I didn't really need to visit the Val McDermid forum to know that the Tony and Carol shippers wouldn't like her latest Tony Hill novel, Fever of the Bone. There are, after all, great chunks of the novel where Tony and Carol aren't even working together, let alone making out, the way so many fans want them to. But I loved this book - it's my favourite Tony Hill book since Wire in the Blood. Not least because, for the first time since the TV series, also called Wire in the Blood, started, Tony Hill in the novel sounded like Tony Hill in the early books, rather than like Robson Green playing Tony Hill.

I like all Val McDermid's books, but I always feel a bit ambivalent about the Tony Hills, however good they are. I find Tony's impotence boring and Carol's drinking and the whole will-they-won't-they thing between them grates. I like Carol's team, though, especially Paula - and it was good to see more of Paula in this latest novel. I think the only other series I like despite not caring at all about the main protagonists is Elizabeth George's Linley mysteries, where in particular I can't stand St James and Deborah (and Helen!) - LInley is bearable, but Barbara's the one I read the books for.

Fever of the Bone has Tony and Carol on the trail of a serial killer who is murdering teenagers previously groomed on the social networking site, RigMarole. Although I guessed what the killings were all about before Tony and Carol did, I still haven't worked out whether RigMarole existed before the novel or appeared alongside it, given ads for the book are all over the home page. It was good to have some of the action set in Worcester, too - it's not so long since I was there for the Australia v. England Lions cricket ... Anyway, I found it hard to put this book down, and now have a long wait before a new book by Val or my other favourite crime writer, Peter Robinson. I've heard Stuart MacBride is good, so might give him a go.