Review: BENEATH THE BLEEDING, Val McDermid

Complete and Unabridged Audio, read by Andrew Wincott. ISBN 978-0-7351-3001-8
13 CDs, 15 hours, an ISIS audio book.

In Bradfield Moor Secure Hospital profiler Tony Hill has got between an inmate and the fire-axe he is threatening staff with. The result is incredible damage to Tony's knee and now he is recuperating in Bradfield Hospital.

Another patient in Bradfield Hospital is Bradfield Victoria's star midfielder, quickly dying from a poison for which there is no antidote. It is obvious he has been murdered but why?

Then a terrorist bomb explodes at the Bradfield football stadium killing dozens. DCI Carole Jordan seethes as she is forced to hand over the bombing investigation to a specialist terrorist investigation team. Not that she doesn't have enough to keep her occupied. Tony Hill suspects that the bomber is no terrorist, and then one of their own dies from poisoning.

I wrote a progress report some weeks back. Well, here I am 3 weeks later, and I must report that I have absolutely enjoyed this book. It has taken me at least 5 weeks to get it finished, even after resorting to driving slowly behind buses, sitting in the carpark waiting for a track to finish, and taking the long route home. I think part of my enjoyment has been the enforced speed of reading. You really can't race ahead or skim read when a story is being read to you. In fact sometimes you listen to the occasional track again just to make sure you got it right.

Andrew Wincott in the long run did an excellent job of the reading. At first I reported that I thought his voice was too similar to that of Robson Green the TV actor who plays Tony Hill. But as the story progressed Wincott did an excellent job in voice differentiation.

My rating: 5.0

BENEATH THE BLEEDING is #5 in the Carole Jordan/Tony Hill series
1. The Mermaids Singing (1995)
2. The Wire In The Blood (1997)
3. The Last Temptation (2002)
4. The Torment of Others (2004)
5. Beneath the Bleeding (2007)

If you are looking for Val's own site, click here.
Watch out for the new book out soon.
A DARKER DOMAIN is not a Jordan/Hill novel:
The superb new psychological thriller from bestselling author Val McDermid mixes fiction with one of the most symbolic and exceptional moments in recent history - the national miners' strike It seemed like an unsolvable mystery at the time: a wealthy heiress and son kidnapped in Fife, then a botched payoff, leaving her dead with no trace of the child. So when, over twenty-five years later, a possible clue is discovered by a journalist in Tuscany, cold case expert DI Karen Pirie doesn't hold much hope of unravelling the infamous enigma. She's already investigating a case from the same year. At the height of the miner's strike, Mick Prentice broke ranks to join 'scab' strike-breakers down south. But new evidence suggests Mick's disappearance may not be as straightforward as that - and Karen's investigations take her into a dark domain of secrets, betrayal and the ultimate violence! Past and present intertwine in a novel of taut psychological suspense that explores the intersection of desire and greed.
Read an extract online here.