Splinter the Silence

October 26, 2015
Dr. Tony Hill and Carol Jordan, a former detective chief constable, still aren’t on speaking terms in their solid ninth outing (after 2013’s Cross and Burn), despite the closeness they once shared. Tony continues his clinical psychological work in Bradfield, England, while Carol is busy drinking herself into oblivion. Meanwhile, the top brass desire to create a new Major Incident Team that would serve an area beyond Bradford. Strings are pulled to get Carol back in charge, with Tony as her unofficial sobriety coach, much to her annoyance. The new team’s first case involves several outspoken women who have run afoul of Internet trolls after taking strong feminist stances; though the women and their causes seem unrelated, they all go on to commit suicide. Tony sees a pattern and warns Carol that there could something more sinister at work. Diamond Dagger Award–winner McDermid handles the delicate dance that is the slow reunion of her two heroes with as much grace as she affords the novel’s victims. Agent: Jane Gregory, Gregory & Company.

October 1, 2015
An Internet bully decides to take the next step to actual violence in the latest Tony Hill and Carol Jordan thriller. The killer is targeting outspoken advocates for women's rights and making their deaths look like suicides. His goal is not only to silence them, but to make it appear as if the online bullying and threats directed at these women were so powerful that they crumbled under a sustained show of male force. Hill can't make the suicide of one victim jibe with the strength the woman showed in her public appearances. The seed of doubt planted in his mind provides the opening for the investigation, as Jordan is facing a battle with booze brought on by recent violent trauma. The book has hold of a great subject: the chauvinist pig-pile of online misogyny. The problem is that the killer's motivation]his belief that his mother's feminist beliefs led to her separation from the family and her death when he was just a child]feels strained. As a character, he lacks the horrifying individuality of the murderers in past Hill-Jordan outings like The Mermaids Singing (1996) and The Wire in the Blood (1997), the first two, and still the best, in the series. Also, too often the dialogue reads less like talking than like characters staking out an editorial position. There's a stroke of inspiration in imagining how easily the murderous impulses of online trolls might be unleashed, but neither that premise nor the duo who've won fans to the series are well-served by this entry.

COPYRIGHT(2015) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

October 1, 2015
Carol Jordan retired from the police force after her brother's murder, burying her grief in drink and DIY renovations. When she's arrested for driving while intoxicated, Carol is forced to call her former colleague and friend, Tony Hill, whom she has been determinedly avoiding. Risking Carol's legendary fury, Tony insists on staying to help her wean from alcohol. As a distraction, Tony brings a string of unlikely suicides to Carol's attention, and they launch an armchair investigation into similarities in the recent deaths of feminists targeted by brutal cyberbullies. It proves a timely mental exercise when Carol is unexpectedly handpicked to run a regional major crimes unit. This ninth entry in the genre-defining Tony Hill series is built around Carol's bumpy resurrection and the emotional weight of the pair's alternately angry, humorous, and nostalgic banter. Carol and Tony's personal and professional reunion plays well against the backdrop of a classic McDermid psychological thriller, balancing police-procedural details and profiling acumen as Carol's new dream team hunts an atypical serial killer whose emotional narrative interludes reveal a complex motive.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)