The Torment of Others

by Val McDermid

Book Overview

Dr. Tony Hill and Detective Chief Inspector Carol Jordan return in the award-winning series that is the basis for the BBC television show. In a small grim room, the body of a woman is discovered, panic and pain etched in her face. The scene matches in every detail a series of murders two years ago-murders that ended when irrefutable forensic evidence secured the conviction of a deeply disturbed young man named Derek Tyler. But there's no way Tyler...

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0312936095
• ISBN13: 9780312936099
• Release Date: August 2006
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press
• Length: 395 Pages
• Weight: 2.21 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 4.2" x 6.9"

Customer Reviews

Fast and riveting read

I love this series and hope McDermid continues her current standard of excellence (unlike, say James Patterson or Patricia Cornwell). The book is easy to read and holds your attention. McDermid manages to expand on the relationship between Tony and Carol while weaving two other plot lines. I'm looking forward to the next one in the series!

The Torment of Others

A really good mystery, as usual with Val McDermid. I read deep into the night. I would really recommend this.

Adding Val to my favorite crime thriller authors!

I'm a big Dennis Lehane fan, but now that I've read all his books, I went looking for another crime-fiction author that would be as edgy and page-turningly exciting as his books were for me. Well I think I've hit paydirt in Val McDermid! I started with this 4th in the Tony Hill/Carol Jordan series since I'd found it as a sale book, and I've now bought the others in this series to start it from the beginning. Wow. Flawless plotting, edge-of-your-seat storyline (to say the least!), fully realized characters, a book that kept me up into the wee hours reading! Me being a "Yank", there was some British wording I wasn't familiar with, but it in no way detracted from my reading experience since it was part of scenarios I fully understood. I am soooo glad I picked up this book, and if you like your crime thrillers, well...thrilling...I'd highly recommend this one. Can't wait to see what awaits in the rest of the series!

An explicit and violent, but complex and satisfying thriller

Why do we love to read about serial killers? From Jack the Ripper to Silence of the Lambs, tales of these nightmarish murderers seem to fascinate people, and for most of us this predilection is embarrassingly out of character. Maybe they are a safe way to explore dark, id-powered fantasies. Perhaps, in confronting our worst fears, we hope to make it less likely that something bad will actually happen. They also are a source of comfort, a way to impose order on apparently chaotic sadism: There is always a clever detective or investigator who figures out the warped logic of the crimes and brings the perpetrator to justice. THE TORMENT OF OTHERS is Val McDermid's fourth novel about two such experts: Detective Chief Inspector Carol Jordan and Dr. Tony Hill, a clinical psychologist who is called in by the police to profile serial killers. Set in the (fictional) bleak northern English city of Bradfield --- mostly in the seamier neighborhood frequented by prostitutes and drug dealers --- this book is a far cry from the polite stately-home murders beloved of Agatha Christie and her ilk. It is no less atmospheric, though; you can almost taste the bad coffee, damp grayness, and ugly architecture of this former mill town. McDermid is a realist, like another first-rate Scottish suspense novelist, Denise Mina, and part of the fascination of her cinema-verité mysteries is how deeply she embeds her sharply drawn characters in an unpromising environment and draws a kind of harsh music from it. Jordan and Hill's relationship is not just professional; it's a more serious version of the unconsummated mating dance performed by Cybill Shepherd and Bruce Willis in the first two seasons of "Moonlighting." (In fact, McDermid's books are the basis for a British TV series, "Wire in the Blood," that turns up now and then on the cable channel BBC America; it's an intelligent, not-too-glamorized adaptation, and well worth watching.) DCI Jordan's rigid self-control and extreme workaholism mean that her longest-running relationship is with her cat. In THE TORMENT OF OTHERS, moreover, she is particularly fragile because she was raped while on undercover duty in a European operation (cf. the previous Jordan/Hill book, THE LAST TEMPTATION). As for Dr. Hill, his unhappy childhood and tortured personality (self-loathing, impotence) make him lousy boyfriend material but great at hunting serial killers: "Anyone examining [Tony's] own past would have found a series of indicators that, in another man, would have been the first steps on the tortuous route to psychopathy. For him, they had provided the foundation of his empathy with those who had ended up on a different path. ... And just as the serial killer had a sure instinct for his victims, so Tony had an apparent sixth sense for tracking his prey." The will-they-or-won't-they gavotte gives the book an extra frisson, a line of suspense that parallels the main case under investigation --- actually, two main cases: McDermid's plot

An aching, gripping, fetal-position read

This is one tough book!! Really dark, really gruesome, really creepy, really good! Carol Jordan is far from recovered from the last book and Tony Hill is really at a loss as to how to help her, but decides that proximity is the first step. That's the good news. The bad news is that Carol is put in charge of a new investigative squad whose members haven't gelled yet and who can't necessarily be trusted to act as a team vs. in each individual's own interest. AND they have a horrible and relentless serial criminal on their hands. This is one breathless read. You do need to stop sometimes just to escape the cruelty and darkness, though. I don't even want to think of how and where McDermid came up with this one. It smacks a lot of her first ("Mermaids Singing") but the similar crimes seem so much worse when they are visited on women. This is just heavy with the shock of insanity and yet it has a glowing, redemptive quality as well. It is hard to see how McDermid's writing could improve and yet she manages it over and over again. Now the long wait begins for her next outing.