VAL McDERMID – Beneath the Bleeding. HarperCollins, UK, hardcover, August 2007. Harper, first US edition; trade paperback, September 2009.

   This is the fifth of now six novels in the Val McDermid’s Tony Hill series. Dr. Hill, a clinical psychologist who works as a profiler for the Bradfield police, is sidelined for much of the novel after being severely wounded by an inmate in the Bradford Moor Secure Hospital. He had escaped from his “secure” cell and rampaged through the halls with an axe.

   The action then shifts to an investigation by DCI Carol Jordan of the murder of Bradford’s star midfielder, with Tony serving as a consultant and, as he slowly recovers, beginning to slip out of the hospital to interview suspects.

   The investigation leads to the discovery of related murders, all of them committed with the use of exotic poisons, while, unbeknownst to the police or to Tony, a local resident appears to be preparing to launch a major terrorist attack on Bradford’s stadium during a game.

   The novel may appear to be cluttered, but it’s superbly managed by McDermid, and makes one wish that she would put aside some of her stand-alone novels, which I’ve found overwritten and increasingly long-winded, for more of this still vital series. It seems to engage her considerable talents more richly than anything else she’s done recently.

The Tony Hill / Carol Jordan series:

      1. The Mermaids Singing (1995)
      2. The Wire In The Blood (1997)

      3. The Last Temptation (2002)
      4. The Torment of Others (2004)
      5. Beneath the Bleeding (2007)
      6. Fever of the Bone (2009)

   The cases of Tony Hill and Carol Hill have also been dramatized over the course of six seasons (31 episodes) of Wire in the Blood (UK-ITV, 2002-2008). Robson Green played Dr. Tony Hill, while DCI Carol Jordan was portrayed by Hermione Norris. (Perhaps someone can explain why the latter appeared in only 14 of the episodes shown.)

   All six series appear to have been released on DVD in the US.