I was so excited to have another installment in the Tony Hill/Carol Jordan series. Although this book is different in that the two characters are unable to interact, the chemistry that McDermid has built over the last several books in this series keep me hopeful that she will not abandon two of my favorite characters. Quite a different take on the mystery, but engrossing, nevertheless .

Legendary crime writer Val McDermid had really done it again. I know this is tail end of one partial series, in a way,
and transition to a new direction, but there are new good strong characters .. including a new manager replacing Carol, who freaked out last volume. Maybe there are too many strands to follow, and explanations get long (although not having read last detective novel I'm not sure why stalwart criminal psychologist is in jail .. but I'm going to look it out feverishly and find out. Highly recommend this one, whether you want to read number 10 before it, or just press on .. it reads like standalone anyway.

Psychiatrist Tony Hill and ex-DCI Carol Jordan make another appearance in this 11th book of the series.

Picking up where Book 10 left off, Hill is in prison and Carol is no longer with the police department. She has joined forces with a small informal group of lawyers and forensics experts looking into suspected miscarriages of justice. A little different for both of them as they are working without each other.

Newly promoted DI Paula McIntyre picks up where Jordan left off. She and her team are called in to investigate the finding of multiple skeletons buried sometime between 20 and 40 years ago. In another area, another burial site reveals the bones of young men, buried as late as 10 years ago.

One of those skeletons belongs to a killer who is supposedly alive and behind bars. This turn of events bring Tony and Carol into each other's paths once again.

This has been an interesting, entertaining series. I love how the characters have grown and matured, and how Carol and Tony still relate to each other since book 1 in 1995 or thereabouts. It's hard to say ,... but I was a bit disappointed with this one. There are multiple story lines, with baffling mysteries to solve. Parts of it felt somewhat disjointed. The ending was unsatisfactory ... although it does nicely set up the next book.

Many thanks to the author / Grove Atlantic / Netgalley / Edelweiss for the digital copy of this crime fiction. Read and reviewed voluntarily, opinions expressed here are unbiased and entirely my own.

3.5 stars

On my short list of must-read authors, whose next books I eagerly await, Val McDermid is near the top. Her readers can always count on plausible plots, fully-fleshed characters, original dialogue, and up-to-date forensic science.

Transition points in the lives of beloved characters are tough for readers, and in the case of How the Dead Speak, all of the "regulars" are in flux. Tony Hill must fight for his very survival as a prison inmate. Carol Jordan struggles with PTSD and the loss of her police job. The other members of the Major Incident Team are wrangling with a new, insufferable boss and two new members whose concept of teamwork is seriously lacking.

Add four separate plot lines -- involving two body dumps for the team, and two independent inquiries for Carol, plus a unique tactic Tony develops for saving his sanity and riding out his prison sentence -- and McDermid's skills are evident as she deftly weaves a compelling tale.

Some of the Hill/Jordan installments are gruesome. This one is less so, perhaps because the deaths being investigated are not recent. The two body dumps and a good bit of the historical action take place on a property formerly owned by the Catholic Church -- which doesn't fare well in McDermid's portrayal.

This wasn't my very favorite book by this author, but I liked it a lot, and the storyline is pivotal in the series. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an advance readers copy.

In the eleventh installment of the Tony Hill/Carol Jordan series by Val McDermind, Hill is in prison for manslaughter while Jordan, suffering from PTSD, has been forced out of her job as DCI. Though Hill confessed his love to Jordan, he has refused to have contact with her until she gets treatment—that is, until an unexpected visitor threatens both his and Carol’s futures unless he persuades her to help resolve a dispute. Jordan has also been persuaded to join a group of experts reexamining cases in which miscarriages of justice are suspected. Though she is uncomfortable trying to release criminals, she can’t resist the mystery.

Meanwhile, development at a shuttered Catholic nunnery and orphanage is halted when the construction crew finds an unauthorized cemetery filled with skeletons of what are presumably young girls who were in the nuns’ care. DCI Ian Rutherford, Jordan’s replacement, shows preference for DI Sophie Valente who came to the police via retail management and joined through a special direct entry program while ignoring the skills and talents of the team, particularly DI Paula McIntyre, causing friction among them which only heightened when a second collection of human remains—this time young men—were found on a property near the orphanage. And one of the bodies connects to Jordan’s newest investigation. However, her concentration is derailed when Hill’s prison activities make him the target of angry inmates.

