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I found my enjoyment of this second installment in the Allie Burns series to be mixed. I really liked the way the murder of a Murdoch-esque newspaper magnate was set up at the beginning of the novel but I find the main character Allie Burns to be seriously annoying. I am a feminist but Burns is just too bolshie and humourless for me. The ending was somwhat satisfying, though the killer's hail Mary pass was a bit unbelievable. McDermid is a brilliant plotmaster but her sexual and class politics are so heavy-handed at time it ruins my reading of her recent books. And most irritatingly, the Cold War shenanigans here are so implausible as to be almost laughable. Imagine if Miss Marple was to assume a part in a James Bond flick or Poirot became 007 himself. Really? I wanted to shout. Too much preaching and not enough mystery for me.