Explore our new BookBrowse Community Forum!

Book Summary and Reviews of Fever of the Bone by Val McDermid

Fever of the Bone by Val McDermid

Fever of the Bone

A Novel

by Val McDermid

  • Critics' Consensus:
  • Published:
  • Sep 2010, 512 pages
  • Rate this book

  • Buy This Book

About this book

Book Summary

Paperback Original. "You should have been a detective. If there's one thing the last year has proved, it's how good you are at finding things out. Not simple things. Hard things. Things that nobody is supposed to be able to find out. Things that are buried so deep nobody even thinks twice about them. The sort of things that turn people's lives inside out once they're exposed."

Meet Tony Hill's most twisted adversary - a killer with a shopping list of victims, a killer unmoved by youth and innocence, a killer driven by the most perverted of desires. The murder and mutilation of teenager Jennifer Maidment is horrific enough on its own. But it's not long before Tony realizes it's just the start of a brutal and ruthless campaign that's targeting an apparently unconnected group of young people. Struggling with the newly-awakened ghosts of his own past and desperate for distraction in his work, Tony battles to find the answers that will give him personal and professional satisfaction in his most testing investigation yet.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Reviews

Media Reviews

"Starred Review. McDermid demonstrates once again that she's as adept with matters of the heart as she is with murder." - Publishers Weekly

"It takes great skill to handle so many narrative strands with clarity without sacrificing the suspense – but McDermid does so with apparent ease" - Evening Standard (UK)

"McDermid is especially good at serving up a mix of hi-tech and old-fashioned coppering, as well as showing how proximity to extreme brutality can take its toll on even the toughest police officer." - The Guardian (UK)

"Fever Of The Bone is everything a great detective novel should be: pacey, gripping, clever and stylish and, most of all, a fantastic read." - Sunday Express (UK)

"Another cracker in the Tony Hill and Carol Jordan series from the most imaginative creator of serial killers we have." - The Daily Mail (UK)

"McDermid remains unrivalled at yoking chilling scenarios to a pulsing narrative; and Hill's torment is palpable in this scary, dark thriller. Horrible and brilliant." - The Observer (UK)

This information about Fever of the Bone was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

More Information

Scottish crime writer Val McDermid's books have won the Gold Dagger Award for Best Crime Novel of the Year and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, have been named New York Times Notable Books, and have been nominated for the Edgar Award. She is the winner of the CWA Cartier Diamond Dagger for Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Crime Writing. She lives in the north of England. This is the 26th in the series.

More Author Information

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

More Recommendations

Readers Also Browsed . . .

more thrillers...

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Top Picks

  • Book Jacket: Our Evenings
    Our Evenings
    by Alan Hollinghurst
    Alan Hollinghurst's novel Our Evenings is the fictional autobiography of Dave Win, a British ...
  • Book Jacket: Graveyard Shift
    Graveyard Shift
    by M. L. Rio
    Following the success of her debut novel, If We Were Villains, M. L. Rio's latest book is the quasi-...
  • Book Jacket: The Sisters K
    The Sisters K
    by Maureen Sun
    The Kim sisters—Minah, Sarah, and Esther—have just learned their father is dying of ...
  • Book Jacket: Linguaphile
    Linguaphile
    by Julie Sedivy
    From an infant's first attempts to connect with the world around them to the final words shared with...

Members Recommend

  • Book Jacket

    Pony Confidential
    by Christina Lynch

    In this whimsical mystery, a grumpy pony must clear his beloved human's name from a murder accusation.

Who Said...

What really knocks me out is a book that, when you're all done reading, you wish the author that wrote it was a ...

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Wordplay

Solve this clue:

F the M

and be entered to win..

Your guide toexceptional          books

BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.