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Val McDermid - Page 3

The Writing on the Wall and other Stories The Wire In The Blood Booked For Murder Blue Genes The Mermaids Singing

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British Pbk Original - Revolver (1997)

The Writing on the Wall and other Stories
SOLD OUT
This edition is limited to 200 signed and numbered copies.
Stories Include:
A Wife In A Million. (1989) First published in Reader, I Murdered Him edited by Jen Green.
A Traditional Christmas (1995) First published in Reader, I Murdered Him Too edited by Helen Windrath.
Breathtaking Ignorance (1992) First published in The Crazy Jig, edited by Joanne Winning
Guilt Trip 1995 First published in No Alibi, edited by Maxim Jakubowski.
Driving A Hard Bargain (1996) First published in The Mail on Sunday.
The Writing On The Wall (1994) First published in Third Culprit, edited by Liza Cody, Michael Z Lewin and Peter Lovesey.

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First British Edition Harpercollins (1997)

Paperback - Harpercollins (2002)

Paperback Harpercollins (1998)

The Wire In The Blood
See Review by Andrew Taylor - author of the highly acclaimed Roth & Lydmouth Series
Now a major TV series starring Robson Green as Tony Hill and Hermione Norris as Carol Jordan
Young girls are disappearing around the country. Everyone assumes they are teenage runaways, headed for the big city and bright lights. They vanish without trace -- society's disposable children, There is nothing to connect them to each other, let alone the killer whose charming manner hides a warped and sick mind.
Nobody moves around inside the messy heads of serial killers like Dr Tony Hill. Now heading up the recently founded National Profiling Task Force, he sets his team an exercise: they are given the details of thirty missing teenagers and asked to use their new techniques to discover whether there is a sinister link between any of the cases. Only one officer, Shaz Bowman, comes up with a concrete theory, but it is ridiculed by the rest of her group ... until a killer murders and mutilates one of their number.
Could Bowman's outrageous suspicion possibly be true! For Tony Hill, the murder of a member of his team becomes a matter for personal revenge. Aided by his previous colleague, Carol Jordan, he embarks upon a campaign of psychological terrorism - a game of cat and mouse where the roles of hunter and hunted are all too easily reversed.
Taut, suspenseful and shocking, The Wire in the Blood is a ferociously readable thriller from one of Britain's leading young novelists.
'This is a shocking book, stunningly exciting, horrifyingly good. It is so convincing that one fears reality may be like this and these events the awful truth' Ruth Rendell
'The Wire in the Blood is truly frightening, McDermid's capacity to enter the warped mind of a deviant criminal is shiveringly convincing, and she is equally adept at portraying the interactions, allegiances and petty jealousies that exist among the investigators. Hill, driven and disturbed, is an appealing and original character. This is a writer who just gets better and better' Marcel Berlins, The Times
'Tense and shocking' Andrew Taylor, Independent
'The novel has the same compelling combination of sexual-political mischief and Jacobean psychological intensity that earned the author the crime novel of the year award for The Mermaids Singing' John Dugdale, Sunday Times
'Tension-filled sequel to The Mermaids Singing… The story, handled with verve, wit and style, never flags' Frances Fyfield, Mail on Sunday
'Ye Gods, she's good' Colin Dexter
'Terrific chiller from Manchester's answer to Thomas Harris. Val McDermid can do what the Americans do so effortlessly - get inside the mind of a serial killer. Thank God for Tony Hill and psychological profiling'' Lucretia Stewart, Guardian
'This is a clever and exciting thriller' Susanna Yager, Sunday Telegraph
'The book [has] a sense of gravitas and intelligence utterly beyond lesser writers n the field… This is a wholly satisfying read which cleverly subverts tradition and expectation. Having already awarded her previous Tony Hill novel a Gold Dagger, someone better be smelting the platinum' Ian Rankin, Scotland on Sunday
'McDermid is no novice at tense thriller writing and it shows. Her handling is sly and sophisticated, weaving the mundane with the stomach-churningly depraved' Julie Carpenter, Express on Sunday
'Blood count exceptionally high; horripulation guaranteed' Philip Oakes, Literary Review'
'Intelligent, convincing and compelling, The Wire in the Blood takes risks with plot and character, undercutting all the normal devices of thriller structure in a highly readable and scary book' New Woman
'Val McDermid is an accomplished storyteller, and this scary, fast-moving tale is engrossing' Daily Telegraph
'This is a clever and exciting thriller' Susanna Yager, Sunday Telegraph

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Paperback - Women's Press (1998)

First British Edition Women's Press (1996)

