Trick of the Dark by Val McDermid.

Follow psychiatrist Charlie Flint as she solves the mystery surrounding the death of a groom on his wedding day plus other deaths that maybe linked.

Although this novel involves Val McDermid’s trademark storytelling about profiling offenders, Trick of the Dark is a standalone.

I found Trick of the Dark to be a good mix of offender profiling, psychology, mystery, authoring skills, characterisation, attraction between people, love and lesbianism.

I loved how Val explored the psychology of offenders and the challenges they pose to profilers. So many things can go wrong and although Charlie Flint acted in good faith, she got the blame from the media. I quickly developed an empathy for Charlie as she does her level best, believes strongly in justice and is willing to get to the bottom of this mystery.

I liked how Val told her story. One of the central characters is called Jay and to tell her backstory, is writing her memoir. This is a nice move for 2 reasons - it threads background into the mystery AND explores the authoring skills used to produce a memoir that may have some tweaking of the truth to make it a better read.

I loved the range of characters in Trick of the Dark. Don’t get hung up on gender as there is only one man in this story, a friend of Charlie’s. So apart from Nick, Trick of the Dark is ALL about women. But don’t let that put male readers off, women are not from a different planet, they just like shops. All the women’s characters are fully developed and there are more lesbians than you can shake a stick at. Val fully explores how lesbians get psychically attracted to each other, how their love grows and the many problems that can occur within lesbian relationships. Lesbianism plays a big part in Trick of the Dark and I liked its openness to a lifestyle that can be misunderstood by the ignorant.

As a hetrosexual male, I was not discouraged by all the lesbianism in Trick of the Dark because I understand how two people are attracted to each other and can fall in love. There was nothing uncomfortable or vulgar about the lesbian scenes within this story. The Prusik loop was NOT used in the bedroom but whilst climbing on the Isle of Skye. There are no cheap sexy thrills in Trick of the Dark but a mature understanding of what makes people tick.

There are some nice snips of humour along the way, for example…

She gestured with her knife towards a large padded envelope by the bowl where Charlie’s two Weetabix sat. ‘Postman’s been. Still don’t know why you gave up cornflakes for those,’ she added, pointing at the cereal bars with her knife. ‘They look like panty shields for masochists.’

...Sorry folks but once you have read that, you can’t get the image out of your mind!

The plot of Trick of the Dark is a good one and I enjoyed it far, far more than The Last Temptation. I found Trick of the Dark to be a GOOD read and it gets 4 stars from me.

Trick of the Dark was written in 2010 and is available as an Amazon Kindle eBook.