Killing the Shadows
HarperCollins 2000
Synopsis:
A killer is on the loose, blurring the line between
fact and fiction. His prey - the writers of crime novels who have
turned psychological profilers into the heroes of the nineties.
But this killer is like no other. His bloodlust shatters all the
conventional wisdom surrounding the motives and mechanics of how
serial killers operate. And for one woman, the desperate hunt to
uncover his identity becomes a matter of life and death. Professor
Fiona Cameron is an academic psychologist who uses computer technology
to help police forces track serial offenders. She used to help the
Met, but vowed never to work for them again after they went against
her advice and badly screwed up an investigation as a consequence.
Still smarting from the experience, she's working a case in Toledo
when her lover, thriller writer Kit Martin, tells her a fellow crime
novelist has been murdered. It's not her case, but Fiona can't help
taking an interest. Which is just as well, because before too long
the killer strikes again. And again. And Fiona is caught up in a
race against time, not only to save a life, but to bring herself
redemption, both personal and professional.
Rich in atmosphere, Killing the Shadows uses the backdrops of city
and country to create an air of threatening menace, culminating
in a tense confrontation between hunter and hunted, a confrontation
that can have only one outcome.
'She is the real mistress of psychological gripping thrillers;
no-one can plot or tell a story like she can. The hairs on my neck
literally stood up.' Jenni Murray, Daily Express
'McDermid has become our leading pathologist of everyday evil...
The subtle orchestration of terror is masterful.' The
Guardian
'Dark, clever and timely.' Scotland on Sunday
'Killing the Shadows': Death Imitates
Art By CharlesTaylor
'There's no denying the queasy, almost sexual excitement that's
part of the lure of serial-killer thrillers, and in her vivid and
adept new novel, the Scottish writer Val McDermid delivers a serial-killer
thriller that mounts in tension while at the same time making readers
aware of their complicity in craving the grisly shocks the genre
provides. It's a double-tracked approach that would derail a lesser
writer and make an inferior book choke on its contradictions. But,
as Stephen King did in ''Bag of Bones,'' McDermid is trying to address
the inhumanity that's all too easy for popular writers to lapse
into as they seek to titillate an increasingly jaded readership.
McDermid is too sophisticated a novelist to preach or condemn. Maybe
this is because in two previous books, ''The Mermaids Singing''
and ''The Wire in the Blood'' (fine, intelligent, gripping thrillers
both), she herself was not above occasionally indulging in the genre's
gruesome trappings...'
Article from NYTimes.com - Said to be the best
review a crime novel has ever had in the New York Times... To read
the complete article click
here
