The Torment of Others

The Torment of Others is a crime novel by Scottish author Val McDermid, and is the fourth entry in her popular Carol Jordan and Dr. Tony Hill series, which has been successfully adapted into the television series Wire in the Blood. The novel was shortlisted for the Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger, and won the 2006 Theakston's Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award. As with her other novels in the Tony Hill series, the title is an extract from a poem by T. S. Eliot.

Plot summary

Several years after Derek Tyler was incarcerated for slaughtering several prostitutes, another lady of the night is found dead under similar modus operandi. Could police be on the trail of a copycat killer, or are there even darker motives at work here? As Dr. Tony Hill investigates, accompanied by the jaded DCI Carol Jordan, he's drawn into a tangled web of degeneracy, psychosis and mind manipulation...

Reception

The novel received generally positive reviews from literary critics.

While this may not be the best starting point for those new to McDermid, enthusiasts will find all the key elements are firmly and satisfyingly in place. - Amazon.com

It is a tribute to the power of Val McDermid's imagination that she made this one seem so believable. - Daily Telegraph