How the Dead Speak weaves several perspectives honing in on two primary mysteries, with significant conflict among the police squad. Because Hill, Jordan, and McIntyre are separated, the book adds new settings, particularly the prison environment. I also liked that it addressed the possibility of false imprisonment and showed the challenges of living with PTSD. The pacing was finely plotted, and the narratives well-resolved, though I would have liked more regarding the bodies found at the orphanage. The denouement, however, was very interesting and makes me intrigued and excited about where the series will go next.

While this is not my first Val McDermid book, it is my first Tony Hill/Carol Jordan novel. I was certainly able to jump in, though I would have had better insight into the characters and their relationships if I’d read the previous books in the series—something I now plan to do!

At the end of the previous book in this long-running series, Insidious Intent - which I only finished two days ago - the author makes an impassioned plea to the reader not to spoil it for other fans by revealing the shocking twist. That was two years ago, but there will still be plenty of people who haven’t read it yet, so I’m going to keep this review as spoiler-free as I can. I strongly recommend that you don’t read this first if you are new to the series: you don’t necessarily need to go all the way back to the beginning, but at least start with The Retribution and read them in order to fully understand the characters.

Tony and Carol both start this eleventh chapter in their adventures in very different places, geographically, professionally and emotionally. After making a huge sacrifice for her and then finally confessing his feelings, Tony has refused to see her until she gets treatment for her PTSD. Retired from the police, Carol is finally ready to try, but approaches from both her previous nemeses, both wanting her help but for very different reasons, threaten her recovery.

Tony is trying to make the best of his new role, but even his uncanny profiling skills and human observations can’t keep him safe in his new world. Meanwhile Paula, Stacey and the other members of the ReMIT team are struggling under a new DCI, as pompous as he is ambitious, so when they are assigned to the investigation of a mass grave in a former children’s home run by nuns, and then newer bones turn up, they miss Carol & Tony more than ever.

This remains one of my favourite series, but frankly there was just too much going on in this one, so none of the plot lines were fully developed or resolved.
We’ve got a serial killer with the stupidest motive yet, a gang of evil nuns hiding children’s bodies, Tony’s attempts to survive his new situation, his mother Vanessa blackmailing Carol into solving a crime for her, and scheming defence lawyer Bronwen trying to ease her conscience by campaigning for falsely convicted prisoners. Not to mention new team members trying to win over the very cliquey ReMIT cool kids.

The point of view changes are dizzying and keeping track of what was going on was much harder than usual from this author whose plots are normally perfectly executed. My favourite parts were Tony’s scenes, and I liked the way each chapter begins with an excerpt from the book he’s finally writing.
I do hope this is not the end, although I’d be happy enough for Tony and Carol to disappear off into the Dales hand in hand (with Flash in tow of course) and let Paula lead the series from now on. I found the ending rather disappointing - as if it all had to be wrapped up within a certain number of pages, so there wasn’t time to reveal the fates of the various minor characters.

Overall, if you love this series, you’ll still enjoy this book, but it’s not one of the best and now there’s another long wait before we get to find out what happens next. 3.5 rounded up, as I was still kept up way past bedtime to find out what happens, and not many authors can do this to me nowadays!
My thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the arc which allowed me to give an honest review. How The Dead Speak is published tomorrow.

How the Dead Speak is the 11th book in the Tony Hill & Carol Jordan series of psychological murder mystery/procedurals by Val McDermid. Due out 3rd Dec 2019 from Grove Atlantic, it's 416 pages and will be available in hardcover, paperback, audio, and ebook formats.

I was unsure what would be in store for Tony & Carol after the cataclysmic denouement of the earlier book. This book begins with Tony serving a custodial sentence for manslaughter after being stripped of his professional qualifications and Carol suffering from debilitating PTSD which she was self-medicating with alcohol. I was concerned that the book would devolve into relentless misery and unhappiness, but I was (happily) wrong.

The author is one of the most technically adept writers I've ever encountered. Her writing is surgically precise, controlled, and masterful. This book contains several apparently disparate subplot threads which McDermid weaves together into an incredibly twisty and satisfying denouement. I'm looking forward to reading the next book in the series after seriously contemplating dropping the series after finishing the previous book.

Previous fans of the series will find more of the taut psychological twisty plotting characteristic of the earlier works. The author is adept at providing necessary backstory without resorting to info-dumping, so new readers will have no trouble following the story. I highly recommend this series to fans of the genre though, so going back and reading the previous books in order will prove enjoyable.

