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The Vanishing Point

3.54 of 5 stars 3.54 · rating details · 647 ratings · 191 reviews

The new stand-alone from the queen of the psychological thriller.

It's every parent's worst nightmare...

Stephanie Harker is travelling through the security gates at O'Hare airport, on her way to an idyllic holiday. Five-year-old Jimmy goes through the metal detector ahead of her. But then, in panic and disbelief, Stephanie watches as a uniformed agent leads her boy away - a...more

Paperback, 448 pages

Published September 11th 2012 by Little, Brown Company (first published 2012)

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May 21, 2013 Kim rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: audiobook, crime-fiction

I've been reading Val McDermid since the early 1990s, when I was introduced to her Kate Brannigan series. While I haven't loved all of her novels, I've considered her to be a reliable crime fiction writer with a range extending from quirky private detective stories, to solid police procedurals, to more gruesome psychological thrillers.

This is McDermid’s most recent stand-alone thriller. It starts out well, if implausibly. Five year old Jimmy Higgins is abducted from O’Hare Airport while his gua...more
I've been reading Val McDermid since the early 1990s, when I was introduced to her Kate Brannigan series. While I haven't loved all of her novels, I've considered her to be a reliable crime fiction writer with a range extending from quirky private detective stories, to solid police procedurals, to more gruesome psychological thrillers.

This is McDermid’s most recent stand-alone thriller. It starts out well, if implausibly. Five year old Jimmy Higgins is abducted from O’Hare Airport while his guardian, ghost writer Stephanie Harker, is waiting for a security pat-down, necessitated by a metal plate in her leg setting off the metal detector. By the time the authorities realise what’s happened, Jimmy and his kidnapper have disappeared. Stephanie is interviewed by an FBI agent and tells the agent how she came to be Jimmy’s guardian after the death of his mother, reality television star Scarlett Higgins*. Stephanie’s first person narrative is alternated with a third person narrative concerning the investigation into Jimmy’s disappearance.

Stephanie’s long-winded story is one of the many problems I have with this novel. Not so much the story itself, which may have been interesting if it had been a memoir, but the fact that it’s supposed to be the record of an interview following the abduction of a child. As such, it is totally unconvincing. So much so, that I wondered for a while whether McDermid was going to do an Ian McEwan and pull off a piece of meta-fictional prestidigitation. But I was wrong. At the risk of disclosing a spoiler, Stephanie’s story is an interview and the investigation is an investigation.

Another problem I have with the work are the relentless references to popular culture. References to books, films, television programs and social media saturate the narrative in a way that will only date the work. McDermid also felt obliged to include a discussion of “Issues”. A discussion of personal and celebrity stalking, for example, runs through the plot, without adding much to it. And then there’s the ending. I don’t have a problem with implausibility in crime fiction. But there’s not-very-believable-but-still-satisfying and there’s just plain silly. For me, this was one of those silly endings. Suspending disbelief was just too much of an effort. My eyes rolled clear to the back of my head.

It would be wrong to say that the novel has nothing going for it. McDermid writes good prose and in spite of everything, I wanted to find out what happened. There are red herrings and misdirection, but there are also clues pointing to the solution. I listened to the audiobook narrated by Antonia Beamish, who did an excellent job. But it’s a poor effort, particularly when compared to some of McDermid’s better works, such as A Place Of Execution.

*Who is clearly inspired by English reality television star Jade Goody.(less)

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Oct 16, 2012 Bill Kupersmith rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

For sheer variety of fascinating characters and settings, I believe that Val McDermid has no rivals amongst ontemporary mystery story writers. She has introduced me to Scottish miners, German rivercraft, Cambridge academics, and lots of police officers and profilers not to mention Fletcher Christian of Mutiny on the Bounty fame. I expect most of her followers will not find The Vanishing Point a favourite and my own rating is perhaps a bit generous. But I read it non-stop (it waw a quiet night at...more

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Apr 06, 2013 Ware rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Halfway through The Vanishing Point, I was already planning my review, proclaiming Val McDermid along with Ian Rankin as the greatest living British mystery writers. I still think she is in the pantheon, but at the end I was disappointed-a taut child abduction thriller with superb character development was suddenly a bumbling mess. It was as if Edgar Allan Poe hired O. Henry to finish Murders in the Rue Morgue.

