A Long Runner series of novels by Scottish author Val McDermid, the Tony Hill and Carol Jordan book series has run between 1995 and 2019 so far. They are all set in the fictional Northern city of Bradfield and deal with a series of extremely brutal crimes, which are solved by Carol Jordan and criminal psychologist Tony Hill. It was the source of the 2000s drama Wire in the Blood, although the books continued after the series' cancellation in 2009.
So far, they are:
- The Mermaids Singing (1995)
- The Wire in the Blood (1997)
- The Last Temptation (2002)
- The Torment of Others (2004)
- Beneath the Bleeding (2007)
- Fever of the Bone (2009)
- The Retribution (2011)
- Cross and Burn (2013)
- Splinter the Silence (2015)
- Insidious Intent (2017)
- How The Dead Speak (2019)
Tropes include:
- Aborted Arc: Tony's impotence is mostly dropped from the books post-The Mermaids Singing, only receiving cursory mentions every now and again.
Word of God states that she regretted that subplot. - Abusive Offspring: The killer of Cross and Burn is revealed to have raped his stepmother, possibly more than once when he was a teenager.
- Adoption Is Not an Option: In Fever of the Bone, Diane refuses to consider adoption but kills her husband and his children. His kids are sired via a sperm bank, suggesting that the couples feel the same way.
- Author Appeal: Spotlight-Stealing Squad member Paula is a lesbian who adopted children, like the author.
- Bloodier and Gorier: The books are noticeably gorier and Darker and Edgier than the series, which is saying something given how dark the series is. For example, Donna gets her arm viciously crushed by a vice while being raped and still alive, and then starves to death in The Wire In The Blood; although she is raped in the series, her arm is not damaged and she survives.
- Break the Cutie:
- Tony is very broken by the end of The Mermaids Singing.
- Carol in The Last Temptation (book)
- Paula in The Torment of Others (book)
- Firefighter Arsonist: A subplot in "Wire In the Blood" focuses on Carol Jordan discovering a serial arsonist by linking several fires at abandoned factories and warehouses over the last few years that follow a subtle but clear pattern. The Station Manager of the local Fire Brigade assisting her believes it to be a pyromaniac. However, Tony, upon getting a chance to examine the data, concludes this to be impossible as there has never been a case of a pyromaniac on this scale with enough self-control to keep up such a reliable regime for this long without escalating, concluding instead the arsonist must be somehow benefitting from each fire. Sure enough, one of the part-time firemen is a compulsive gambler in severe debt, who has been starting the fires to ensure work and thus a quick payout to keep their head just above water.
- Furnace Body Disposal: InThe Wire in the Blood, it's mentioned that after torturing, raping, and killing his victims, Jacko Vance put their bodies and anything else that linked them to him into the furnace at the hospital where he volunteered.
- Indirect Serial Killer: The Voice" from "The Torment of Others" aka Detective Sergeant Jan Shields is an egotistical sexual sadist driven by an obsession with having absolute control over other human beings. To that end, they brainwash the vulnerable Derek Tyler into being her "trained monkey" and has him brutally murder four prostitutes for her own pleasure. Following Tyler being arrested, the voice brainwashes another person to carry on their killing spree.
- Never a Runaway: Jacko Vance's victims are all teenage girls, and are all believed to have run away. Even though Donna's mother knows that her daughter wouldn't run away, she is unable to convince the police of this.
- Not the First Victim: In the book, The Wire In The Blood, Shaz links Jacko Vance to a series of abductions and murders of young women with long dark hair, all of which are, at the most, considered runaways, if they are reported at all. Made even worse by the fact that nobody is aware of Vance's current victim, Donna, until weeks into her imprisonment, and even then it's Shaz, who Vance kills, making her his first "official" victim.
- Samus Is a Girl:
- Played with by Angelica in The Mermaids Singing; she's a transwoman but is supposedly to be
"really" a gay man. - 'The Voice' in The Torment of Others that drives men to rape and murder women is female police officer Jan.
- Played with by Angelica in The Mermaids Singing; she's a transwoman but is supposedly to be
- The Loins Sleep Tonight: Tony suffers from erectile dysfunction, which is most mentioned in The Mermaids Singing, as Val McDermid later stated she regretted it. It does come up fleetingly in some other books, though.
- Predatory Prostitute: Angelica Bain is a trans/gay phone sex operator who becomes fixated on some of her customers, tracks them down, and viciously tortures them to death. In the book, she's explicitly confirmed to have been a prostitute in the past and prostituted herself to fund her transition.
- Rape as Drama:
- A lot of the Victim of the Week characters are victims of sexual assault or violence. Jack Vance rapes his victims in The Wire in the Blood, as does the killer in Cross and Bone.
- Carol is raped while undercover in The Torment of Others.
- Spotlight-Stealing Squad: Paula gets a lot more screen time in the books, leading investigations and adopting a murder victim's child. It has proven divisive; some find her too bland and perfect, others like her, and some are in the middle, liking the character but feeling that she distracts from Tony and Carol.
- Revenge Porn Blackmail: This befalls Paula McIntyre's adopted 15-year-old son Torin in "Insidious Intent" making up a minor subplot. Catfished online by someone he believed to be a beautiful older girl, he was persuaded into taking and sending her several explicit photos, then blackmailed for a large sum of money he didn't have under the threat of sending them to all his classmates. He finally opens up to Paula, who's friend Stacey Chen is able to track down the blackmailer, one of Torin's classmates who he unintentionally humiliated when he turned her down for going to a school dance. Cornered by Stacy and Paula, she confesses to everything admitting she never would have actually shared the photos and just wanted to humiliate Thorin, and events just spiralled out of her control.
- Terminally-Ill Criminal: Revealed to be the case of Stalky, the killer from "Beneath The Bleeding." Discovering he had contracted a fatal case of AIDS and was going to be dead before he reached his thirties, thus meaning he would never accomplish any of his dreams, he decided to take revenge by poisoning all the people who had managed to accomplish them instead of him first.
- Trans Equals Gay: Angelica in The Mermaids Singing firmly believes that the only true relationships are between a man and woman and transitions as a result.
- Two Lines, No Waiting: A common structure, especially post-The Retribution where there will usually be a case happening simultaneous to Carol and Tony's pining and alienation: The Last Temptation does show this earlier when Carol is undercover in a smuggling ring and Tony is investigating a killer of psychiatrists.
- Visible Victimology:
- In "Wire in the Blood" and "The Retribution", Jacko Vance is obsessed with teenage girls who have straight dark hair, resembling his first girlfriend, Jilly, who he seduces, crushes their arms, rapes, and leaves to die.
- The killer of "Cross and Burn" kidnaps, tortures, and ultimately kills women who have blonde hair and resemble his wife. While she fled from him after years of Domestic Abuse, she was killed in a car accident along with his children; he was filled with rage directed at her due to this, and also fetishizes whiteness after raping his Thai stepmother as a teenager as he believed the ethnic difference marked his father out as "inadequate." He's also a racist who brutally murdered one of the women for being Polish, as she had an accent that marked her out as "different" from his preferred type. This plot point brings Tony back into the fold, as the women happen to resemble Carol, too.
- Wunza Plot: A psychiatrist and academic (Tony) and a police officer (Carol).
