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Debra Hamel is the author of a number of books about ancient Greece. She writes and blogs from her subterranean lair in North Haven, CT. Read more.

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Books by Debra Hamel:

THE BATTLE OF ARGINUSAE :
VICTORY AT SEA AND ITS TRAGIC AFTERMATH IN THE FINAL YEARS OF THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR
By Debra Hamel


Kindle | paperback (US)
Kindle | paperback (UK)

KILLING ERATOSTHENES:
A TRUE CRIME STORY
FROM ANCIENT ATHENS
By Debra Hamel


Kindle | paperback (US)
Kindle | paperback (UK)

READING HERODOTUS:
A GUIDED TOUR THROUGH THE WILD BOARS, DANCING SUITORS, AND CRAZY TYRANTS OF THE HISTORY
By Debra Hamel


paperback | Kindle | hardcover (US)
paperback | hardcover (UK)

THE MUTILATION OF THE HERMS:
UNPACKING AN ANCIENT MYSTERY
By Debra Hamel


Kindle | paperback (US)
Kindle | paperback (UK)

TRYING NEAIRA:
THE TRUE STORY OF A COURTESAN'S SCANDALOUS LIFE IN ANCIENT GREECE
By Debra Hamel


paperback | hardcover (US)
paperback | hardcover (UK)

SOCRATES AT WAR:
THE MILITARY HEROICS OF AN ICONIC INTELLECTUAL
By Debra Hamel


Kindle (US) | Kindle (UK)

ANCIENT GREEKS IN DRAG:
THE LIBERATION OF THEBES AND OTHER ACTS OF HEROIC TRANSVESTISM
By Debra Hamel


Kindle (US) | Kindle (UK)

IT WAS A DARK AND STORMY TWEET:
FIVE HUNDRED 1ST LINES IN 140 CHARACTERS OR LESS
By Debra Hamel


Kindle | paperback (US)
Kindle | paperback (UK)

PRISONERS OF THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR
By Debra Hamel


Kindle (US) | Kindle (UK)





Book-blog.com by Debra Hamel is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution - Noncommercial - No Derivative Works 3.0 License.


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McDermid, Val: The Torment of Others

  Amazon  

5 stars

Derek Tyler has been in a mental institution for two years, locked away after confessing to a string of savage crimes, the ritual mutilation and murder of four prostitutes. Derek's not a bright guy, but his crimes were meticulously planned: the Voice, after all, had given him very precise instructions. Elevated by his acts of sadism, Derek was changed from one of life's losers to a somebody whose crimes could terrorize a community and stump the police, at least for a while. But two years on, with Derek safely behind the bars of his asylum, it's happening again: prostitutes are being killed in precisely the same way, grisly details that had never been released to the public replicated in a gory reprise of the earlier murders. And the Voice is commanding a new killer.

The elite major incident squad investigating the killings has brought in Britain's top psychological profiler to consult on the case, but Dr. Tony Hill is, frankly, at a loss. There is no doubt that Derek Tyler was guilty of the first crimes, and a copycat killer would need inside information about the Tyler murders to reenact them. More problematic is that no one else would want to reenact the murders, at least not for the purpose of satisfying their own sexual fantasies. As Dr. Hill repeatedly insists, no two people committing sexually motivated homicides will derive satisfaction from the same complex of details--how their victims are bound, how they are tortured, how they are killed.

While Tony Hill tries to enter the mind of the maniac cleaning up Bradfield's red-light district, the city's police department, under the leadership of DCI Carol Jordan, investigates the crime by more traditional means--poring through paperwork, interrogating everyone working and living in the seedy area in which the crimes took place, and planting an undercover policewoman among the city's vulnerable working girls.

Val McDermid's The Torment of Others, the fourth book in her series featuring profiler Tony Hill, is a solid police procedural and simply a very good read: well-written, with likeable but flawed good guys, creepy bad guys, and a plot that will keep you guessing until Tony himself starts putting the pieces together. And once he does that, some 60 pages from the book's close, readers will be hard pressed indeed to put this one down.

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