An English ghostwriter, the guardian of the orphaned son of a reality star, is snatche...more

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Mar 13, 2013 Susan rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Another gripping story from Val McDermid, as she artfully blends flashback and present day narrative until the two come together into a dramatic climax.[ A word of warning - avoid looking at the last page until you come to it naturally] The story opens with 5 year old Jimmy being snatched from his guardian, Stephanie, at Chicago’s O’Hare airport. As the FBI quizzes her for leads to find him, we hear from Stephanie how Jimmy came into her life through her work as a ghost writer for celebrity auto...more

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Mar 05, 2013 Simone Sinna rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I read somewhere that this authors early books were being re-released and when I read this my first thought was this must have been one of them but the book they were referring to had Christmas in the title so I guess not. The reason I thought this was The Vanishing Point is so different to her other psychological crime thrillers I wouldn’t ever have picked it being from the same author. It’s more adventure and romp …or rather this is how it seems and perhaps more like the author I know, things...more

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Feb 26, 2013 Lucy Lock rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The Vanishing Point : Val McDermid (Audio Book)
After the abduction of her young ward Jimmy, Stephanie who is a ghost writer by profession, is detained at a US airport by the FBI and has to dredge up the past half dozen years of her life in order to make sense of what has just happened. Stephanie then tells it to the FBI agent like a novel. This was a neat plot device, even if I couldn't imagine anyone being able to ramble on like that for hours on end in a stuffy little room, with only a Starbuc...more

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Feb 16, 2013 Kate Sometomato rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Very very good thriller. I read this pretty much straight through and did little else during the day. The author, Val McDermid, is familiar to me from her Tony Hill books (Wire in the Blood, made into a TV series). Her writing is always gritty, and The Vanishing Point is no exception.

There is a lot of dialect that may be unfamiliar to American readers, so it may help that there is a glossary in back - although I didn't discover that until I had finished the book, by which time I had figured out...more

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Dec 08, 2012 Rob Kitchin rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The Vanishing Point tries to mash together a conventional thriller with c-list celebrity culture. Stephanie Harker is a professional ghost writer who drafts the life stories of famous folk and Jimmy is the son of a reality television star, Scarlett Higgins, a kind of cross between Jade Goody and Katie Price that draws heavily on aspects of both these women’s lives (most definitely in the case of Goody). The opening premise and performance of the abduction is nicely done, providing a tense entree...more

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Nov 29, 2012 Ellen rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This was my first Val McDermid book and while I didn't rate it very highly, I finished the book thinking I will probably try another one of her books. She writes very well,the plot moved along, and many of the characters were well-fleshed out. The narrative unfolds both in the present day and in flash-backs, which has the potential to be confusing, but McDermid does it well and it was easy to follow what was going on. I liked her heroine, Stephanie Harker and her beau, Nick.

But there were severa...more This was my first Val McDermid book and while I didn't rate it very highly, I finished the book thinking I will probably try another one of her books. She writes very well,the plot moved along, and many of the characters were well-fleshed out. The narrative unfolds both in the present day and in flash-backs, which has the potential to be confusing, but McDermid does it well and it was easy to follow what was going on. I liked her heroine, Stephanie Harker and her beau, Nick.

But there were several things I didn't like about this particular book. The plot description on McDermid's website describes a theme of the book as, "the extraordinary lengths to which a parent will go to protect their child." I know if one of my children were abducted, I would be a total mess, nonstop, until it was resolved and that child would never be out of my mind. After a while, though, Stephanie seems to be able to function pretty well and Jimmy's disappearance seems like a problem she needs to solve and not the emotional wrecking ball that it should.

I also never really got a good picture of Scarlett, even though her story is fully half of the book. While I see that this may have been somewhat deliberate on McDermid's part, it still made it hard to get through the page and pages that were devoted to her.

And finally, the ending of the book. (SPOILER ALERT) If you haven't read it, you might want to stop here, although I will try not to give away too much. The ending had a huge twist (that I admit I didn't see coming) and was so abrupt it was a little jarring. Also, the type of medical deception used to rig the ending was really, really hard to swallow. My bigger problem with the ending is it's moral ambiguity that I think was unintended. When Stephanie ultimately finds Jimmy, she could quite reasonably have simply walked away and left him where he was. She decides she can't because the kidnappers have murdered 2 people and are therefore morally unfit to parent the child. However, in order to rescue Jimmy, she must perform an equally immoral act, but never questions whether it makes her unfit to parent.

