The Last Temptation: A Novel - Hardcover

McDermid, Val

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0312290896 ISBN 13: 9780312290894

Publisher: Minotaur Books, 2002

Synopsis

Mapping the minds of murderers is what Dr. Tony Hill does better than anyone. So when a twisted killer starts targeting psychologists across Northern Europe, Hill is the obvious choice to track the executioner's mental and physical journey.

Except that Tony, still bearing the scars of past cases, doesn't want to do this anymore.

But the killer is about to strike uncomfortably close to home. The next victim is a friend and colleague. And Tony's former partner, Detective Carol Jordan, is directly in the murderer's path, working undercover in a world where human life means less than the smallest drug deal. She needs Tony's help as much as the beleaguered European police officials do.

Now the danger is closing in. Confronting the worst of modern crime and struggling to unravel roots that lie deep in the tormented past of Nazi atrocities and Stasi abuses, Tony and Carol are forced to battle for survival against overwhelming odds. In this morass of double-cross and double-dealing, they have no one to trust but each other. Deftly merging the dark terrain of forensic psychology with the brooding, crime-streaked world of post-Cold War Europe, McDermid's latest is an unrivaled tour de force that takes Tony Hill further into the mind of a killer than he's ever dared to go before.

About this title

From the Back Cover:

Electrifying critics and readers alike with her award-winning novels, bestselling author Val McDermid spins another masterful thriller, which reveals the dark dreams of her most ingenious-and chillingly believable-villain yet...

No evil can resist...
Coming to terms over her breakup with criminal profiler Dr. Tony Hill, Chief Inspector Carol Jordan plunges into a risky undercover sting: track down a European drug trafficker and gain his confidence. But she's being tracked as well-by a serial killer whose psychosexual madness is born out of the darkest corners of history.

No victim can escape...
In quiet isolation, Tony Hill is laying to rest the scars of his past-until he's recruited back into business on a case he can't ignore. An evil is striking uncomfortably close to home, and casting a killer shadow over the life of his long-time colleague and sometimes lover.

The Last Temptation
As the danger closes in, and as Tony and Carol cross paths to navigate the terrain of a shattered human mind, they have no one left to trust but themselves-and fear that there's no place left to run as a killer promises to fulfill his most twisted dreams.

About the Author:

Val McDermid grew up in a Scottish mining community and read English at Oxford. She was a journalist for sixteen years and is now a full-time writer. In 1995 she won the Gold Dagger Award for Best Crime Novel of the Year. Her novel A Place of Execution won a Los Angeles Times Book Prize, was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year, won the Anthony, Macavity, and Dilys awards for best novel, and was a finalist for the Edgar Award. She lives in England.

About this edition

• Publisher: Minotaur Books
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0312290896
• ISBN 13: 9780312290894
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 448