The Last Temptation: A Novel (Dr. Tony Hill & Carol Jordan Mysteries)

This is my 3rd McDermid novel, I previously read 'Mermaids Singing' and 'Wire in the Blood.' McDermid writes good prose but in this 3rd novel I see dangerous repetitions in character types which, if repeated in the next Tony Hill/Carol Jordan book will make that one my last purchase. Generally McDermid paints female police officers as brighter, more diligent and more intuitive than their male counterparts, as well as more often homosexual. The men, with the exception of leading man Tony Hill, are mostly all egotistical, back-stabbing, power-hungry morons of the lowest order, while Hill is rendered impotent -- a redundant bit of emasculation since all the other males are castrated of their moral fiber. The slow mating dance between Hill and Jordan gets a lot of buildup and little payoff. And in this book, the serial killer and the surrounding hunt for him are as limply portrayed as Dr. Hill. The emotional connection between Hill and the killers in the two previous books is missing here, making the entire killer plot read like an afterthought. And the real villain -- not the serial killer but a drug-pushing / illegal-immigrant smuggler loses character focus as the reader is given reason to sympathize with him as well as with the killer. The climactic scenes involving the capture of one villain and the death of another are without any sense of thrill or danger. I was extremely disappointed with this book.

The book had a far-fetched premise, but once I was able to move past that detail, the book was readable, albeit unrealistic.

Without giving away anything significant, I can tell you that a major portion of the book was centered around a police officer assuming an alias. Unfortunately, I was a little surprised, and very disappointed in the way the author chose to "reveal" the main undercover operation to the criminal. The unraveling of the cover was brought about by a mistake that I found completely innane. I could not believe that a rookie, much less a seasoned officer would slip up as the author has Carol (and Tony) slip up. This disbelief is compounded by the lengths that are taken initially to insure that the operation is not comprimised.

I was disappointed enough in the book to move along to another author, as opposed to reading the rest of the Carol Jordan/Tony Hill saga. I thought the writing skills of the author were good, but the storytelling skills were not.

"The Last Temptation," (2002) is third in what has come to be known as "The Wire in the Blood" series; a series of British mysteries that so far consists of four novels by increasingly well-known Scottish-born author Val McDermid. McDermid, a leading practitioner of the Scottish crime writing school that has come to be known as "tartan noir," for its high level of violence, sheer bloody-mindedness, and grisly humor, burst on the scene with [[ASIN:0312979533 A Place of Execution]]. That novel won the 1995 Gold Dagger Award for Best Crime Novel of the Year, as well as a "Los Angeles Times" Book Prize, and was a "New York Times" Notable Book of the Year. It also won the Anthony, Macavity, and Dilys awards for best novel, and was a finalist for the Edgar Award. A British television series, of the same name, [[ASIN:B0012J76L4 Wire in the Blood 4 Pack]]; starring Robson Green, based on characters from the"Wire"novels, is currently being made and shown in the United Kingdom, and in the United States on BBCAmerica.

"Last Temptation" again gives us Dr. Tony Hill, psychologist, academic, and serial killer profiler extraordinaire, and Detective Chief Inspector Carol Jordan of the Metropolitan Police. It has Carol sent to work on an undercover job in Germany, while Tony finds himself drawn into a serial killer case happening near by. It explores phenomena dating back to the dark secrets of the Nazis; and the East German "Stasi,"secret police.

Mind you, the major plot, the one that has Carol going undercover, revolves around Tadeusz Radecki, ruthless international drug/arms/illegal immigrant dealer. Carol is supposed to resemble his late lover Katerina Basler, and so has been sent to worm her way into his confidence. Unlikely? Would seriously put her life at risk? You bet. Is there any mystery fan in the world that was yearning for one more ruthless international drug/arms/illegal immigrant dealer plot? I doubt it. I wouldn't even consider this plot properly a murder mystery. The subplot, serial killer story, on which Tony is supposedly working, is also problematic: we know the killer from the beginning, and also know what, why, when, where and how he is doing what he's doing. Further, a possible romance's developing between Tony and Carol is not, I think, what readers want, either. And as if all this weren't bad enough, McDermid has also chosen to have not one, but two, German lesbian detectives galumphing around, one Petra Becker, and one Brigadier Marijke van Hasselt, and, before you sharp-eyed readers bury me in critical comments, I know Marijke is supposed to be Dutch and exc-u-u-u-se me.