Oh, and on this same point, an earlier reviewer said there were two rather unsympathetic murder victims in the book. Actually, there are three.(less)

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Nov 17, 2012 Lizzie Hayes rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Travelling from Heathrow to the USA Stephanie Harker passing through the airport security checkpoint at O’Hare airport in Chicago is helpless as she watches a man abduct five-year-old Jimmy Higgins. Although his guardian, Stephanie is not Jimmy’s mother, but the son of reality TV star Scarlett Higgins.

The next section of the book is the story of how ghost writer Stephanie Harker became friends with Scarlett, told in flashbacks as Stephanie is interrogated by the FBI Agent assigned to direct the...more

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Nov 12, 2012 Erin rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

So this book blew me away. I finished it and just sat there stunned for a minute. There is a lot of lead up, and then whambangboom shit goes down real fast.

Most of the text is made up of Stephanie Parker, a British ghostwriter, telling her story to Vivian McKuras, an American FBI agent. Stephanie's son, Jimmy Higgins, has just been kidnapped from the Chicago airport and Vivian is interviewing her for clues as to who could have taken him. Jimmy is the biological son of Stephanie's dead best frien...more

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Sep 14, 2012 Luanne Ollivier rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Best selling and award winning author Val McDermid has been practicing her craft for many years now. And you know what they say - practice makes perfect.

McDermid's latest book is The Vanishing Point.

British resident Stephanie Harker lands in an American airport with five year old Jimmy in tow. Stephanie sets off the alarm and is tagged for a more thorough search. While locked in the clear inspection box, she witness Jimmy being led away by away by a stranger. And she can't get anyone's attention...more

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Sep 03, 2012 Gloria Feit rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

In her twenty-sixth novel, a standalone, Val McDermid goes rather far afield from her previous books. It opens with a child abduction at O’Hare International Airport in Chicago. While a passenger is going through an airport security check, a man in what appears to be a TSA uniform appears and guides the five-year-old boy traveling with her through the terminal and they both seem to disappear. It soon falls to 27-year-old FBI Special Agent Vivian McKuras to interview the woman, Stephanie Harker,...more In her twenty-sixth novel, a standalone, Val McDermid goes rather far afield from her previous books. It opens with a child abduction at O’Hare International Airport in Chicago. While a passenger is going through an airport security check, a man in what appears to be a TSA uniform appears and guides the five-year-old boy traveling with her through the terminal and they both seem to disappear. It soon falls to 27-year-old FBI Special Agent Vivian McKuras to interview the woman, Stephanie Harker, the godmother [and planned adoptive mother] of the little boy, Jimmy. The boy’s mother, Scarlett Higgins [dubbed by the media as The Scarlett Harlot] had been a reality-tv star, one of those famous for being famous, with whom Stephanie had ghost-written several books, becoming best friends in the process. The question becomes: Had this been “a random abduction, a spur-of-the-moment snatch,” or had Jimmy been a very specific target?

In order to ascertain into which category this falls, Vivian questions Stephanie at length as to the entire background and history of all concerned. What ensues is a rather lengthy tale, the story zig-zagging from those flashbacks to the present time as the investigation shifts into high gear. The boy’s father, who Scarlett married shortly before his birth in a media-planned circus, had died from a drug-overdose not long afterwards, Scarlett more recently after a very public battle with cancer. Stephanie puts Vivian in touch with a UK counterpart, and everything becomes more complex. As it nears its end, the plot takes a very unexpected turn, morphing into a stunning conclusion.

Stephanie is a fascinating protagonist, one who takes refuge in her profession. When it is suggested to her that she could sell her story to a magazine, her response is: “‘I don’t want to have a story.’ I like being a ghost. Insubstantial. Transparent. Anonymous.” An intriguing tale it is, in which manic stalkers [of both genders] are a theme.

[The author thoughtfully includes a glossary at book’s end, translating Brit-speak for the American readers.] Val McDermid just keeps getting better.

