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Killing the Shadows

UK publication: May 2001
Publisher: HarperCollins

US publication: Oct. 2001
Publisher: St. Martin's Minotaur

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Killing the Shadows

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.

Reviews:

Daily Express
'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,

The Guardian
'McDermid has become our leading pathologist of everyday evil... The subtle orchestration of terror is masterful.'

Scotland on Sunday
'Dark, clever and timely.'

'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

 

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Val McDermid crime novels  


         
The Mermaid Singing Wire in the Blood Hostage to Murder cover Killing the Shadows The Last Temptation cover
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