The Retribution Review

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The Retribution ReviewA friend recommended Val McDermid's books to me several years ago, and I've enjoyed some of her stand-alone thrillers as well as the Tony Hill/Carol Jordan series. "The Retribution" is the seventh installment in this series, featuring the mismatched pair of Hill and Jordan. Tony Hill is the bumbling, asperger-esque yet extremely intelligent psychology professor befriended by capable, no-nonsense police inspector Carol Jordan. Jordan uses Hill's understanding of criminal psychology and the human psyche to profile criminals and help direct her investigations. Hill and Jordan have solved many bizarre and gory cases in the past, and "The Retribution" refers back to Jacko Vance, the psychopath that Hill and Jordan captured in "The Wire in the Blood." As the book begins, Vance is in prison and after years of careful planning and preparation, he manages to break out of his prison by switching places with another prisoner who is about to begin a work-release program. Vance plans to leave Britain but in best sociopath fashion first wants to exact revenge on the people who put him away.
The suspense and tension in "The Retribution" thus comes from the certainty that Vance is out there and at some point, in some unknown way, will come after Carol Jordan and Tony Hill. A second plot line concerns the multiple murders of prostitutes, probably at the hands of another serial killer. Jordan is asked to investigate, the last case her task force will handle before the team is broken up and scattered to different offices due to budget cuts.
It would be a shame to give away any of the twisting plot developments, but suffice it to say that the book was gripping, combining the suspense of both the search for Vance and the investigation of the serial killings. McDermid does a great job with dialogue and pacing, and she continues to flesh out the characters of Jordan and Hill (and their co-workers) so that we feel we are right there in the thick of things with them. The ending is excellent and most unexpected. It will be fascinating to see what McDermid does next with Hill and Jordan, as the events of "The Retribution" will inevitably and profoundly change their relationship. Don't start this one unless you have the time to let everything else go and devour it in one or two sittings.The Retribution Overview

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The Impossible Dead Review

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The Impossible Dead ReviewWhile many mystery writers have tried, few succeed in creating a second series. James Lee Burke's Billy Bob Holland is merely a westernized version of Dave Robicheaux and Robert B. Parker's Jesse Stone is Spenser in a different guise. Ian Rankin, the master of Scottish noir, delivers. With John Rebus retired in EXIT MUSIC, one of the best books in the entire Rebus series, what would he do for an encore?
Enter Malcolm Fox. Fox is exactly the type of policeman Rebus would loath. He is member of the Professional Standards Units, formerly Complaints and Conduct, police officers who investigate other police officers. He does not drink (though an argument can be said that single malt might be more salubrious to one's health than a steady diet of Irn-Bru.) He suffers from a crisis of confidence in his work, even being tormented by his ailing father of not being a real detective doing real police work.
In the second book to feature Malcolm Fox, THE IMPOSSIBLE DEAD, Rankin once again weaves a plot with many threads. Called in by Fife Constabulary to investigate the colleagues of disgraced detective Paul Carter, Fox and two other members of the Lothian and Borders Professional Standards Unit, Sergeant Tony Kaye and Constable Joe Naysmith, meet with the predicted closing of the ranks. During the course of the investigation Fox interviews the original complainant, Paul's uncle and retired policeman, Alan Carter. Alan now owns a security company and has also been retained to investigate a 25-year old cold case.
When Alan is murdered with Paul fit-to-order, Fox picks up the quest. Why was the death of lawyers and Scottish separatist firebrand Francis Vernal ruled a suicide and not properly investigated? Rankin now weaves his plot. There is the passion of homegrown separatist of the mid-1980s, a gaggle of groups, including those who used terror tactics to attempt to achieve their cause. Dark Harvest Commando actually used anthrax "mined" from Gruinald Island--the island itself the site of British experiments in biological warfare during World War II. The island became uninhabitable.
Fox continues to pull on the threads, uncovering a conspiracy of silence. Involvement of MI-5, police corruption that results in gun running and destruction of evidence, stonewalling by the powers that be, favors called in at the New Club--an exclusive men's club whose membership include the powerful and rich. In the midst of his investigation Fox also deals with family issues. His father lives in a retirement home, his dementia becoming more pervasive. His sister, unemployed and always distraught, brings more tension into the family struggles. While poring over a box of old family photos with his father, Fox discovers a cousin, Chris Fox, who was a member of the separatist movement and who died in an unexplained motorbike accident. Fox and his team succeed in solving a crime that no one wants solved, ultimately and ironically achieving justice.
The dialogue is sparkling. Perhaps it is the trio rather than the duo of Rebus and Siobhan in the earlier books that make the language so real.
As always there are enough topical events to not only anchor the book in time, but give it a strong sense of place: the fear of new terrorist attacks, the outrage at the release of Lockerbie bomber and mastermind Megrabi, and the much delayed launch of a new tram system in Edinburgh.
THE IMPOSSIBLE DEAD is a strong effort by one of the true masters of the mystery genre. Malcolm Fox deserves to be judged and read as his own man.The Impossible Dead Overview

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