Highly recommended.
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Feb 11, 2013 Alex rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: crime

The framing device used in this book is clumsy, given the amount of detail that our main character goes into when she is ostensibly being interviewed by the FBI. Most first person narratives, you don't really have to wonder about the fictional audience for which they're intended; we just accept that someone is telling this story to the air, and we go with it.

But Stephanie is telling her story in a constrained situation, exactly as she would if she were one of McDermid's multiple other first pers...more

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Oct 26, 2012 Naomi rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

3.5/5 Stars

Read my full review @ http://bit.ly/SFAHhr

My opinion: First, let me premise this review by saying I am a HUGE, HUGE Val McDermid fan. I have read every book of hers minus wrapping up 2 books in her Kate Brannigan series. I find McDermid's books to be twisted, particularly her Tony Hill series, engrossing with characters and scenes so well developed that readers feel that they are present in the story. Furthermore, plots offer twists and turns that keep readers, for the most part, gues...more

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Oct 23, 2012 Robert Brase rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: mystery

A fantastic book about a woman from Britain that has a child abducted from her at the Chicago airport while taking a vacation. Now is this her kid? Read the book! So she starts telling her whole life story, almost, to the F.B.I. as they begin to investigate and the kidnapping begins to fade into the background. What is truly amazing is how this kidnapping fades out and than the author lights a torch and there it is again! Fades, torch, and there it is again. And repeating this until almost towar...more

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Oct 25, 2012 Lynn rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: mystery

I love Val McDermid's writing. She is one of all time fave mystery writers. However, this book is quite a departure from other McDermid books. Stephanie Harker is the guardian of a five year old boy en route to a much needed vacation to California. As she is going through security, someone walks off with Jimmy. Her frantic efforts to escape security to run after him are thwarted and soon Stephanie is telling her story to an FBI agent. And telling her story, and telling her story...Stephanie goes...more

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Sep 22, 2012 Michael rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 110-books-in-2012-and-do-it-again, abduction, free-book-for-honest-review, mystery, reviewed, thriller

Val McDermid has written a number of clever psychological novels with characters that are memorable, so much so, that she could be used as an example of what fine writing is, in literary courses. This story should be included in that group.

"The Vanishing Point" begins with a woman bringing a child through screening at Chicago's O'Hare airport. Since the woman has a number of pins in her leg from an accident, she knows she will set off alarms when she goes through screening. Therefore, she told t...more

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Aug 24, 2012 Best Crime Books rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I was very excited when I received an early copy of Val McDermid’s new book from the Publisher, especially since the cover looks so inviting! When you read the synopsis I was even more drawn to the story and hearing that Stephanie Harker travels through security in the USA only to watch her boy get snatched from under her nose had me itching to start.

The first couple of chapters are usually slow burners with a majority of books as the authors go about explaining the characters or settings. None...more I was very excited when I received an early copy of Val McDermid’s new book from the Publisher, especially since the cover looks so inviting! When you read the synopsis I was even more drawn to the story and hearing that Stephanie Harker travels through security in the USA only to watch her boy get snatched from under her nose had me itching to start.

The first couple of chapters are usually slow burners with a majority of books as the authors go about explaining the characters or settings. None of that happens with this book and it takes a mere few pages for us to meet Stephanie and the five year old Jimmy as they go through security at the airport. With Stephanie watching Jimmy go through the metal detector she follows him and promptly gets stopped. She has no idea that as she gets stopped her life will change forever and she watches in disbelief as somebody in uniform comes along and leads young Jimmy straight out of the door. Within the first couple of chapters I was already at the edge of my seat and reading in disbelief as things go wrong very quickly for Steph.

As Stephanie gets led away be airport security to be questioned the story starts its real journey. It becomes clear pretty quickly that Stephanie is innocent and she is trying to explain to airport authorities that Jimmy has been snatched and they need to act immediately. As the FBI get involved and start to question her Stephanie sits back and tells the story of ‘how it all began’. We are taken back to the beginning by Stephanie herself as in small bursts we see her history and how she meets Jimmy’s mum who is a famous TV reality star.

