The book I read for my Specialist Study was Killing the Shadows written by Val McDermid. The book is about an academic psychologist, Fiona Cameron, who uses computers to help track serial offenders. I expected this book to have undeveloped characters and a very basic plot, some one gets murdered then someone catches the murderer, however I was very surprised to find complex characters as well as a very complex plot, which I did not expect in a book of this genre.
             The way in which the author has written the characters does make them real to the minds eye. I feel the characteristics of a crime/thriller novel are a crime to solve, a killer/murderer, a hero/detective (a good guy) and plot witch will get the reader involved. There are small part of blood and gut, the book is very graphic in describing these parts,
             "I don't want to think about the next bit. It wasn't nice. It's a lot harder to strangle somebody than it looks. Especially when you're wearing latex gloves and your hands start sweating and slipping inside them." page 101-102.
             However there is a romantic involvement to balance this out.
             The different threads through the plot made my involvement far more active, there was strong imagery produced by the way the author described Spain and how the character worked through things and how she thought, I have never seen this style used in a novel of this genre. At the end of the novel were Fiona Cameron tries to single handily save her partners life does give the book an unbelievable feel, however I did like that it was set in Sutherland and Fiona went through Inverness. I will write about the extent to which this this novel is typical of the crime/thriller genre.
             In some ways I felt with previous experience with novels of the crime/thriller genre that the plot would be far fetched and very simple, but they way things are described and the characters reactions makes it seem very real. ...