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Type of bind: Mass Market Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN num: 9780312983604
ISBN number: 0312983603
Label: St. Martin's Minotaur
Manufacturer: St. Martin's Minotaur
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 400
Printing Date: June 17, 2002
Publishing house: St. Martin's Minotaur
Sale Popularity Level: 47111
Studio: St. Martin's Minotaur
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Editor's Notes and Comments:
Product Description:
This was the summer he discovered what he wanted--at a gruesome museum of criminology far off the beaten track of more timid tourists. Visions of torture inspired his fantasies like a muse. It would prove so terribly fulfilling.
The bodies of four men have been discovered in the town of Bradfield. Enlisted to investigate is criminal psychologist Tony Hill. Even for a seasoned professional, the series of mutilation sex murders is unlike anything he's encountered before. But profiling the psychopath is not beyond him. Hill's own past has made him the perfect man to comprehend the killer's motives. It's also made him the perfect victim.
A game has begun for the hunter and the hunted. But as Hill confronts his own hidden demons, he must also come face-to-face with an evil so profound he may not have the courage--or the power--to stop it...
Amazon.com Review:
This sadistic, twisted yet intriguingly ingenious thriller garnered Val McDermid Britain's top crime-fiction award, the Gold Dagger, which only proves it's not as genteel a nation as we've been led to believe. The Mermaids Singing follows a killer who thrives on finding ever more inventive ways to seduce and torture sexually confused young men and records their death struggles digitally to market them as interactive home movies.
User popularity level:
Rated by buyers 
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As a work of genre fiction, I found The Mermaids Singing an enjoyable read.
As with A Place of Execution (the other book by Ms McDermid that I've read), she holds back a major surprise toward the end. (Don't worry no spoiler here.) One can almost imagine her while writing thinking, "ooh this is a good one." By holding this back, however, she strains some of the credibility that she's built up throughout the story. While this type of thing is common in this genre, it leaves the reader with the feeling of having been deceived.
That being said if you like crime/suspense/mystery novels, I think you'll enjoy reading The Mermaids Singing.
Rated by buyers 
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This book is slow to start "police detecting wise" if one can say that. A lot of space is used in describing what is going on from everyone's point of view but not much is being elucidated, as in information collected, or progress is made on the case by cops. Finally the end is somewhat surreal and unconvincing. This is still a worthwhile book to read compared to what is awailable out there on the market.
p.s. To the author, please just make the two of them a couple and stop mudding the waters with endless lack of sexual arousal stories and teenage kind of love troubles.
Rated by buyers 
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This is the very first in the series of Tony Hill and Carol Jordan books that BBC made into a series, called "Wire in the Blood," the name of the second book. Fortunately for viewers, the characters on the screen are not as flawed as the ones in the book. Tony Hill is one messed up shrink - we know why HE chose his career! and Carol has her own problems as a woman in the CID. A serial killer strikes the mid-sized community of Bradford, and appears to be killing gay men. But is he? or could they just seem to be gay? The Bradford CID is working on a Home Office project to use profilers with the police, so this is the perfect opportunity for Tony Hill to practice his specialty. He tends to get a little too involved in his work. This is not for the squeamish - the violence is graphic. But the writing is compelling, and it's a real page-turner. It isn't until after you've finished the book that you start to see holes in the plot - small ones in this book, but they get larger as the series progresses. But, I don't want to be a spoiler! If you can handle graphic violence, torture, and gore along with page-turning prose, and you like watching the workings of the psychotic mind, then this is the book for you. It's un-put-downable once you pass the very first two pages.
Rated by buyers -
Van McDermid, a first-rate writer of psychological thrillers, can be tantalizing in her detail and measured pace. I'm just used to fast paced, gory stories.
This book introduces the Tony Hill and Carole Jordan characters and the uncertainty of their relationship is believable. The characters gradually develop depth and start a reltionship that will last for a number of books and TV movies.
I can't tell you how it ends, but you will be surprised.
The pace of the book presented the only negative part of the experience. The TV movies don't waste any time, but McDermid, much like P.D. James, takes a lot of time building characters and settings.
Overall I enjoyed this book. I did find it tiring.
Rated by buyers -
The Good: The Mermaids Singing starts off well and feels like a good read. The killers narrative works out fine and hooks you early. Unfortunately as the book progresses it shows its age and in the end fails horribly. The book is about a psychological profiler and perhaps that alone made it interesting in 1995. Unfortunately nearly ten years later I needed more.
The Bad: I will put forth no spoilers here but I will say there is little build up to the ending and it is over in a blink of an eye. I felt like Val needed to have the book done by 400 pages and she wrapped it up just before she over shot the mark.
I love how she references Silence of the Lambs more than once and then liberally borrows plot points from it.
Bottom Line: Read Manhunter and Silence of the Lambs both are way more fun.
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