FEBRUARY 2016 - AudioFile
Gerard Doyle’s performance of this mystery is so fine that listeners may have to remind themselves they’re listening to a one-man show, not full-cast audio theater. His narration combined with such good writing makes this pure pleasure for the ears and mind. A rash of suicides is killing publicly assertive women—or are they being murdered? Ex-cop Carol Jordan is drafted to lead a new high-profile police unit. With the personal and professional assistance of psychologist Tony Hill, she takes on the suspicious deaths as a sort of warm-up exercise for her team. Doyle’s performance enhances McDermid’s story and characters. G.S.D. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2016, Portland, Maine
Publishers Weekly
10/26/2015
Dr. Tony Hill and Carol Jordan, a former detective chief constable, still aren’t on speaking terms in their solid ninth outing (after 2013’s Cross and Burn), despite the closeness they once shared. Tony continues his clinical psychological work in Bradfield, England, while Carol is busy drinking herself into oblivion. Meanwhile, the top brass desire to create a new Major Incident Team that would serve an area beyond Bradford. Strings are pulled to get Carol back in charge, with Tony as her unofficial sobriety coach, much to her annoyance. The new team’s first case involves several outspoken women who have run afoul of Internet trolls after taking strong feminist stances; though the women and their causes seem unrelated, they all go on to commit suicide. Tony sees a pattern and warns Carol that there could something more sinister at work. Diamond Dagger Award–winner McDermid handles the delicate dance that is the slow reunion of her two heroes with as much grace as she affords the novel’s victims. Agent: Jane Gregory, Gregory & Company. (Dec.)
FEBRUARY 2016 - AudioFile
Gerard Doyle’s performance of this mystery is so fine that listeners may have to remind themselves they’re listening to a one-man show, not full-cast audio theater. His narration combined with such good writing makes this pure pleasure for the ears and mind. A rash of suicides is killing publicly assertive women—or are they being murdered? Ex-cop Carol Jordan is drafted to lead a new high-profile police unit. With the personal and professional assistance of psychologist Tony Hill, she takes on the suspicious deaths as a sort of warm-up exercise for her team. Doyle’s performance enhances McDermid’s story and characters. G.S.D. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2016, Portland, Maine
Kirkus Reviews
2015-09-23
An Internet bully decides to take the next step to actual violence in the latest Tony Hill and Carol Jordan thriller. The killer is targeting outspoken advocates for women's rights and making their deaths look like suicides. His goal is not only to silence them, but to make it appear as if the online bullying and threats directed at these women were so powerful that they crumbled under a sustained show of male force. Hill can't make the suicide of one victim jibe with the strength the woman showed in her public appearances. The seed of doubt planted in his mind provides the opening for the investigation, as Jordan is facing a battle with booze brought on by recent violent trauma. The book has hold of a great subject: the chauvinist pig-pile of online misogyny. The problem is that the killer's motivation—his belief that his mother's feminist beliefs led to her separation from the family and her death when he was just a child—feels strained. As a character, he lacks the horrifying individuality of the murderers in past Hill-Jordan outings like The Mermaids Singing (1996) and The Wire in the Blood (1997), the first two, and still the best, in the series. Also, too often the dialogue reads less like talking than like characters staking out an editorial position. There's a stroke of inspiration in imagining how easily the murderous impulses of online trolls might be unleashed, but neither that premise nor the duo who've won fans to the series are well-served by this entry.
