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    Cross and Burn
    Cross and Burn
    Cross and Burn
    Audiobook13 hours

    Cross and Burn

    Written by Val McDermid

    Narrated by Gerard Doyle

    4/5

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    About this audiobook

    McDermid is as smooth a practitioner of crime fiction as anyone out there. . . . She' s the best we' ve got."-- New York Times Book Review Internationally best-selling crime writer Val McDermid' s work speaks for itself: her books have sold millions of copies worldwide, won numerous accolades, and attracted a devoted following of readers around the globe. Her latest, Cross and Burn , picks up where The Retribution left off: following the best crime-fighting team in the UK-- clinical psychologist Tony Hill and police detective Carol Jordan-- who when we last saw them were barely speaking, and whose relationship will now be challenged even further. Guilt and grief have driven a wedge between long time crime-fighting partners psychologist Tony Hill and ex-DCI Carol Jordan. But just because they're not talking doesn't mean the killing stops. Someone is killing women. Women who bear an unsettling resemblance to Carol Jordan. And when the evidence begins to point in a disturbing direction, thinking the unthinkable seems the only possible answer. Cornered by events, Tony and Carol are forced to fight for themselves and each other as never before. An edge-of-your-seat page-turner from one of the best crime writers we have, Cross and Burn is a chilling, unforgettable read. " Smooth. Confident. Deeply satisfying. What else can you say about McDermid' s writing? . . . The Jordan-Hill relationship remains the star of the show. . . . It' s a match made in heaven amid hell on earth."-- Entertainment Weekly on The Torment of Others
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRecorded Books, Inc.
    Release dateOct 22, 2013
    ISBN9781470393670
    Author

    Val McDermid

    VAL McDERMID is the internationally bestselling author of more than twenty crime novels. She has won the CWA Gold Dagger Award for Best Crime Novel of the Year and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize; her novels have been selected as New York Times Notable Books and have been Edgar Award finalists. She was the 2010 recipient of the CWA Cartier Diamond Dagger for Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Crime Writing. More than 10 million copies of her books have been sold around the world. She lives in the north of England. Visit her website at www.valmcdermid.com.

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    Reviews for Cross and Burn

