Mermaids Singing [Paperback]

Saw this on TV years ago and, while I couldn't get the images of Robson Green and Hermione Norris our of my head when I read it, the book surpasses the television portrayal. As it should. Nuanced and shocking in equal measure, Val McDermid leads the reader through the dark passages of a deranged killer's mind while making uneasy parallels with the workings of Tony Hill's damaged psyche.

A thinking person's thriller, going beyond the sensational aspects of the unfolding events to lay out the rationale behind the irrational nature of the acts.

Believable. Unsavoury and frightening, but believable.

A slow start. But the end, although cliche, is satisfying. Nothing earth-shattering here, but certainly worth the read. I give it 3/5 stars.

A few years ago I saw a few of the television shows based on the characters this novel introduces. I enjoyed the show and wanted to see more of them recently deciding to see if the shows were available on dvd. Reading the dvd details and reviews I discovered, like most good mystery shows, there were novels that came first. So I just picked up the first novel, and quickly read it.
(One caveat, I may be one of the few who watch or read mysteries who isn't trying to think ahead and figure out 'who the killer is' before the main characters do, I like the slow reveal and building of suspense at the author's or directer's pace.)
This is the first of four (so far) novels with main characters Dr Tony Hill and Detective Inspector Carol Jordan.
I enjoyed the first half to two thirds of the book immensely. Being introduced to the characters, including the villian (the book opens with notes from the killer), and reading how Dr Tony Hill, sets himself, does his research, and gets himself into the mind of the killer, even talking it out. That's well done.
On the police side of the story, none of the police officers are carboardy, each a distinct individual, and Carol Jordan is a female officer with ambitions and intellegence,and is a woman (not a male copper in drag). And there is the angle of some in the British police force not willing to accept a profiler, believing straight police work catches the criminals.
And a good balance is struck between different points of view making sense of the evidence, and possibly identifying the villian.
When the story moves into the last act it lost me a little, more because I had enjoyed the flow of the first two acts so much. The last act is the killer acting against his next chosen, the police moving in the right or wrong direction, and Dr Tony Hill in the middle of it... and the clock ticking... no answers til its time.