The writing of this book sometimes seems unusually repetitive and flat-footed for this writer. But it is reasonably quick-moving, at least complex: the material is well-organized and suspenseful. The author renders Germany, and particularly Berlin, very well. In a chapter dealing with Tony's academic life - he's teaching at Saint Andrews, Scotland's ancient, prestigious university, headquartered at Edinburgh-- she gives herself the chance to do some lovely writing about her home turf. And, in a crack I've remembered since first reading the book, she references Thomas Harris's great suspense, serial killer standard,[[ASIN:0749324082 Silence of the Lambs]]. Marijke, you see, was raised on a farm, and she doesn't care "how much noise the lambs made." Even McDermid's weakest works are ground-breaking, and this one is no exception; in its treatment, for instance, of the violent consequence's of Carol's ill-considered masquerade. To my mind, this book is immeasurably the weakest of the series: but McDermid fans will still want to read it.

McDermid carefully reminds us of the atrocities committed during the Nazi era in Germany in this, the latest release for the Hill-Jordan series in the U.S. As opposed to many writers in the serial-killer/police procedural genre, Val McDermid consistently paints vivid, if disturbing, psychological portraits of the diseased mind responsible for the crimes committed in her novels. Her psychological material is carefully researched and propels the plot along at a brisk pace.
Her writing continues to soar above most of her peers, and the relationship between the two protagonists keeps the reader coming back for book after book. Well done!

Looking forward to reading another Tony Hill mystery. McDermid is a terrific writer. It’s a used book but in great condition.

The best one so far in my opinion. I am reading them in order and this one did it for me. Several plots going on and tied nice together in the end.

Just as described but I have to remind myself not to purchase these editions...

This dark and twisted thriller is not an easy read. Two in-depth plot lines play out side by side, both of which are good and would perhaps be better written as two separate books. The subplot is as involved as the main plot and, at times, the switch between them is jarring for the reader.

In one of the plots, Chief Inspector Carol Jordan undertakes a dangerous covert mission to bring down a European crime boss known for trafficking drugs and illegal immigrants. The fact she bears such a striking resemblance to someone in his past and hopes to use it to her advantage without her true motives being detected is a bit of a stretch at this level of criminal operation.

In another plot, a psychotic serial killer is targeting professionals for reasons that tie back to his ancestry. Though this is a work of fiction, some of the most appalling historical facts are embedded within the story.

Criminal profiler, Dr. Tony Hill, is the link between the two plot lines. Tony and Carol are drawn together from the beginning of the book and their separate cases are intertwined all the way to the end. The duo's undoing is also questionable and a little disappointing, given the depth of intelligence and strength the author has assigned to each character.

There are a lot of characters, a few of whom appear unnecessary as the plots advance. However, the writing is strong and the book is sufficiently interesting to make it to the end, though two individual attempts were required to get through it. The main characters are not easily likable, and the combination of two strong and separate plot lines resulted in an awkward and somewhat flat ending.

will read more of hers. she has a lot of them. now i am just filling space until the submit button turns up.

"Temptation" is the third mystery/thriller to feature psychologist and criminal profiler Dr. Tony Hill and policewoman extraordinaire Inspector Carol Jordan. (We read the first but not the second, but wish we had read them in order given the many references to apparently what happened in the prior book...) McDermid shows a lot of plotting skill in running really two different and suspenseful stories concurrently - only connected really by the police principals. In one tale, German and Dutch police officials, spurred by an unofficial collaboration between two female officers who rendezvous online with some frequency for romantic purposes, detect that a serial killer is at work, and conduct a book-long hunt for that killer. Tony Hill is amazingly accurate in predicting the killer's profile, almost his very identity; and is a major player in that part of the book. He is housed, meanwhile, temporarily near where Carol Jordan is involved in a very complicated and dangerous undercover operation to ingratiate herself with a long-sought drug and illegal alien trafficker, one who falls for her sexually due to her amazing likeness to a former girlfriend who was killed in a accident. Since Tony is handy, she consults with him on her role playing, partially as an excuse to just spend time together. While the many alternating chapters get a little confusing, along with sections in first person by the serial killer, the plots are nonetheless entertaining until they coalesce just slightly at the end. As in the other Hill/Jordan stories, their relationship is yet another angle provoking our interest. All-in-all, an absorbing outing in the set.