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Type of bind: Mass Market Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN num: 9780312983383
ISBN number: 0312983387
Label: St. Martin's Paperbacks
Manufacturer: St. Martin's Paperbacks
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 481
Printing Date: August 19, 2002
Publishing house: St. Martin's Paperbacks
Sale Popularity Level: 60203
Studio: St. Martin's Paperbacks
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Editor's Notes and Comments:
Product Description:
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 when they went against her advice and subsequently botched an investigation. 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. When the killer strikes again Fiona finds herself caught in a race against time - not only to save a life but also to find 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.
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Rated by buyers 
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PLEAE NOTE-- THIS REVIEW CONTAINS A *** BIG *** PLOT SPOILER
The cover of my copy of "Killing the Shadows" sports a quote snippet from "The New York Times Book Review" which states: "Vivid...Mounts in tension ... [McDermid is] the best we've got". Doesn't the phrase, "the best we've got" necessarily imply that we ought to have something better? Val McDermid has done better than this novel and I believe she can do it again.
NOTE -- PLOT SPOILER FOLLOWS:
After reading "Killing the Shadows", how can anyone believe that the fictional Fiona Cameron or any existing psychologicist excels at profiling serial killers? Francis Blake is a creepy guy but McDermid does nothing to promote him as the sort of man who would even fantasize about killing mystery writers, much less as someone with the intelligence and wherewithal to carry out such crimes.
"A Place of Execution" was such a gripping novel that I've continued reading McDermid, but she's losing me with her implausible plots and murderers. When I read McDermid, I don't expect a "cozy" but I do expect all the grisly gore to lead toward a satisfying end. Anymore I find McDermid's grisly gore to be a puerile red-herring that leads me to think that the more grisly her novel, the less satisfying its end will be.
Rated by buyers 
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Having been a fan of Ms. McDermid from reading Wire in the Blood and the two follow up books, then reading A Place of Execution and becoming completely hooked I expected great things from 'Killing the Shadows' but found I trudged through this book with no real feelings for the characters and found the motive for the killings to be a really big stretch! The side trip to Spain could have been missed out completely.
I can't say I am sorry to have finished reading 'Killing the Shadows' as I found it tedious and uninspiring. Hopefully Ms. Mcdermid's subsequent book will be up to her usual standards.
Rated by buyers 
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This is as satisfying a modern mystery as I have read in years. The basic plot description reads as a serial killer of serial killer thriller writers. I will add to this that Ms. Mc Dermid gices us in 1 book: a) 3 seprarate serial killer investigation in varying degrees of detail and all interesting; b) several intelligent detectives, none of them Lestrade-ish or tokenish; c) interesting victims; d) a very charismatic heroine in all senses; e) blue herrings in the classic tradition, as well as a surprising main villain. Just read this one; you will not be dissapointed.
Rated by buyers -
sum up in two words: too wordy. this novel, like her 'a place of execution', is way too wordy. ms. mcdermid may have come up with some good ideas of murder mysteries, but her writing style is nothing but dragging the text as long as possible. as female writer, she unconsciously put herself as the heroine, fiona, to do some explanation of her relationship with her friend, kit, the crime writer. there are too many pages spent on lot of unimportant blah, blah, blah. too many trivial tidbits throwing around page after page making the reading very very tiresome like reading textbooks. the characters she created in her novels never achieved any up close and personal feelings although many many pages being spent on describing and portraying her characters' personal feelings. i've lost interest and patience in trying to keep focus, to force myself read along, but after repeatedly formatted patterns of the murderers' diaries/records/documentation(?) whatever, the crime scenes reports on the net, newspapers...i have to give it up in the middle and decided to flip it thru and yet still failed to finish it. some interested concepts but panned out too long and too wordy. there are simply too many shadows to be killed, but in the long run, nothing matters.
Rated by buyers -
If this had been a movie, it is my belief it would have gone straight to video. It only came out in hardcover because the publishers knew Ms. McDarmid's name would sell, no matter how very awful the book is. It's hard to believe that the author who wrote A Place of Execution, a truly brilliant mystery novel, could also produce such drivel as Killing the Shadows. Cliched (this is the break we've been waiting for!) and cluttered with poorly written "romance", this book is the written equivalent of a teenage slasher flick. Serial killer running around and all the potential victims acting as stupid as humanly possible.
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