As Steph tells the story of how she came to meet Scarlett Higgins things start to make a little more sense. Scarlett is only famous for being famous and with a very strange upbringing she is determined to make a successful career out of her short reality TV stint. She then contracts cancer and begins her battle to keep her public image up, raise her son and generally gets the most out of life. As we fast forward to Steph trying to help the FBI to track down who may have taken Jimmy Higgins, and then back to the time before she had him you begin to question what everybody in Steph’s life is up to, and whether they have an ulterior motive.

The layout and way the story is told certainly rings a few bells and had some ring of truth to it, especially in regards to a famous reality TV star who fought cancer in this country! But that aside, the way the story was told and the fact that each time we revisit Steph during her interview with the FBI you feel the tension rise. I literally couldn’t put this book down. Towards the end I thought I had it all figured out and was irritated to see there was still quite a bit left, what more could there be? Turns out I was completely wrong and the ending threw me sideways, I certainly didn’t see that one coming! All in all a book I couldn’t put down and thoroughly enjoyed. Highly recommended!

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Oct 17, 2012 Kevin Luck rated it 3 of 5 stars

The Vanishing Point
Having read most of Val McDermid's books over the last few years (I was a late starter) I came to this with an open mind about the storyline but keen to experience the read. I found the plot intriguing enough, and the characters were well enough drawn to be interesting.

You can read any number of synopses of the plot in other reviews. You may also find comments about the literary device used, which was to have set some chapters up as the narration of a woman being interviewed...more

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Dec 22, 2012 Beadyjan rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: thrillers

This was my first book by Val McDermid and it probably won't be my last. I was looking for something tense and thrilling and this certainly fit the bill, loads of twists and turns.

Beginning with the abduction of a child in an airport in America, we are then introduced to the childs guardian Stephanie, a ghost writer who makes a living interviewing and then writing biographies of celebrities.

Recently she had been involved with writing the life story of a reality tv star, and this is the bit I fou...more

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Sep 01, 2012 J.R. rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Val McDermid once more has crafted a nail-biting, intricate plot to keep the reader guessing up to the final page. But I have mixed feelings about the manner in which she chose to tell this story.

Just as ghostwriter Stephanie Harker is getting used to being the adoptive mother of an energetic five-year-old boy, the child is kidnapped in a crowded international airport. Stephanie, stuck in a booth because a pin in her leg set off a metal detector, watches as the man walks off with the boy. When s...more

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Oct 05, 2012 Erika rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: mystery, read-in-2012, gay-lesbian, fiction

THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS I love Val McDermid, because she is not afraid to go places other crime writers don't dare venture, but the last three novels have left me underwhelmed. It was nice to meet Charlie Flint and Nick from last year's "A Trick of the Dark" again, but there were gaping holes in this story, with a very abrupt ending that I had already seen coming. Steph, the protagonist, was unconvincing for me right from the start. Stalked by her ex-boyfriend she refuses to contact the po...more

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Sep 11, 2012 Jo at Jaffareadstoo rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The story opens with child abduction at a US airport, it’s the stuff of nightmares for every parent, one minute your child is there, and then as powerless to help, you witness your child being taken away. The Vanishing Point starts off well, the idea of looking back to see how the story unfolds is interesting, and as we are introduced to the major characters, we are given glimmers into the twisted world of celebrity status. There is Scarlett Higgins, a TV reality star with an unsavoury past, and...more

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Sep 28, 2012 Emma rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: britain, crime-detective

In one word: disappointing.

I usually always like Val McDermid's books but this was a weird one.

A small boy is kidnapped right in front of her guardian while passing through security in an American airport. Okay... the first few pages are riveting, you want to know what happened to the child, will he be saved, will the kidnapper strike again, etc.