    4/5

    129 ratings13 reviews

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    • 4/5
      I don't know how I missed this book, but it explains a lot about where #9 starts. Weirdly, you can read #9 without this one, but I can't think why you'd want to. Checks all the boxes -- fast paced, creepy thriller with interesting profiling. A reunion with familiar and well loved characters, and a new chapter in everyone's life. Satisfying.
    • 4/5
      Cross and Burn by Val McDermid is the eighth book in her Tony Hill, Carol Jordan series of investigative crime novels. This particular book picks up directly from the last book as Carol and Tony are still dealing with the guilt and grief that destroyed their relationship. Carol has removed herself from law enforcement and Tony is trying to move on without her in his life.The central character in this book is another member of their team, DS Paula McIntyre who is now working on another team but finding it difficult to adjust to a new chief. Someone is brutally killing women and when Tony finds himself a suspect, Paula can’t help but call her previous team members together, including Carol Jordan, to exonerate him. Val McDermid can always be relied upon to provide a thrilling, gripping story and Cross and Burn is no exception. Her excellent writing and story telling are the reason that I am still loving this long running series. Now I am looking forward to the next book and seeing if Carol and Tony can continue to find their way back to each other.
    • 4/5
      My first Val McDermid mystery thriller, and I was not disappointed. Coming in at at book #8 was not the easiest especially this one as the story was a continuation of the previous book. We join our leads in the aftermath of their last investigation, which was disastrous, to say the least. Carol Jordan has quit and taken off on her own and the others are rudderless. Most of the story is through the eyes of Paula McIntyre, who has joined a new team.
      The dead body of a woman is found, one of Paula's friends goes missing, and everything spirals out of control. From the beginning you also get chapters from the murderer's point of view, which feeds us just enough information to keep the pace up, and reel you in. The problem for me is that I do not particularly like that form of narrative, where we see things through the eyes of the killer and get his worldview. I prefer not knowing, until the big reveal at the end. Also, the evidence against Tony Hill is not very convincingly explained away so I can understand why the lead investigator set her sights on him. And it remains that way at the end... Why didn't Nadia dry clean her jacket for an entire year? Or if she did, how did the blood stain remain so long???
      On the positive side - I loved the fact that almost all the leads were strong, female characters, with their flaws, obviously. And the males supported that without being dimwits or macho. I also loved the commentary on modern policing vs TV cop shows, where the writer hits you with the reality of budgets and spending policies! Also, the reality of the dangers women face in the world, even while taking a stroll in your own neighbourhood, was driven home hard and true. This story is not for those who want the kidnapped ones saved at the end, and all the strings ties up with a pretty bow.
      But at the end, for me, Kathy Reichs will always be my favourite modern crime writer! I own ALL her books in paperback, but I think I will make a trip to the Public Library to borrow more of this series.
    • 5/5
      This is very much a book of two halves. As a result of the situation the characters found themselves in the first half of the book was missing it's successful chemistry. The second half of the book then became unputdownable and had to be read in one sitting. This is one of my favourite series of all time, and I can't wait to see where the series goes next. Hurry up and write the next one Val. If you haven't read this series you need to but only if you like psychological and gritty! Unusually for me I would say you do need to read this series in order. In the end gave it 4.5 stars.
    • 5/5
      This is the follow up to "The Retribution" if you're a faithful fan of this popular series featuring Dr. Tony Hill & DCI Carol Jordan. But no worries if you're not. I haven't read the previous book & had no problem picking up the story line while enjoying this excellent police procedural.
      After the fallout from the case involving serial killer Jacko Vance, few lives have survived unaltered. The members of the MCI have gone their separate ways after it was disbanded. Tony is rarely called upon these days as the police force blames budget cuts. Paula has become a DS & is now attached to a new DCI in Bradfield. Stacy wastes her mad forensic cyber skills in an unchallenging position. And Carol has walked away from it all. She quit the force, moved into the barn where her brother & his partner were murdered by Vance & has cut ties to her old colleagues.
      She & Tony were set to move in together. He had inherited an old Victorian but by the time Vance was through, his house was destroyed & so was his relationship with Carol. She blames him for not predicting Vance would go after her brother. Crippled by guilt & unemployed, she decides to lose herself in DIY. Maybe if she can fix up the barn, she can apply those same skills to her life. Remember the old adage "man plans, God laughs"? Well, before too long, the whole gang will be drawn together again in a way none of them could have foreseen.
      Paula starts her new job as a "bagman" for DCI Alex Fielding, a tough as nails woman determined to make her mark. They catch a case involving the horrific murder of Nadia, a pharmaceutical sales rep. She was young, blonde, attractive & professional. No one should have to witness what was done to her body and Paula & co. have a bad feeling about the killer capable of such an act.
      Bev is the single mother of Torin, a 14 year old buy. When she doesn't come home one night, her son turns to the police & meets Paula. She takes an interest because she met Bev through her partner, Elinor Blessing. Bev is a pharmacist at the same hospital. She's young, blonde, attractive & professional.
      Marie is a successful business manager, starting a new job at a mobile phone company. She soon realizes her biggest challenge may be dealing with the old boys club. She is young, blonde, attractive & professional. And soon, she'll also be missing.
