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What happens if a celebrity takes advantage of their cult of personality to murder? This is the premise Val McDermid sets up in this Tony Hill/Carol Jordan novel, The Wire in the Blood (a familiar name to any BBC viewer, as the television show took its name, and characters, from this series of books). Only this time, Tony and Carol find themselves in separate cities, with separate jobs. Carol is trying to move on, and her career up. That it is away from Tony Hill doesn't hurt. Meanwhile, Tony is taking on the training of new police officers for a national profiling taskforce. One overearger student appears to have discovered something, in a routine training, that is anything but routine, and Tony and Carol find themselves slowly brought back together by a crime loyalty will not let them extricate themselves from.

The first in a popular series made into a BBC show, this book introduces audiences to Dr. Tony Hill, a criminal psychologist profiling for the police. McDermid hones her craft here, unraveling the story to the reader as it unravels to Dr. Hill, giving you the delicious feeling of solving at along with him, as you go - or, if you're good, ahead of him. But you would need to be very, very good. McDermid gets the in's and out's of profiling and policework accurate without being dull; the only reason she appears to be not so popular in America is the simple reason that she's British, and the stories are set in England. However, if you enjoy Kathy Reich's Temperence Brennan/Bones series/show, do yourself a favour and pick up The Mermaid's Singing - you will not be disappointed.

Continuing the Tony Hill and Carol Jordan books, McDermid moves her main characters to Europe, giving them a chance to branch out from the serial-killer infested Bradfield. In many ways the most disturbing of McDermid's Hill/Jordan books, not for its graphicness but, like classic horror movies, the hints of the graphic that she allows your mind to fill in for her. It's an excellent trick, and it works well; the book grows in intensity and potentiality for disaster as the pages turn, and by the time you're at the last 50 pages, you won't be able to put it down. However, the one thing this is weak on, compared to the others, is the detailed profiling and process Tony goes through in order to catch the killer. It's justified by the split plot that is woven together, and the continuing exploration of Hill and Jordan's relationship, but those expecting the detailed profiling of previous books should be warned that they won't find it here.