HarperCollins, London 2008

It seems to this reader here that Val McDermid has either lost her stamina or her creative powers are somewhat exhausted. Or her publishers don´t dare to criticise her any more. Whatever the reason, the result is rather disappointing.

At the beginning of the story Dr Tony Hill is attacked by a lunatic, who almost cuts off his leg with an axe, so Tony has to do his ingenious work from a hospital bed. And DCI Carol Jordan desperately needs his help in more than one way. A famous football player is poisoned, a bomb explodes in the Bradfield football stadium, together with a Pakistani suicide bomber. But all is not as it looks, of course.

The “Imperial Storm Troopers”, a special task force against terrorism, takes over, and gives McDermid a chance to show her former biting sarcasm  - and the reader something to chuckle about.

The rest of the “thriller” is too outlandish, too botchy to waste more words on it.