by Gloria Feit

Details at the end of this post on how to win a copy of Splinter the Silence, along with a link to purchase the book where a portion goes to help support KRL.

The good news is that Val McDermid’s Tony Hill and Carol Jordan are back. The even better news is that this book is perhaps the best yet in this terrific series, and that’s saying a lot! Carol has two love/hate relationships in the two most important aspects of her life: the professional and the personal.

As to the former, Carol was for years an ace detective and the boss of an elite murder squad, which she gave up when she handed in her resignation. “The career she’d defined herself by was over. At moments like this, she had to remind herself that had been her own choice. She could have been Detective Chief Inspector Jordan. but she had chosen to be plain Carol Jordan.” Until now, that is, when she is offered the chance to run a free-standing Major Incident Team, hand-picking her officers, and handling murders, serious sexual assaults and the like over six distinct forces.

As to the personal aspect of her life, her relationship with Dr. Tony Hill, the socially awkward but brilliant criminal profiler who had worked as consultant with Carol and her squad for a long time, is more like a not-quite-love/not-quite-hate relationship. She has gotten the OK to have him on her new squad. And when push comes to shove, Tony is the one she calls upon when things in her life take an ugly, alcohol-fueled turn. On his part, he is said by one of the other characters to be “trapped in her orbit like a captive moon.” But before her MIT space has even been completed, Carol and her team, including Tony, start to look into what appears to be a spate of cyber-bullying suicides, each of the women in their mid-thirties who were very outspoken on women’s issues.

Tony has an office in Bradfield Moor secure mental hospital. “All his working life, he’d been held up as the expert in empathy, the one who knew how to stand inside other people’s skin and report back on what they felt and why they felt it.” And his expertise has never been more important than with this investigation, as he and Carol both feel they have a serial killer on their hands. The reader gets to see exactly how Tony goes about putting together a criminal profile, and it is fascinating indeed.

The investigation, and the evolution of Carol and Tony’s relationship, are brilliantly done. The reader gets to see exactly how Tony goes about putting together a criminal profile, and it is fascinating indeed. The writing, as always, is excellent, and the novel a page-turner. Not a slim book, I nevertheless tore through it in two days. It is, obviously, highly recommended.

To enter to win a copy of Splinter the Silence, simply email KRL at krlcontests@gmail[dot]com by replacing the [dot] with a period, and with the subject line “splinter,” or comment on this article. A winner will be chosen January 30, 2016. U.S. residents only. If entering via email please include your mailing address, and if via comment please include your email address.

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Click on this link to purchase this book & a portion goes to help support KRL & an indie bookstore Mysterious Galaxy:

Splinter the Silence

Ted & Gloria Feit live in Long Beach, New York, a few miles outside of New York City. For 26 years, Gloria was the manager of a medium-sized litigation firm in lower Manhattan. Her husband, Ted, is an attorney & former stock analyst, publicist & writer/editor for, over the years, several daily, weekly and monthly publications. Having always been avid mystery readers & since they’re now retired, they’re able to indulge their passion. Their reviews appear online as well as in three print publications in the UK & US.