But then, her guardian is interviewed by the FBI and she starts talking about the kid's background. She starts way before his birth and it goes on and o...more

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Sep 12, 2012 Raven rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Right- so you read the synopsis of the book and think this sounds intriguing and what an excellent premise for a crime novel. Now excuse me if I’ve missed the point but what follows an initially promising first couple of chapters is an absolute flight of fancy and I think McDermid is just playing with her readers a wee bit! I like to think that McDermid had her tongue very firmly planted in her cheek throughout the writing of the book as she shamelessly draws on the most nauseating aspects of ‘r...more Right- so you read the synopsis of the book and think this sounds intriguing and what an excellent premise for a crime novel. Now excuse me if I’ve missed the point but what follows an initially promising first couple of chapters is an absolute flight of fancy and I think McDermid is just playing with her readers a wee bit! I like to think that McDermid had her tongue very firmly planted in her cheek throughout the writing of the book as she shamelessly draws on the most nauseating aspects of ‘reality TV’ spawned celebrity with its attendant bad behaviour, press manipulation, ill gotten gains and the role of the ghostwriter in presenting a more acceptable version of these hideous people to their adoring public. The book centres on Scarlet Higgins, a Northern working class girl who comes to fame on reality TV show ‘The Goldfish Bowl’ ( a blatant hybrid of ‘Castaway’ and ‘Survivor’) despite her ill-behaviour, racist outpourings (counterbalanced nicely by her later relationship with an Asian DJ) and generally lewd behaviour. Desperate to raise her public profile the hapless and incredibly naive Stephanie Harker-ghostwriter- is commissioned to write a book about the now pregnant Scarlet as a missive to her unborn child and Harker finds herself drawn into the duplicitous world of the scheming Scarlet. This is where it all goes a bit silly with a frankly ludicrous story line involving a Scarlet-impersonating cousin, a Romanian orphanage, a half-baked stalker and all manner of other silliness involving the FBI, a positively Greek Adonis of a policeman and eventually a murder which comes way too late in the plot to have any impact at all.

But, and I stress this very clearly, as unbelievable and irritating as the whole thing is you can’t help being compelled to just read a few more pages, then a few more until before you know it you’ve read the whole book, and despite not having believed a word of it you realise you’ve had fun on the way, such is McDermid’s portrayal of a world of celebrity culture you recognise all too well backed up by an improbable but incredibly entertaining plot! So bad that quite frankly it’s brilliant…

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Sep 09, 2012 Mark rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Anticipating a difficult transition after landing in the States from England, Stephanie was not prepared for it to be as difficult as it was. She has metal plates in her leg and is accustomed to being fondled by TSA agents however to watch her travelling companion, five-year old Jimmy, be kidnapped - while she held her down by the very authorities who should have been helping her - thinking she was trying to get a bomb into the airport by the way she set off the alarms.
By the time she is able to...more

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Sep 12, 2012 Annie rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: kindle

I usually start my five star reviews of Val McDermid’s books with “I’m not really a thriller reader, but...”. Her Wire in the Blood series absolutely enthrals me, as do some of her stand-alones, and they’re invariably five star reads. I loved 95% of this book too, but it really isn’t primarily a thriller – I carried it everywhere, taking every opportunity to read, fascinated by the story of the reality TV star (plainly based on Jade Goody) befriended by her ghost writer, and the linked thread ar...more

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May 01, 2013 Gordon rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Not Val's best but better than most author's best. She has written many thrillers that rank at the top. I think A Place Of Execution may be the best psychological thriller ever.

The main characters are, as usual, well developed and transform throughout. The plot is a deft mix of present and flashback. The setting is varied and interesting but not particularly well described.

The one major red herring was far too obvious. While it provided a good bit of action it was so clearly a false lead that it...more

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Mar 16, 2013 Cheryl rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Although McDermid is one of my faves, this one was merely good. The first chapters were quite intense, as a British writer tries to convince the TSA/FBI that she had been traveling with a young boy and the child was now gone. Then there begins chapter rotation in time - current - long ago - not so long ago. This has never been my favorite mode of storytelling. But the author does a great job of taking an unsympathetic character and building your trust and belief in her, and then begins to tuck i...more

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About Val McDermid

Val McDermid was born and schooled on the east coast of Scotland and then Oxford Universtiy after which she became a journalist.

Her first book, Report for Murder was published in 1987 and since then she has gone on to have 25 more books published.

She lives in Manchester and Northumberland with 3 cats.

Series:
* Tony Hill & Carol Jordan
* Lindsay Gordon
* Kate Brannigan

More about Val McDermid...

Books by Val McDermid

The Mermaids Singing (Tony Hill & Carol Jordan, #1)

The Wire In The Blood (Tony Hill & Carol Jordan, #2)

The Torment Of Others (Tony Hill & Carol Jordan, #4)

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