      What follows is a fast paced thriller you will resent putting down, even as you cringe. This book really features Paula. She'a at the heart of the action as the investigation takes off & when one of the old gang is arrested as the killer, she secretly gets the others together to prove her boss wrong. Maybe while pooling their professional skills, some of their personal wounds will begin to heal.
      In alternate chapters we meet & follow the activities of the real murderer, a guy who will make your skin crawl & his game plan is truly horrifying.
      The title comes from a quote about bridges...which to cross & which to burn. It's an apt metaphor for the interpersonal bridges tested in this gripping novel. You feel for Tony & Carol, both of whom are lost in their grief & guilt. Ironically, they are the only ones who could help each other but first they'd have to actually speak.
      If you were to look at all my reviews (150+ on amazon.ca), you might notice I rarely give out 5 stars. For that to happen, I have to feel absorbed by the book, transported to its' setting & surrounded by the characters....characters I might like or hate but always believe. I try to give what I appreciate from other reviewers, an honest opinion of whether a book is worth your hard earned cash.So I'll give the short list of what you'll find here: a tightly written complex plot, layered & fully realized characters you care about & a bad guy who will have you double checking all your locks. Especially if you're young, blonde......you know.
      Highly recommend.
    • 4/5
      Val McDermid is one of the rare breed of writers that only gets better with time and the eighth outing for Tony Hill and Carol Jordan is only proof extraordinaire. This can be read as a stand alone, but I recommend reading them in order to experience the psychological development of the characters. McDermid develops the reader into an artful profiler as much as Tony Hill if they are willing to work for it. I liked this specific story line as the serial killer's search for the perfect wife was someone in their late thirties, rather than too young. I also appreciate the diversity of characters in race, ethnicity, and sexual orientation without becoming caricatured. An excellent read and a solid series!Provided by publisher
    • 3/5
      I enjoyed reading about Tony Hill and Carol Jordan, and I liked getting to know what happened after the occasions in the last book. It was an exciting and interesting story, BUT…. I can´t really put my finger on what I missed, maybe a feeling that the novel could have been a little more complex and that the ending came quite suddenly and in a sort of haste. Nevertheless it is a good read and I´m looking forward to the next one.
    • 4/5
      I received a review copy of Cross and Burn by Val McDermid through NetGalley.com. It is the latest in the Tony Hill, Carol Jordan series.We cross and burn bridges – accidentally, deliberately, under duress. Carol Jordan has burned her bridges following the murder of her family. Distance and hard work are bringing healing, but also new bonds, including one to her first dog. Far away, though, the world goes on and a serial killer is murdering blonds. The news that Tony Hill has been accused forces Carol to decide if she has really burned her bridges or only scorched them.As always, Val McDermid delivers a fast paced, expertly written thriller, this one with a lovely twist at the end. I am especially pleased by the "and" rather than a trite "or" in the title.
    • 4/5
      Val McDermid's latest book is the eighth entry in her Tony Hill and Carol Jordan series. Cross and Burn picks up a few months after the ending of The Retribution. (my review) The series is set in England. Tony Hill is a clinical psychologist who assists the Bradfield Police Department with profiling. He's good at his job...."he understood them because he had come within a hair's breadth of being them." Carol Jordan is a Detective Chief Inspector with Bradfield. They've made a spectacular team professionally. And they're slowly building a personal relationship as well. Or were.....their last case ended with catastrophic results. Carol has left the force and retreated from everything. Tony is functioning, but barely. And their unit has been disbanded. But, when someone starts targeting women who look like Carol, they must put differences aside to stop a killer. McDermid grabbed me from the opening pages. It is the killer who has the first chapter.... 'He woke every morning with a prickle of excitement. Would today be the day? Would he finally meet her, his perfect wife? He knew who she was, of course. He'd been watching her for a couple of weeks now, growing used to her habits, getting to know who her friends were, learning her little ways. How she pushed her hair behind her ears when she settled into the driver's seat of her car. How she turned all the lights on as soon as she came home to her lonely flat. How she never ever seemed to check in her rear-view mirror." Creepy! McDermid cuts back and forth between the investigation and the killer's point of view. His chapters are deliciously chilling. McDermid is a master of the police procedural. The plots in McDermid's books are devious, dark and gritty. But for this reader, it is the characters that draw me back time and time again. I truly had no idea where McDermid could take this series after the ending of the last book. In Cross and Burn it is DC Paula McIntyre who takes the lead role. I enjoyed seeing another recurring character fleshed out. But Tony and Carol's storyline is the one that intrigues me the most. It's real and raw - I sometimes feel like an interloper, inadvertently intruding on someone's private conversations and grief. The title comes from a quote by David Russell...."The hardest thing in life is to know which bridge to cross and which to burn." The last few pages put a close to this case, but leaves the door wide open for the next installment - one I'll eagerly be awaiting. Although you can read any of this series as a stand alone, I heartily recommend starting at the beginning - it's a must for crime lovers. A television series - Wire in the Blood - is also based on these characters.
    • 4/5
