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Why do we love to read about serial killers? From Jack the Ripper to Silence of the Lambs, tales of these nightmarish murderers seem to fascinate people, and for most of us this predilection is embarrassingly out of character. Maybe they are a safe way to explore dark, id-powered fantasies. Perhaps, in confronting our worst fears, we hope to make it less likely that something bad will actually happen. They also are a source of comfort, a way to impose order on apparently chaotic sadism: There is always a clever detective or investigator who figures out the warped logic of the crimes and brings the perpetrator to justice.
THE TORMENT OF OTHERS is Val McDermid's fourth novel about two such experts: Detective Chief Inspector Carol Jordan and Dr. Tony Hill, a clinical psychologist who is called in by the police to profile serial killers. Set in the (fictional) bleak northern English city of Bradfield --- mostly in the seamier neighborhood frequented by prostitutes and drug dealers --- this book is a far cry from the polite stately-home murders beloved of Agatha Christie and her ilk. It is no less atmospheric, though; you can almost taste the bad coffee, damp grayness, and ugly architecture of this former mill town. McDermid is a realist, like another first-rate Scottish suspense novelist, Denise Mina, and part of the fascination of her cinema-verité mysteries is how deeply she embeds her sharply drawn characters in an unpromising environment and draws a kind of harsh music from it.
Jordan and Hill's relationship is not just professional; it's a more serious version of the unconsummated mating dance performed by Cybill Shepherd and Bruce Willis in the first two seasons of "Moonlighting." (In fact, McDermid's books are the basis for a British TV series, "Wire in the Blood," that turns up now and then on the cable channel BBC America; it's an intelligent, not-too-glamorized adaptation, and well worth watching.) DCI Jordan's rigid self-control and extreme workaholism mean that her longest-running relationship is with her cat. In THE TORMENT OF OTHERS, moreover, she is particularly fragile because she was raped while on undercover duty in a European operation (cf. the previous Jordan/Hill book, THE LAST TEMPTATION). As for Dr. Hill, his unhappy childhood and tortured personality (self-loathing, impotence) make him lousy boyfriend material but great at hunting serial killers: "Anyone examining [Tony's] own past would have found a series of indicators that, in another man, would have been the first steps on the tortuous route to psychopathy. For him, they had provided the foundation of his empathy with those who had ended up on a different path. … And just as the serial killer had a sure instinct for his victims, so Tony had an apparent sixth sense for tracking his prey."
The will-they-or-won't-they gavotte gives the book an extra frisson, a line of suspense that parallels the main case under investigation --- actually, two main cases: McDermid's plot is nothing if not complicated.
DCI Jordan is summoned to head a special police unit --- in the wake of the rape, this is supposed to be therapeutic --- with a mandate to investigate unsolved crimes as well as take on fresh ones. The old cases in THE TORMENT OF OTHERS (the title is from T.S. Eliot's FOUR QUARTETS) involve two missing boys who turn out to be the victims of a pedophile killer. The new, particularly grisly murders target prostitutes, the twist being that the M.O. is precisely the same as in a series of old killings. But since the murderer confessed, and is now incarcerated in a mental institution, he couldn't possibly have committed these more recent crimes. Who did? All the unit's efforts come to nothing, so Carol's boss orders her to organize a trap using one member of her team as a phony prostitute --- the same sort of dangerous undercover operation that had backfired on DCI Jordan herself. When the "bait" is snatched, there is a race against time to find her before she becomes another victim.
Because McDermid explicitly pits one intelligence against another --- expertly alternating accounts of what the police and Dr. Hill are doing to solve the case with chilling italicized passages that let us inside the killer's mind --- the reader knows exactly what the stakes are. What we don't know, until close to the end of the book, is the identity of the murderer (if you can guess it, you're good).
Often, writers who can handle complex plots are washouts as far as character is concerned, but McDermid is strong on both counts. Even the supporting roles in the book are beautifully, memorably detailed: Members of the police team --- including opportunistic Sam Evans; sad, unlucky Don Merrick; computer whiz Stacey Chen; and Paula McIntyre, with her charm and ambition --- are as much a part of the action as Carol and Tony. And the prostitutes, from young, inexperienced Honey to hardened Dee, are more than faceless victims. This gives the story a full-bodied, almost Dickensian texture that is very satisfying.
Two caveats: First, if you're squeamish, go elsewhere. This is explicit, violent stuff. Second, because to some extent McDermid assumes knowledge of the previous Jordan/Hill books, I'd recommend beginning with the first in the series, THE MERMAIDS SINGING (she is also the author of several exceptional non-series thrillers, notably A PLACE OF EXECUTION).
McDermid has written two other detective series, but they are in a lighter vein (and I must confess that I couldn't finish the one title I tried). In focusing on the darker side of human nature as well as on the austere landscape of the urban north, she seems to have found her natural territory. Read her for the fiendishly devised puzzles as well as for the humanity and three-dimensionality of the people she has created. THE TORMENT OF OTHERS may be a guilty pleasure --- twisted, shivery, and not to be indulged too late at night --- but it is a pleasure nonetheless: the best of its genre.
--- Reviewed by Kathy Weissman
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