Splinter the Silence

Carol Jordan has retired from the force and is living in the depths of the country. As any experienced reader of crime stories knows, there are only two ways this can go: either she is going to find the corpse of one of her rural neighbours and solve the crime despite her firm intention to stay out of such things, or the author is planning to Reichenbach her back into the job again by devious means...
Another good page-turner, anyway, even if it was far too heavy on the magic of cyber-detection for my taste. Whatever happened to good old cigar-ash and footprints?

Splinter the Silence by Val McDermid is the 9th book in her Carol Jordan/Tony Hill police procedural series. This book takes us into the world of cyber-bullying as Tony and Carol look into some recent suspicious deaths where the dead were victims of on-line predators. This starts off as an exercise to occupy their minds while Tony helps Carol start to put her life back together. But Tony is an expert on recognizing patterns, and before long, they realize that they have stumbled onto something.

At first former DCI Carol Jordan is too busy messing up her life to care but once she is given a second chance at police work, and is able to start rebuilding her team, they get on with the hunt. It was very satisfying to have the team being show more brought back together and with a new brief that will not totally help them avoid the political infighting but certainly will give them a leg up.

I find Val McDermid is an author that I can rely upon to deliver a fast moving, intricate police procedural that keeps the pages turning and the reader absorbed. I find Tony quite an admirable character and while I can’t say that I like Carol Jordan, she is a force to be reckoned with. The rest of her team are much more likeable. This 9th entry brings the team full circle and I am looking forward to seeing what McDermid has planned for them next. show less

This is my first Val McDermid book, although I'm aware of the characters from watching Wire in the Blood back when BBC America had Mystery Mondays (damn you, BBCA, for replacing them with Top Gear). I'm at a bit of a disadvantage, coming into the series after eight books, perhaps...but on the other hand, sometimes it's good to come into a series with fresh eyes.

Splinter the Silence is minimally procedural, and maximally character-driven. I'm not sure if this is the norm for this series, but it worked for me. However, the ending was extremely abrupt, and there was a bit of Happy Famiiies about it that did not work for me quite as well. I'm interested enough to go back and read from the beginning of the series, so I think that's a show more recommendation in itself.

As far as the audiobook itself, I found myself thinking a little too much about the narrator--his voice was intrusive. Not so much so that the experience was painful, but he wasn't the best I've heard. show less

Val McDermid rachets up the suspense in this, the ninth book of the Tony Hill and Carol Jordan Series. Former DCI Carol Jordan is slowly acclimating herself to civilian life by renovating a barn and attending sleepy dinner parties at remote country houses. A drink driving arrest on the way home from a dreary such supper threatens Jordan's equilibrium and possible liberty. She calls upon her friend, forsenic psychologist Tony Hill, to bail her out. Hill sees the rescue in far more expansive terms. To keep Jordan's mind occupied while awaiting arraignment, Hill sets her the task of looking into some recent deaths. Strong feminist women, subject to internet bullying, have fallen apart and commit suicide. Horrific to contemplate, could show more these deaths be something even more sinister? A can't-be-refused offer to rejoin the police forces soon follows. Other familiar faces join in to form a team and the case (and the book) are off and running.

I've not read the previous eight in this series, so don't know how this one compares. I had relatively little trouble reading this one as a stand alone tale. The first couple of chapters went slowly until I learned the various characters. (Regular readers won't have that disadvantage.) After that the pages just turned themselves. I loved the characters -- especially computer guru Stacey Chen. The relationship between Hill and Jordan was very engaging.

A copy of this book was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review. show less

I’ve written before about my disappointment in some of the recent Val McDermid novels but I keep reading them anyway, just because they’re so darned page-turny. I’m pleased to say this one is the best I’ve read in a while.