      Carol Jordan has left the police force and vanished off the radar, her unit has been closed and the team dispersed and Tony Hill is living on his narrow boat in the centre old Bradfield, trying to make sense of life without Carol. Obviously things have changed radically in this, the eight in the series.DS Paula McIntyre, a former colleague of Carol's, is now working for the ambitious but hardly likable DI Alex Fielding [a character McDermid actually 'borrowed' from the TV series The Wire in the Blood]: she uses Tony to bounce ideas off, although he is no longer employed as a profiler, and the two of them investigate the kidnapping, mutilation and murder of local blondes, who look a little like Carol. By an unlikely coincidence, Tony's blood is found on the clothes of one of the victims and despite his long history of crime-fighting, Fielding hurries to arrest him. Paula tracks down Carol, who still resents Tony for not preventing the murder of her brother and his partner, and persuades her to help. A measure of Carol's change is that she now has a dog while previously she was a committed cat person. Naturally Carol gest grabbed by the kidnapper - McDermid has never spared this poor women anything, and she's been raped, wounded and had her family massacred in the course of the series - but not for long: Tony is released, the real murderer gets his just desserts, and there is a thaw in the relationship with carol accepting for the first time that there might be a space for Tony in her future. It's a good book - McDermid writes no other sort - but the gay element was pushed a little, although not as much as in the previous story - and one felt there were some issues left unresolved.
    • 5/5
      I have been reading Val McDermid novels for years, way back when I thought she was a man. Her books make fantastic audiobooks, with deeply flawed characters with personalities we recognize in ourselves and others close to us. Suspenseful and intricately plotted, they epitomize the book you just can't put down. "Cross and Burn", her latest thriller, has Tony Hill and Carol Jordan at odds, after Tony's failure to anticipate the fatal attack on Carol's brother and sister-in-law. McDermid's technique of using each chapter to move an individual character along their path works stunningly at building suspense as it provides the reader with a sense of real-time action. While the criminal is committing their crime or crimes, the other characters are going about their lives, mostly unaware of the threat so near to them. The reader can only cheer them on as they struggle to put together the pieces necessary to solve the crime. I highly recommend any books by Val McDermid.
    • 4/5
      Cross and Burn, the latest by author Val McDermid begins where The Retribution left off. Carol Jordan, racked with grief and guilt over the deaths of her brother and his partner, has left the police. Her team has been separated and Paula McIntyre is now bagman for DCI Fielding, Carol's replacement. Fielding is a single-minded, by-the-book, I'm-in charge kind of leader and she despises profilers like Tony Hill who is as racked by guilt as Carol.The story opens with the thoughts and plans of a particularly vicious serial killer who is targeting women who look like Carol. When a friend of Paula's goes missing, Paula is approached by her teenaged son who is convinced something must have happened to her. Paula agrees but her new boss doesn't. Paula decides to investigate anyway and calls Tony to help her. Soon it becomes clear that her friend was the latest victim of the killer and, unbelievably, all the evidence points to Tony. This is author McDermid's eighth Tony Hill book, not to mention the British TV series Wire in the Blood based on the books. One would think it would start to get stale by now and yet somehow McDermid is able to maintain the quality and integrity of the series and it is still one of the best police procedurals around today. And a lot of that is down to the characters. Tony and Carol who, despite all their neuroses or maybe because of them, never fail to gain the empathy of the reader. Although the story is tale of good versus evil, it is definitely not simple. McDermid's characters have nuances and character flaws including self-doubt which makes it easy to relate to them. Even the serial killer, despite his sadism, has a fascinating back story which explains his actions without excusing them. In this book, though, it is Paula who carries the tale and, in her, McDermid has created one of the best female characters in the genre - smart, strong but able to bend when necessary.There is enough background from the previous book that this could be read as a stand-alone. However, for fans of police procedurals and for those who prefer a more nuanced story, you really should check out the entire series. It's definitely a huge cut above the usual run-of-the mill thriller.
    • 4/5
      I'm very fond of Val McDermid. I like her series and her standalones and remain impressed with both her output and her continued quality. McDermid tells stories and she tells those stories well. Her characters cover the waterfront of diversity and this makes her stories feel even more real to me - nothing is whitewashed or sanitized, it's all out there just like in real life.Cross and Burn is number eight in the Tony Hill/Carol Jordan series. Briefly, Tony Hill is a forensic psychologist and Carol Jordan is a DCI (Detective Chief Inspector) who team together in order to solve particularly brutal crimes of all kinds (both serial and isolated). Their relationship is close and distant and hovering and complex, but they're great as a pair for the reader even though they can't seem to work it out. If Ms. McDermid were a more conventional writer the various kinds of flapping about and hand-wringing that accompany the ambiguous nature of the Hill/Jordan relationship would make me toss these books against the wall and move on, but she manages this part of her story with admirable restraint.This is the first book where the Hill/Jordan team is separated due to the events of the previous book, The Retribution. Paula McIntyre, familiar to readers of the series, takes center stage as she tries to determine who is killing women who look just like Carol Jordan. Tony and Carol are in this book, but in many ways this is more a book about the people who worked with them, their team, and the sudden disbanding of it. I've always liked Paula as a character - she's so very straightforward and has a keen insight into the heart of a matter. It was lovely to have her character fleshed out more in this book. Equally lovely was to watch Tony and Carol find some new ways to proceed in the world and to deal with the glimpse into the notion that while they are valuable, the world still goes on around them and without them.If you haven't read the series, it's accessible to entry at any point, although I would recommend going back to the very first one and reading through just for the pleasure of watching it all unfold. I enjoyed Cross and Burn and read it avidly like the treat it was - highly recommended for lovers of crime fiction in all its guises.