years ago. He was intended to be a one-off, in a standalone book The Mermaids Singing. In that excellent but harrowing thriller she'd said everything there was to say about Tony and his foil Carol Jordan, and it was a struggle to develop them in one followup, let alone seven. There's also only so many ways you can repeat the sadistic serial killer theme. The first time shocks, the second titillates, and after that you just tighten the screws, as Philip Marlowe might have said, but didn't. It's the curse of the TV franchise of course.
Still, it's good to see McDermid appropriate the character created by and for the TV series, DCI Alex Fielding, and bring her down a peg or two.