The Last Temptation
A Novel
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4.0 • 34 Ratings
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- $12.99
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
Mapping the minds of murderers is what Dr. Tony Hill does better than anyone. So when a twisted killer starts targeting psychologists across Northern Europe, Hill is the obvious choice to track the executioner's mental and physical journey.
Except that Tony, still bearing the scars of past cases, doesn't want to do this anymore.
But the killer is about to strike uncomfortably close to home. The next victim is a friend and colleague. And Tony's former partner, Detective Carol Jordan, is directly in the murderer's path, working undercover in a world where human life means less than the smallest drug deal. She needs Tony's help as much as the beleaguered European police officials do.
Now the danger is closing in. Confronting the worst of modern crime and struggling to unravel roots that lie deep in the tormented past of Nazi atrocities and Stasi abuses, Tony and Carol are forced to battle for survival against overwhelming odds. In this morass of double-cross and double-dealing, they have no one to trust but each other. Deftly merging the dark terrain of forensic psychology with the brooding, crime-streaked world of post-Cold War Europe, Val McDermid's The Last Temptation is an unrivaled tour de force that takes Tony Hill further into the mind of a killer than he's ever dared to go before.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
British author McDermid brings back DCI Carol Jordan and psychological profiler Dr. Tony Hill from The Mermaids Singing (1995) and The Wire in the Blood (1997) and thrusts them into a psychologically chilling and multifaceted thriller. Jordan goes undercover in Germany as part of a dangerous operation to capture Tadeusz Radecki, an international smuggler of drugs and illegal aliens. Meanwhile, her contact in Berlin, Criminal Intelligence Officer Petra Becker, is helping her Internet lover, Dutch Brigadier Marijke van Hasselt, on a grisly case whose victims, psychological researchers, are sexually tortured and murdered. Jordan suggests that Dr. Hill work with them in Berlin. The suspense builds as scenes alternate among the two English crime fighters, Becker, van Hasselt, Radecki and his henchman, Darko Krasic, and the anonymous serial killer, whose grisly tactics echo Nazi psychological experiments. McDermid gives depth and individuality to all seven characters and each city. With consummate skill and pacing, she braids together the complex story lines through surprising revelations, heartstopping suspense and cruel double-crosses. The two major plots don't mesh, but they crisscross, creating even more tension. McDermid's writing and her understanding of the criminal mind get better with each novel. With its European locales, depiction of Nazi mind experiments and hints at another Jordan/Hill novel, this may well be her breakout book. She certainly deserves it.
Customer Reviews
Atrocious conversion almost ruins a good read
Just as good as the other Tony Hill/Carol Jordan mysteries, but the conversion into an ebook makes this almost unreadable. At least two spelling errors per page, some so bad you spend time working out what was intended.
And the formatting is atrocious. Paragraphs are broken. Sections start without any visible clue. At least they don't screw up the chapters.
My guess is that this is the product of a very, very bad optical scan and character recognition software. And no one cared enough to fix it.
If you can put up with a lot of errors, then buy this book. But you must really want to read this in order to get through the neglect of the publisher.
Typos Galore
One cannot get into the story since there are hundreds of typos and mis-"prints". It seems they just used a cheap scan-to-text converter and never took the time to read it ONCE to eradicate the mistakes.
It shows the utter lack of interest of the "editors". They do not respect the work, the art of book-making, and the paying customers. Just trying to make a quick buck.
Well, you don't respect me, then I won't respect you. One star...