Four and a half stars. Another winner from a master writer at the top of her form.

The characters are interesting and I liked how the thoughts from Tony's books were inserted, but the story itself just didn't grab me. The book is well written and I'll be sure to try Val McDermid's next book and see if that's more to my liking.

This is the 11th book in the Tony Hill and Carol Jordan mystery series by this award winning Scottish author. The plot in this one revolves around the discovery of a large number of bodies of young girls buried at the site of an old convent and girls home. I had not read the last few in the series and followed along with no trouble and enjoyed it, but I do think reading the series in order would be preferable and would explain the circumstances that led to Tony and Carol's present situation (he is in prison, she is no longer with the police). The first book in the series is The Mermaids Singing.

Former detective Carol Jordan and the man she loves, clinical psychologist Tony Hill, have fallen from grace. Jordan is a recovering alcoholic who, at Tony's urging, is in therapy for post-traumatic stress disorder, and Dr. Hill is serving a prison sentence for manslaughter. Tony has begun to write a book, and he is looking for ways to help his fellow inmates. In Val McDermid's "How the Dead Speak," DI Paula McIntyre, Carol's former subordinate, is a member of ReMit, a regional response team that handles major crimes. Along with DS Alvin Ambrose, DC Karim Hussain, DC Stacey Chen (a computer whiz who can ferret out information from the recesses of the Internet), and others, Paula is investigating a gruesome case. A worker uncovered bones while digging in a construction site. It turns out that approximately forty bodies were buried in unmarked graves on the site of a convent that housed young females at risk.

What happened to these victims and why did the nuns fail to report their deaths? Under the supervision of DCI Rutherford, whom Paula resents for his overbearing managerial style, the detectives speak to anyone who may be able to shed light on this horrifying discovery. When more bones turn up nearby, the inquiry widens and the search for a serial killer begins. Meanwhile, Carol, who has taken up carpentry and spends hours hiking with her Border collie, has little to do these days. She is surprised to receive a visit from Bronwen Scott, a solicitor who asks Carol to join a group of volunteers who are trying to free wrongly convicted prisoners.

This is a mesmerizing, original, and hard-hitting police procedural that shows how challenging it can be to capture felons and prove their guilt in a court of law. We are also anxious to find out if, under pressure, Carol remains sober and learns to deal with her PTSD. The scenes in which Tony Hill struggles to adjust to life behind bars are wrenching. Unfortunately, he is locked up with hardened criminals who see him as easy prey. Furthermore, Tony's vicious and narcissistic mother, Vanessa, reappears and gives Tony and Carol an ultimatum they dare not ignore. This chilling and well-constructed thriller has vividly delineated characters, sharply written dialogue, and fascinating information about forensics, the art of interviewing witnesses, and the tortured minds of sociopaths and psychopaths. The author does not sugar-coat the cruelty of perverted human beings who are driven to lie, cheat, and kill. Fortunately, there are hard-working detectives like Paula, Stacey, and their colleagues who hope that their efforts will lead to the desired result—apprehending villains and bringing them to justice.

Although How the Dead Speak is the 11th in Val McDermid’s excellent Carol Jordan/Tony Hill police procedural mysteries, it works well as a standalone thriller, as do all the others in this series.

Former partners Carol Jordan and Tony Hill are now apart. Carol has lost her position as the head of an elite police squad and Tony is in jail for a crime that ended the previous book. Carol is trying to find new footing and settles in helping a team of lawyers free prisoners who have been wrongfully incarcerated. Tony makes the best of his prison days by trying to find a balance between helping his fellow inmates and protecting himself from possible violence.

Meanwhile, Carol’s former teammates, chafing under the rules set by a new commander, are faced with a decades old mystery when many bodies are found buried on the ground of a now disbanded convent. As they investigate, newer corpses are found in a different area of the property.

These mysteries, Tony’s prison projects, Carol’s new case and a financial one involving Tony’s mother seem totally unrelated but they collide in a fast paced ending that will make it hard for you to wait for Val McDermid’s 12th in this series.

Thank you to NetGalley, Grove Atlantic and Val McDermid for this advance review copy.

A solid psychological thriller/police procedurral.

The book started off very slow for me and I struggled to get into it but in the end the pace picked up nicely and I found it an enjoyable read.

