Review of Val McDermid's Fever of the Bone
Sixth Crime Novel Featuring Tony Hill and Carol Jordan
Oct 30, 2009
In the city of Bradfield, the fictional Northern location where McDermid sets her best-selling series of novels featuring Tony Hill and Carol Jordan, life appears to be going on as usual. Detective Chief Inspector Jordan is still heading up the Major Incident Team, an elite squad set up to investigate cold case killings as well as current deaths. She is also still living in Tony Hill's basement, and still enjoying a glass or two of wine.
However, the arrival of the new Chief Constable James Blake threatens to change Carol's established routine. He is keen to stamp his mark on his new role by making some cost-saving changes, including disbanding Carol's team and insisting they do without the expensive advice of clinical psychologist Tony Hill. Carol finds herself put on a three month trial, and cannot help half-wishing for a challenging case to show off the skills of her team to their best advantage.
RigMarole Social-Networking Site
Of course, as soon as this thought has crossed her mind, a teenage boy disappears and is later found brutally asphixiated and horrifically mutilated. Meanwhile, Tony has been called down to Worcester to help the West Mercia CID with a murder in which there are no leads - a teenage girl has been asphixiated and mutilated. Before long, a pattern has emerged to these seemingly random killings - the victims were all keen users of the social networking site Rigmarole.
It's an interesting and inventive premise for a crime novel, allowing McDermid to create a dangerous killer who can connect with his potential victims before meeting up with them. It also allows for more geographical freedom than in previous novels, and the separate plotlines take place in several locations rather than being limited to Bradfield, as previously.
Relationship between Tony Hill & Carol Jordan
McDermid's writing is as tense and precise as ever, relying on the reactions of the parents and friends of the victims to convey the horror of the killings rather than lingering over the gory details of the crimes. It is a brave move on the author's part to break up the Hill/Jordan partnership for such a large part of the novel, but the tactic works, allowing the reader to appreciate their unusual chemistry even more when they are eventually reunited.
Fever of the Bone is McDermid's first novel since moving publishers to Little, Brown, and the company must be delighted both with the quality of the novel and of the possibilities for publicity the plotline has generated. Fans of the author can now join the social networking site featured in the novel to chat with other devotees and avoid the attentions of the fictional characters lurking there - visit the RigMarole site for more details.
Fever of the Bone by Val McDermid is published in the UK by Little, Brown (2009), ISBN 978-1-4087-0198-0.
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