Booked For Murder
See Review by Liz Lees
'Murder, she felt fairly sure, was not the kind of "Purpose of Visit" calculated to speed her through immigration.'
Why would anyone want to kill Penny Varnavides, bestselling author of the "Teen Dreams" series? It can't have been the freak accident it first appeared -- Penny's death was an exact replica of the murder method in her forthcoming book. Apart from Penny, only three people knew the plot: her literary agent, her editor and her ex-girlfriend Meredith.
In memory of her old friendship with Penny, Lindsay Gordon agrees to investigate. Reluctantly she leaves her Californian haven for the fraught world of London book publishing. And as her investigation reveals an incendiary mixture of soured relationships and seething rivalries, Lindsay must face the frightening truth. Someone in Penny's literary or love life must have been driven to murder...
This is a stunning, hilarious, superbly entertaining mystery from one of the best and increasingly acclaimed writers in the genre. Set in the world of publishing and featuring the much-loved investigator, Lindsay Gordon, it is not to be missed.
Praise For Val McDermid
'The writing is tough and colourful, the scene setting excellent.' Times Literary Supplement
'Has the reader gripped from the first page… both moody and hilarious and thoroughly unpredictable.' Tribune
'Compulsive reading' Herald
'Neatly constructed and splendidly sarcastic.' Daily Telegraph
'The macho world of the whodunnit has never seen a sleuth like Lindsay Gordon.' Manchester Evening News
'Just give us another installment of Lindsay Gordon please, Val!' Journalist 'One of my favourite authors.' Sara Paretsky
'Move over Morse . . . a refreshing detective story' New Woman
'Plot, characterisation, pace are all first-rate.' Sunday Telegraph
'Tough, exciting, moody and unpredictable.' The Times
'Move over V I Warshawski , . . pacey and wittily written . . . bound to make McDermid one of our favourite detective writers' Options
'Witty and corrosively unsentimental reading.' She
'Fresh and funny with a spanking sense of time and place.' Literary Review
'Fun at all levels.' Evening Standard
'McDermid's snappy, often comic prose keeps the story humming.' Publishers Weekly

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First British Edition Harpercollins (1996)

Paperback - Harpercollins (1997)

Blue Genes
See Review by Liz Lees
Kate Brannigan isn't just having a bad day. She's having a bad week. The worst week of her life, if you really want to know. Her boyfriend's death notice is in the newspaper, her plans to capture a team of heartless fraudsters are in disarray and a Celtic neo-punk band under siege want her to rescue them from the saboteurs who are trashing their posters and their gigs. As if that isn't enough, Kate's business partner wants her to buy him out so he can emigrate to Australia. Fine, except that private eyes with principles never have that kind of cash. Kate can't even cry on her best friend's shoulder, for Alexis has worries of her own. Her girlfriend Chris is pregnant, and when the doctor responsible for the pioneering and illegal fertility treatment is murdered, Alexis needs Kate like she's never needed her before.
So what's a girl to do?
Delving into the alien world of medical experimentation and the underbelly of the rock music business, Kate confronts betrayal and cold-blooded greed as she fights to save not only her livelihood but her life as well...
Val McDermid is now established as one of Britain's most accomplished crime writers. Blue Genes, the fifth novel in her compulsive series featuring Kate Brannigan, will not only be welcomed by her legions of fans but should win her many more.
"Tough, funny, intensely topical. McDermid stands out as one of the few contemporary writers actually nourished by the here and now." Philip Oakes, Literary Review
"Val McDermid's Kate Brannigan should remain firmly at the top of the private investigator's league" Sunday Telegraph
"Solid pleasure... so smooth you can almost kid yourself you haven't been sitting on the edge of your seat throughout." Mail on Sunday

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Paperback - Harpercollins (2002)

First British Edition Harpercollins (1995)

Paperback Harpercollins (1996)

The Mermaids Singing
See Review by Kay Mitchell
Winner of the 1995 Gold Dagger Award for Best Crime Novel of the Year
Now a major TV series starring Robson Green as Tony Hill and Hermione Norris as Carol Jordan
You always remember the first time. Isn't that what they say about sex? How much more true it is of murder...
Up till now, the only serial killers Tony Hill had encountered were safely behind bars. This one's different - this one's on the loose. In the northern town of Bradfield four men have been found mutilated and tortured. Fear grips the city; no man feels safe. Clinical psychologist Tony Hill is brought in to profile the killer. A man with more than enough sexual problems of his own, Tony himself becomes the unsuspecting target in a battle of wits and wills where he has to use every ounce of his professional skill and personal nerve to survive.
A tense, brilliantly written psychological thriller, The Mermaids Singing explores the tormented mind of a serial killer unlike any the world of fiction has ever seen.
'Compelling and shocking' Minette Walters
'Terrifying but stylish, cruel and compassionate. Truly, horribly good' Mail on Sunday
'Gripping, intelligent stuff' Marcel Berlins, The Times
'A superb psychological thriller' Cosmopolitan
'Think of psychological profiling and TV's Cracker springs to mind, but McDermid's latest thriller goes one better… a must for all crime fiction lovers' Company
'A deliciously gruesome serial killer thriller… Ms McDermid finds new ways to shock and revolt us' New York Times
'Turns the serial killer subgenre upside down with compelling but gruesome results… McDermid has many startling surprises in store and brilliantly pulls the rug out from under our feet, exploding the psychological cliches commonly found in more one-dimensional portraits of the twisted criminal mind' San Francisco Chronicle

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