There are a few different storylines and some are not resolved completely but the book is well written and I will definitely start reading more of Val again. Oh and I did love the description of the decomposing head! Brilliantly done and not for the faint hearted!

Thank you to #netgalley and #groveatlantic for the ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

Val McDermid always delivers and leaves you wanting more. I feel as if Tony Hill and Carol Jordan are real people that I'm growing old with and I simply love reading about their adventures and struggles in life.
The sheer content is so varied it will keep you interested and keen to reach a conclusion.
Loved every page.

would like to thank netgalley and the publisher for letting me read this amazing book

this is book 11 in this series and though its my first book by this author i soon found that i loved the characters in this book and felt that i knew them right from the start

there are quite a few characters that i had to get to know and even though from the previous book something major had happened to two of the main characters i soon caught up and was able to find one or two favourites

this is the story about a group of nuns and some skeletal remains found on the grounds of the convent,,,a lot of skeletal remains that needed answers pretty quickly even if those remains had been in the ground a long time

but nuns and the catholic church are a way of life and getting them to speak about a certain practise was going to be difficult...

brilliant book in this series and i for one am hooked found another author to keep an eye out for...

This is the latest in the Tony Hill and Carol Jordan series, but things are changing Carol is out of the police and Tony is in prison, so expect a different perspective. The themes based around McDermid’s characters, (who still maintain their close links), will need to be melded in this chapter by chapter development. The ReMIT police team that Carol used to head is now running under a new head - Rutherford - and the old team regulars have been joined by two new others. But they have to manage their “Major Crime” now without the experience of Carol or advice from their profiler Tony. Expect a detailed police procedural that covers not just personal issues, police organisation, budgets and politics but developing forensic techniques, some at the cutting edge.
Tony, in prison, should in theory have the time and opportunity to finally write his book “Reading Crimes” – the reader can see how he is progressing as parts head each chapter. His experiences in remand and then a category C prison are used to explore the nature of life there – prisoners and their backgrounds; boredom and life away from families; hierarchies, violence and coping in a place with formal rules but a sub culture of other activities often impacted by drug use.
Carol is banned from seeing Tony until she accepts treatment for her PTSD – we see her steps towards an alternative treatment programme. She will be required to “help” Tony’s mother Vanessa in an investigation that ends in violence. But and will be starting to rebuild a new future or (possible career) working for a group investigating unsafe convictions. Sub plots will follow both of these things.
And then to the major crime (a topical real life issue that runs and runs) – the ReMIT team are asked to investigate the discovery of the bodies of 40 + girls in the garden of a former convent. They have to investigate who they were, how they came to be buried in this way and who was responsible. Underlying this is the sub text is if they can identify the nuns who worked there can they persuade them to talk and take responsibility – and heinous though the situation was could anybody be legally bought to account. This tale is complicated by the fact that during the investigation another series of bodies are uncovered. This time a cluster of more recent male victims of murder are discovered. An active serial killer has been operating unseen n the area. Can he be identified and stopped?
All this makes for a busy novel. No doubt if you have read previous novels in the series and recognise the people and places it will be easier to follow. How you rate this novel will depend on what you look for in a crime novel. This is a good, multi faceted tale that bowls along at pace. The procedural details seem likely – although the speed of forensic response is maybe not something we see in other books. It is somewhat topic lead but balanced by the characters who are not solely police investigator drones detached from all except their current case.
I would not describe this as McDermid’s finest, but then her standards are high. Maybe a few of the issues are too obviously “positioned” and pulling all the threads together could have done with slightly more subtlety rather than pure co-incidence to tie off the plot lines, But nevertheless a good, fun, read.

Thank you to Grove Atlantic and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

As a long-time fan of Val McDermid's Tony Hill/Carol Jordan series, I was delighted to be offered a chance to read an ARC. This is the 11th book in the series, and despite it being clear from the beginning who the murderer was, the story was gripping and a compulsive read. The author wove the different plot strands together without a false note - each led naturally to the next. The circumstances are very different this time round, with both Tony and Carol ousted from their positions, and their former colleagues struggling to work within new structures - and Tony and Carol both also have their own personal struggles to work through. The characters were wonderfully drawn, and the police procedural/forensic side of things was as always a fascinating read. The ending might have been a wee bit abrupt, but it certainly left me hungry to find out how things go on from there.

Highly recommended.

