BritBox is one of my “good” vices. It’s harmless. It’s healthy. It’s highly economical. For less than a cappuccino and a scone (monthly $6.99; special annual fee $69.99), I get endless hours of entertainment from which I can choose a sitcom, detective drama, mystery, documentary, and much more set in an urban community to the countryside and all over the Commonwealth.
It was the 80s. If you were there, you remember the fall of the Berlin Wall, big hair, Laura Ashley prints, Reagan, peg trousers, Chernobyl, the first personal computers, Thatcher, and the rise of technology.
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.
I must begin this review by stating how perfect I found the title. It is a quote from David Russell: "The hardest thing in life is to know which bridge to cross and which to burn." And there many bridges here where both verbs apply. The most startling of these for the reader is the bridge connecting the series protagonists, DCI Carol Jordan and Dr. Tony Hill, forensic psychologist and offender profiler who frequently consulted in that capacity with the police and the MIT.
Many readers, I among them, cannot seem to carry on reading an otherwise good mystery if they cannot relate to or like the protagonist of the piece. Is this bad news for authors? Perhaps not, although as each reader is a critic with decidedly individual preferences, we all make allowances when intrigued. A character that would be difficult to live with might just have saving graces when it comes to solving crimes and saving the day, and we do tend to appreciate genius in its many forms. We also delight in the process of detection winding its way through a killer plot concluding with some degree of resolution.
Gloria Feit reviews mystery author Val McDermid's latest U.S. release Trick of the Dark & The Retribution, which will be released here in January 2012.