Retired DCI Carol Jordan and her former team are dispersed, working in different jobs, or none at all. However events conspire to bring Carol and psychological profiler Tony Hill back together. They attempt to rebuild their fragile friendship and, along the way begin looking into a case that may not even be a case – a series of apparent suicides by high-profile women who have been trolled on social media for expressing feminist views. The rest of the team become drawn in. Meanwhile Carol, being Carol, has an show more opportunity that she may have sabotaged before she even knows about it.

What draws me back to these books, and what makes this such a good one, is that they are completely immersive. You know the characters but you want to know them more. Like real people, just when you think you’ve got them, they have the capacity to surprise you. McDermid is brilliant at the subtleties of human interaction, the small spaces between what we mean and what we say, the pain and the history that stops some people getting what they want. That’s why the Jordan and Hill situation – two people who can’t be together but can’t move on either – so exasperating in life, is fascinating in art.

Some people have raised questions about plausibility – it’s fair to say the killer and his motivation were the least interesting thing about the book. But that, for me, is not the point. Murders are rare, non-domestic murders, that require high-level detection skills, are even rarer. And yet crime fiction is ubiquitous. Authors have to be allowed a little licence.

What McDermid does do is capture the nature of modern policing – the team work, the specialisation, the dynamics of a group who are both allies and rivals. And she has an eye on every corner of contemporary culture – from Twitter to the garden centre.

She has thrown another couple of hand-grenades into her mix of gifted but conflicted characters which nicely sets up the next book. I can’t wait.
*
I received an ARC from the publisher via Netgalley. show less

This is the 9th and most recent installment in the Tony Hill/Carol Jordan mystery/thriller series and the most enjoyable in some time. While helping Carol deal with her alcoholism and the shattering effects it has had on her, Tony stumbles on a pattern of strong, feminist women who have apparently committed suicide in quite literary ways after being subject to cyberbullying for their outspokenness. I was happy to see Tony being stronger than usual and Carol acting more like a friend and less like Tony's harridan of a mother. I also enjoyed some retribution handed out to a particularly deserving person at the end.

I was happy to win a copy of Splinter the Silence through LibraryThing's Early Reviewers program. I've already listened to my local library's collection of Ms. McDermid's books. Her Carol Jordan/Tony Hill series are my favorites among her works I've encountered, even if she does tend to put her lead characters through the wringer.

Carol Jordan's boozing has caught up with her: she's been arrested for 'drink' driving. It doesn't matter that she was on a quiet back road and going barely three miles from a party to her home. She makes two calls for help. The first one was a mistake that will come back to haunt her. The second one is to Tony Hill. Carol just wants a drive home, but Tony gives her what she needs. Carol is forced to confront show more the fact that she really is an alcoholic. Tony wants to take her mind off her humiliation and addiction, so he has members of her former team looking at some cases of women who committed suicide after being threatened by internet trolls. We readers already know that Tony is on to something. There's a very damaged serial killer out there who wants women back to what he considers their only proper roles: wives and mothers. Yes, we will learn why he is the way he is.

Meanwhile, the Home Office has a plan for a regional major incident team. Carol Jordan is wanted to head it, but she won't be able to with a criminal record. Carol isn't happy with how that works out.

Paula and Stacy are both very dissatisfied with their current duties. Will they jump at the chance to join REMIT? Besides old members of the team, we get recruits from characters previously met. Will ambitious and selfish Sam Evans be invited?

I loved the way the team got to work on the case that only Tony suspected was a case. I loved the usual glimpses into the characters' private lives and the mind of the killer. I loved what happened to a jerk who had it coming. The suspense grows as we know the killer has a new target, Will REMIT be in time?

We get some samples of the horrible threats posted by internet trolls (we also get to meet a couple of them). Sick! Sick! Sick!

I did hate one thing about the end, though we'll probably have to wait until the next book to see how it affects those involved.

Gerard Doyle's narration really set the mood. The book is tense enough that I didn't dare listen to it when I went to bed because I knew it would keep me awake.

I do hope, though, that Highbridge, the publisher, used those plastic binder rings only on review copies. The bottom one of mine popped free on its own before I'd even gotten to CD eight. show less