I have generally been a fan of Val McDermid’s series, but How the Dead Speak falls short of her usual high quality. While her recurring characters continue on as we expect and her writing style remains good, the story itself is not compelling. The dead didn’t come alive in my imagination and I ended up not caring very much about them and thus about their killers. Several loose ends left me rather unsatisfied with the novel. Although I still look forward to the next series entry, it is not with quite the enthusiasm with which I anticipated this one.

Val McDermid is a spectacular writer -- and she's done it again with How the Dead Speak, perhaps my favorite since The Grave Tattoo. This is a Tony Hill and Carol Jordan novel, and is every bit as good and even better than the previous 10 in the series, even though we begin with Jordan in seclusion and Hill in jail. Facing a crime that occurred in the past, the new investigators unearth a lethal secret that's been buried for years at the long-closed Order of the Blessed Pearl convent -- and they need Hill and Jordan to help. How McDermid weaves the plot together--and managed to reunite Hill and Jordan--showcases a master at the top of her game.

I have to admit that this is not a series that I have read from book one. I also admit that I am more familiar with the TV adaptation than the previous books and, due to some really great casting, actually see the actors when I now read the books. I have read the previous book and was really gagging to see what the fallout from that would entail...
So. Tony is in jail and Carol has left the force. Both have their demons left from what has happened and are rubbing along in their own ways. Tony by just staying alive and healthy in prison and Carol by, well, basically ignoring things whilst renovating her home.
Meanwhile, developers have uncovered bones whilst renovating an old convent. ReMIT, complete with new boss DCI Rutherford, are called in to investigate. But without both Tony and Carol they fear they will struggle. Especially as there are new colleagues that haven't quite gelled with the team left over from before. The bones appear historic in nature which throws their investigations into more ambiguity. A visit by Vanessa to Tony leads to blackmailing Carol to do her bidding. Is this the spark that reignites her life? Carol is also headhunted for a new job assisting campaigners for justice for wrongly convicted prisoners. But she's not in the best place mentally...
And then more bones are uncovered. These are more recent and fingers start to point in a different direction entirely...
Although I haven't read all this series I was easily able to reconnect with the familiar characters and played catch-up with what I had missed. New characters were introduced well and I also connected with them as I got to know them. There's a lot going on in this book but the four main threads were all easy to separate and follow. Vanessa, old bones, new bones and justice for an innocent man. Each added something important to what was going on in the main. As with all character driven books - and I consider this to be a both character and plot driven book - the characters are all very well drawn and we see the big picture of what is going on both within and without the main story lines. Yes, there's quite a bit of personal creeping in, but nothing more than you would expect from a series book, and nothing that distract from that which is going on with the crimes. I especially enjoyed the team building exercise and the fall out from that!
I really enjoyed my time with Carol and the team and desperately want to fill in the gaps in their story that I have missed. I also real want to see what happens next for Carol and Tony - both together and separately. My thanks go to the Publisher and Netgalley for the chance to read this book.

As a fan of Val McDermid’s Tony Hill/Carol Jordan series, I was eager to read her latest installment. Tony is serving a prison sentence for man slaughter and Carol was forced to resign from her position with the police. She is also suffering from PTSD and Tony has refused to allow her to visit until she seeks treatment, limiting the interaction between the two characters.

McDermid balances multiple story lines with alternating chapters. As Carol seeks help with her PTSD, she is recruited for a group of professionals who wish to correct miscarriages of justice. Her former police unit is involved in the discovery of dozens of children’s skeletons unearthed on the property of a former orphanage run by an order of nuns. The skeletons are over twenty years old, but more recent bodies of young men are discovered in the gardens tended by the property’s caretaker, who denies knowledge of their presence. Meanwhile, Tony finds it difficult to adjust to life on the other side of the prison bars. It does give him an opportunity to work on writing a book that he had committed to. Each chapter opens with a quote from Reading Crimes by Tony Hill that relates to the developments that follow. As the various stories continue they begin to cross over, with the more recent bodies playing a part in Carol’s investigation. While Tony and Carol have both had successful careers in law enforcement, their current situations have brought their careers to a close while new possibilities are now opening for them.

While I enjoyed this latest entry in the series, McDermid seems to end the story abruptly, leaving the fate of at least one major character’s career in question. I look forward to her future work to see whether this is resolved. I would like to thank NetGalley and Grove Atlantic for providing this book in exchange for my honest review.