Discount Price: $6.99
Price fluctuation possible.
How soon does it ship: Normal ship time within one day
Shipping? Absolutely FREE if you qualify for Super Saver Shipping.
Type of bind: Mass Market Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.914
EAN num: 9780312986315
ISBN number: 0312986319
Label: St. Martin's Paperbacks
Manufacturer: St. Martin's Paperbacks
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 496
Printing Date: October 19, 2003
Publishing house: St. Martin's Paperbacks
Sale Popularity Level: 191531
Studio: St. Martin's Paperbacks
Other books you might be interested in perusing:
Editor's Notes and Comments:
Product Description:
Coming to terms over her breakup with criminal profiler Dr. Tony Hill, Chief Inspector Carol Jordan plunges into a risky undercover sting: track down a European drug trafficker and gain his confidence. But she's being tracked as well-by a serial killer whose psychosexual madness is born out of the darkest corners of history. In quiet isolation, Tony Hill is laying to rest the scars of his past-until he's recruited back into business on a case he can't ignore. An evil is striking uncomfortably close to home, and casting a killer shadow over the life of his long-time colleague and sometimes lover. As the danger closes in, and as Tony and Carol cross paths to navigate the terrain of a shattered human mind, they have no one left to trust but themselves-and fear that there's no place left to run as a killer promises to fulfill his most twisted dreams.
User popularity level:
Rated by buyers 
-
This is probably the grittiest of the Tony Hill/Carol Jordan stories and one of the best. Carol goes undercover in Europe to catch an international criminal and both she and Tony nearly lose their lives as a result. They both begin to acknowledge their feelings for each other but before it can go very far, events take over and in some ways, they end up even farther apart than they were before. This is not a story for the squeamish. There is quite a bit of brutal reality and a rape too terrible to even think about, but Val McDermid has created characters and a story that I just couldn't put down. It left me anxious to read the subsequent book in the series.
Rated by buyers 
-
Gerard Doyle does a fabulous job of reading the Last Temptation. His voices are great.Detective Carol Jordan and Dr. Tony Hill( pyschologist) are in vestingating the murders of prostitutes who are tortured and killed. Carol and Tony are also investigating the murder and rape of children.
Carol and Tony (former lovers) are haunted by the memories of a past criminal investigation.Carol's other police officers are very important to this novel. The story was well plotted and moved quickly. I liked the characters.
Rated by buyers -
This is by far the best out of the four Dr. Hill books I've read. It is riveting, believable, and suspenseful. A definite must-read for McDermid fans!
Rated by buyers 
-
With apologies to anyone who is reading this as a duplicative review, I am going to review all four of Val McDermid's Dr. Tony Hill/Carol Jordan novels in one place and copy the reviews individually.
I've now read seven of McDermid's books. She's not a great writer but she's a fabulous storyteller and her Tony Hill/Carol Jordan mysteries are the best of the bunch. The very first two books aren't written terribly well, but the writing gets better as the series goes on. You may know these characters from the BBC series "Wire in the Blood" starring Robson Green. As an aside, while I generally find film and television adaptations to be far less satisfying than the source material on which they are based, the BBC series is really an exception. While the books have some detail that doesn't make it to the t.v. series, the television program really brings the characters to life and improves on the writing while staying true to the novels, although only the fourth book's plot actually made it to the screen.
As noted by some other reviewers, these books are not for the squeamish. McDermid doesn't pull any punches in writing about vicious psychopaths who commit sex crimes and the books may well be disturbing to many. The second book in particular (more below) actually gave me nightmares. McDermid, however, really gets into the heads of her twisted antagonists and she seems to have done a tremendous amount of research. Most importantly, both Dr. Hill, a clinical psychologist who consults with the police as a profiler, and Carol Jordan, the police officer with whom he works most closely, always feel like real people with investigative abilities and compassion that are easy to admire and foibles that are easy to relate to. They have serious difficulties in forging personal relationships which makes their relationship all the more poignant. Each book focuses on two stories -- a main investigation involving a psychopath and a secondary case that is generally no less compelling, while also following the relationship that develops between the two protagonists. If you've never read any of the books in this series, I would recommend taking them in order. The fourth book is the best, the third the worst, but it's worth reading them in order for the character development (although you could easily skip the third). If you really think you only want to read one, or aren't sure and don't care about spolers, just go straight to the last one. Some people who have read the entire series have found the fourth book repetitive, but it's the one that really works on all levels. Overall, the series gets 4 stars, but here are my individual assessments:
SPOILER FREE REVIEWS
1. The Mermaids Singing - 4 stars
The very first of the series is really the only one that delves in any great detail into the personal lives of Tony Hill and Carol Jordan, who come together to investigate the brutal torture and slayings of four men in northern England. McDermid's Tony Hill/Carol Jordan books all deal with issues of sexual identity, but this one does is particularly focused on that as the police suspect a gay man of killing heterosexual men. McDermid shares the thoughts of the killer as well as those of Dr. Hill, who relates all too well to the motivations of the subjects he is asked to profile. The writing in this book is kind of clunky, but the insights of the author into how and why someone sets out to cause maximum pain and humiliation still make it a riveting, if disturbing, read.
2. The Wire in the Blood -- 4 stars
In this second book in the series, teenaged girls are being abducted and brutally raped and tortured to death. We are introduced to an extremely smooth and charismatic character, Jacko Vance, a television celebrity and former star athlete, that Dr. Hill and Carol Jordan called upon to investigate. This is the hardest of the series to read, probably because the killer's victims are all extremely young, naive and female, with no chance whatsoever of fighting back. This book deals with charisma and celebrity as well as sexual deviance and although the writing is still somewhat awkward, it's generally a more compelling novel than the Mermaids Singing.
3. The Last Temptation -- 3 stars
This is the weakest book in the series. On the plus side, McDermid decides to branch out from northern England and take the reader into continental Europe, particularly Germany, where Carol Jordan has gone as an undercover operative to investigate a drug dealer/slave trader. Tony Hill is also in Europe, helping the police solve a series of murders in which psychologists are the victims. McDermid brings to light some of the darker deeds of the Nazis that are generally not known and discussed and for this she should be commended. The writing also starts to improve with this book and the secondary protagonists, two female, European police officers ... Read More
Rated by buyers -
Val McDermid continues her 'Hill and Jordan' series with an entertaining story that combines a dangerous undercover assignment with an investigation of a serial killer, each of which leaves Tony and Carol on the verge of death!
McDermid does a pretty good job of integrating the two subplots, and her use of German and Dutch settings makes for a change from her usual 'real English locations with fictional names' approach.
The two policewomen, Petra and Marijke, are among the most interesting characters, and their personal and professional relationship adds some colour to the story.
As for the 'bad guys', the smuggler Tadeusz and his crony Krazic, are suitably creepy, although the scenes featuring just the two of them are a bit slow. 'Tadzio' has more chemistry with Carol.
The 'serial killer' subplot is not quite as riveting as it might have been, relying on the coincidence of Tony knowing one of the victims.
McDermid relies a bit too much on coincidental/convenient plot developments late in the book; as other reviewers have mentioned, the bad guys find out what Tony and Carol are really up to purely by chance, due to a careless mistake that neither Tony or Carol would otherwise make. Likewise, when both Tony and Carol are captured separately, both are left tied up, but only one is gagged, and that omision serves purely to advance the plot from a seemingly impossible situation).
The ending is satisfying for the most part, although it would have been nice to have a final scene with Petra and Marijke, since it's not likely McDermid will use them again.
Despite the amount of 'suspension of disbelief' required in the final chapters, this is still a worthwhile entry in the series.
Find other books like this one:
