Beneath the Bleeding by Val McDermid

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Genre - Thriller


"Carnage, Tony thought as a burly figure emerged from the corridor, swinging a fire axe as if it were a scythe and he a grim reaper, jeans and polo shirt spattered with blood. The burly man was intent on his prey. He was gaining on them. Another couple of strides and the axe blade would be slicing through flesh - again".

Tony Hill and Carol Jordan like to solve puzzles, of the gruesome type, but their preferred methods are very different. Tony, psychologist and criminal profiler, likes getting inside the heads of serial killers, even if it means walking into rooms with them, alone. He also likes to get inside the heads of the victims, to better see who the killer is, even if it means lying down on the spot where they died. DCI Carol Jordan, on the other hand, runs the Major Incident Team at Bradfield Police, and prefers to deal with facts and traditional methods. Yet, these two are a formidable team when butting heads against psychopathic killers. Only this time, Tony is in hospital, seriously injured, and Carol is up against a murderer who is long gone before his victims are even dead.

As a bizarre batch of murders happens, Carol follows the leads methodically and is finally narrowing in on the guilty party. Tony, still in hospital and with plenty of time on his hands for online research and flights of fancy, is following a completely different path and growing increasingly impatient with Carol for not listening to him.

Frustrated at his enforced incarceration and convinced his doctors are all idiots with a dose of nasty thrown in just for his displeasure, Tony takes matters into his own hands and leaves his bed, and the hospital. He soon learns this is a mistake, in more ways than one, and returns to his patient status. And to make matters worse, his mother comes to visit, repeatedly. The nurses are impressed by her concern and devotion to her son; Tony takes her visits as a puzzle to be solved; but Carol thinks Mrs Hill is up to no good.

The emotional tension between Tony and Carol bristles as they both battle and hide their own feelings from each other. The electricity between the two and their dogged determination as independent loners brings a subtext which enlivens and deepens the appeal of these two protagonists. They live together, as landlord and lessee, they are constantly in each other’s company, work closely together on the most puzzling and brutal murders and serial killings, but push as far away from each other on the personal front as they can. The trouble is, deep down where it counts, they are too much alike.

This is a book which balances perfectly on a knife-edge between the unfolding, seemingly random murders and Tony’s personal drama with Carol, his mother and his surgeon. We are given an insight into Tony’s childhood which adds layers to his eccentric personality and singular gifts as a psychological profiler. Whether you are an avid devourer of thrillers or like your murder taken with a good pinch of personal interplay, then you must read Beneath the Bleeding.

Beneath the Bleeding is gritty, psychological, at times even haunting and promises to keep the reader turning pages whilst holding their breath as they ride McDermid’s latest rollercoaster.

---- Reviewed by Hannah