Fever of the Bone (Tony Hill and Carol Jordan Series #6)

by Val McDermid

Overview

A criminal profiler races to catch a serial killer preying upon teenagers in this shocking crime thriller by the author of The Wire in the Blood.

He is psychologist and criminal profiler Dr. Tony Hill’s worst nightmare—a killer driven by the most perverted hungers and unmoved by youth and innocence, a killer with a long shopping list of victims who leaves no trail. The murder-mutilation of teenager Jennifer Maidment is horrific enough on its own, but Hill quickly realizes that it’s just the beginning of a chilling campaign targeting an apparently unconnected group of young people—victims that the monster has been grooming through a social networking site.

It is a case that is reawakening ghosts of Tony Hill’s past. And the longer it takes to uncover a motive and a maniac, the more innocent youth will die.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780062010445
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	03/19/2024
Series:	Tony Hill and Carol Jordan Series , #6
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	513
Sales rank:	44,002
File size:	685 KB

About the Author

VAL McDERMID is the internationally bestselling author of more than twenty crime novels. She has won the CWA Gold Dagger Award for Best Crime Novel of the Year and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize; her novels have been selected as New York Times Notable Books and have been Edgar Award finalists. She was the 2010 recipient of the CWA Cartier Diamond Dagger for Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Crime Writing. More than 10 million copies of her books have been sold around the world. She lives in the north of England. Visit her website at www.valmcdermid.com.

Editorial Reviews

A new chief constable, James Blake, arrives at Bradfield CID in McDermid's excellent sixth Tony Hill novel (after Beneath the Bleeding). Since Blake takes a skeptical view of both Tony's contributions as a medical consultant and the team's commitment to cold cases, Det. Chief Insp. Carol Jordan has to tread carefully. Soon deemed too expensive by Blake, Tony turns to nearby Worcester for work, where a grisly case involves the brutal murder and sexual mutilation of teenagers lured to their deaths by a killer who befriends them on a social networking Web site. Connections soon arise between Tony's case and Carol's new murder inquiry in Bradfield, which McDermid develops with her usual systematic ease until all the pieces of the disturbing puzzle fall into place. The increasingly complex and indefinable relationship between Tony and Carol provides a strong emotional undercurrent. McDermid demonstrates once again that she's as adept with matters of the heart as she is with murder. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly

Under pressure from every side, DCI Carol Jordan, who heads Bradfield CID's major incident team, and profiler Dr. Tony Hill are forced to work out a new series of relationships with each other.

James Blake, Bradfield's new Chief Constable, seems so impressed by the successes of the major-incident team that he's determined to disperse it among his whole force to make its members' expertise more cost-effective. His No. 1 imperative to Carol: replace high-priced consultant Tony Hill with some bright boy from the police academy. It's a bad decision, of course, not only because Bradfield is a breeding ground for serial killers (Beneath the Bleeding, 2009, etc.) but because dim, overconfident rookie DS Tim Parker can't offer any more than the vaguest generalities about who chatted with 14-year-olds Daniel Morrison and Seth Viner online and lured them out of their homes, or why he killed and castrated them in record time, without lingering over his crimes long enough to provide the obligatory sexual thrills. Ironically, it's Tony who provides the crucial intelligence needed to solve the case. Hired as a consultant by the West Mercia CID, he's been investigating the murder of 14-year-old Jennifer Maidment—a murder, he gradually realizes, that's the work of the same person Carol and her crew are seeking.

As usual in McDermid, there's so much going on—including an ancient, unsolved triple homicide and Tony's stumbling attempts to come to terms with the late father who never acknowledged him—that fans of the British procedural will find their cup running over.

Kirkus Reviews