The Retribution (Tony Hill and Carol Jordan Series #7)

by Val McDermid

Overview

Clinical psychologist Tony Hill has had a good run. He and police detective Carol Jordan have put away scores of dangerous criminals at a rate that colleagues envy. But there is one serial killer who has shaped and defined their careers, and whose evil surpasses all others: Jacko Vance, ex-celebrity and sociopath, whose brilliance and utter lack of remorse have never left Tony’s mind in the ten years since they put him behind bars. With a twisted and cunning mind honed by long years of planning, Jacko has now pulled off the perfect escape and is determined to wreak revenge on Tony and Carol for the years he has spent in prison. They don’t know when Jacko will strike, or where, or even who. All they know is that Jacko will cause them to feel fear like they’ve never known.

A chilling, utterly gripping tour de force, The Retribution is an unforgettable read.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780802120441
Publisher:	Grove/Atlantic, Inc.
Publication date:	09/11/2012
Series:	Tony Hill and Carol Jordan Series , #7
Pages:	416
Product dimensions:	5.62(w) x 8.08(h) x 1.14(d)

About the Author

A former journalist, Val McDermid is a Scottish mystery and suspense writer known for several popular mystery series centered around the characters Lindsay Gordon, Kate Brannigan, Tony Hill, and Carol Jordan. McDermid’s first Hill/Jordan novel, The Mermaids Singing, won the Gold Dagger Award for Best Crime Novel of the Year, while her book A Place of Execution was nominated for the Edgar Award, among other honors.

Read an Excerpt

He got his arm behind the driver’s head and rammed him face first into the steering wheel. After the third sickening crunch, the man finally went limp. Still pumped with adrenaline, he jumped out of the car and hustled round to the driver’s side. When he opened the door, the driver slumped towards the road. Vance squatted down and got one shoulder under his torso.

Vance staggered as far as the hedgerow that bordered the road. Breathing heavily, feeling his heart hammer in his chest, he dumped the driver on to the top bar of a metal field gate, then tipped him over on the far side.

He leaned against the wall for a moment, catching his breath, letting himself recover from the overdose of fight or flight hormones. Then he returned to the car, this time to the driver’s seat.

He couldn‘t help wondering how long it would take before someone noticed Jason Collins was still on the Therapeutic Community Wing. And Jacko Vance wasn’t. Before they understood that one of the most notorious and prolific serial killers the UK had ever produced was on the loose. And keen to make up for lost time.

This time, his grin lasted a lot longer than a few minutes.

Editorial Reviews

The return of serial killer Jacko Vance drives McDermid’s superb seventh novel featuring Dr. Tony Hill and Det. Chief Insp. Carol Jordan of the Bradfield police (after 2010’s Fever of the Bone). Vance, the charming TV talk show host responsible for murdering 17 teenage girls in 1997’s The Wire in the Blood, manages to escape from prison just as Carol and her team are on the brink of disbanding at the behest of a new chief superintendent. Carol is also leading the murder investigation of several sex workers, each tattooed with the word mine, but it’s the hunt for Jacko that consumes her and Tony, knowing that he’ll likely direct his pentup anger at the people who helped put him away. Soon Carol’s team is working both cases and both killers are upping the ante (and the body count). The emotional wedge that the sadistic Jacko is able to drive between Tony and Carol makes this one of McDermid’s strongest efforts. 5-city author tour. Agent: Jane Gregory. (Jan.)

Publishers Weekly

Praise for The Retribution

“Val McDermid’s 25th novel is stunningly good, but it comes with a health warning. Not in the sense of too many detailed descriptions of violence or post mortem examinations, but in what she does in entering the mind of a wholly evil, exceptionally inventive serial killer of teenage girls. . . . Vance is a character in the exaggerated mould of the likes of Hannibal Lector and Lisbeth Salander, and his tussle with Hill and Jordan achieves grotesque, frightening proportions.”—The Times (UK)

“A gripping and well-written crime thriller. If you've been following McDermid's Hill/Jordon series, this new addition won't disappoint you. And if, like me, you're new to Val McDermid's work, The Retribution is a good introduction.”—Paul Davis, The Philadelphia Inquirer

“The novel’s deft prose, sprinkled with psychological insight and sparks of wit, makes it hard to turn away.”—Shelf-Awareness (online)

“[McDermid’s] writing…remains taut and unflinching. . . . As in all her novels, McDermid creates a brooding tension that allows readers to get close to characters whose lives are about to be ripped apart.”—Danuta Kean, The Independent (UK)

“Superb. . . . The emotional wedge that the sadistic Jacko is able to drive between Tony and Carol makes this one of McDermid’s strongest efforts.”—Publishers Weekly

“Val McDermid . . . has done more to establish the British variant of the serial killer than anyone else—so successfully, indeed, that everyone else’s serial killers seem pale imitations . . . . McDermid handles the multiple viewpoints of this complex narrative with assurance. She flicks from crisis to crisis, constantly misdirecting her readers. She is brilliant at sensational set-pieces . . . and Hill and Jordan have a psychological depth that's rare in crime fiction. . . . She also has the ruthless psychological scalpel that forms part of the equipment of all good novelists, whatever their genre. And, fortunately for us, she knows just how to use it.”—Andrew Taylor, The Guardian (UK)

“The villain in the seventh thriller in the Tony Hill series . . . is like a slowly growing tsunami that finally spends its fury on the inhabitants of the shore. . . . As usual, McDermid shifts point-of-view deftly, moving from Jacko’s plans for escape and then retribution to Hill’s and Carol’s thoughts on how to outwit and outrun him. . . . For those who like script-like prose with shock after shock . . . McDermid is perfect.”—Connie Fletcher, Booklist

“It’s perhaps fitting that for McDermid’s 25th novel she’s revisited her most thrillingly murderous creation, Jacko Vance. . . . Put away by McDermid’s crime-cracking dream team—psychological profiler Dr. Tony Hill and DCI Carol Jordan—Vance never stopped plotting his escape. Finally, and brilliantly, in The Retribution he achieves his aim, then sets about exacting revenge on Hill and Jordan.”—Henry Sutton, The Daily Mirror (UK) (four-star review)

“McDermid is such a central figure in British crime fiction that it is hard to imagine a time when she was not.”—David Robinson, The Scotsman (UK)

“British author Val McDermid’s psychological thrillers are richly layered with palpable suspense and intense emotion. . . . In the strongly plotted The Retribution, McDermid returns to the partnership of crime profiler Tony Hill and detective Chief Inspector Carol Jordan. . . . The Retribution moves at a brisk pace as McDermid keeps the taut plot frighteningly believable.”—Oline H. Cogdill, South Florida Sun Sentinel

“McDermid has made the transition from enfant terrible to grande dame.”—Nicholas Wroe, The Guardian (UK)

From the Publisher

When Detective Carol Jordan and psychologist Tony Hill captured serial killer Jacko Vance, they thought they were through with him. That story was recounted in Val McDermid's novel WIRE IN THE BLOOD. But seven years later, Vance escapes the British jail where he was serving a life sentence. He's anxious to get back to his bloody hobby of murdering girls, but first there’s a little matter of revenge. In THE RETRIBUTION, the hunters become the hunted as Vance tracks down the people who captured him. Narrator Gerard Doyle's delightful British accent goes from barely noticeable to backwoods thick as he interprets the speech of characters from all over Great Britain. M.S. © AudioFile 2012, Portland, Maine

MAY 2012 - AudioFile