The Distant Echo
It was a winter morning in 1978, that the body of a young barmaid was discovered in the snow banks of a Scottish cemetery. The only suspects in her brutal murder were the four young men who found her: Alex Gilbey and his three best friends. With no evidence but her blood on their hands, no one was ever charged.
Twenty five years later, the Cold Case file on Rosie Duff has been reopened. For Alex and his friends, the investigation has also opened old wounds, haunting memories-and new fears. For a stranger has emerged from the shadows with his own ideas about justice. And revenge.
When two of Alex’s friends die under suspicious circumstances, Alex knows that he and his innocent family are the next targets. And there’s only way to save them: return to the cold-blooded past and uncover the startling truth about the murder. For there lies the identity of an avenging killer…
A Darker Domain
1984, Fife. Heiress Catriona Maclennan Grant & her baby son are kidnapped. The ransom payoff goes horribly wrong. She is killed while her son disappears without trace. 2008, Tuscany. A jogger stumbles upon dramatic new evidence that re-opens the cold case. For Detective Sergeant Karen Pirie, it’s an opportunity to make her mark.
The Skeleton Road
In the center of historic Edinburgh, builders are preparing to convert a disused Victorian Gothic building into luxury flats. They are understandably surprised to find skeletal remains hidden in a high pinnacle that hasn’t been touched by maintenance for years. But who do the bones belong to, and how did they get there? Could the eccentric British pastime of free climbing the outside of buildings play a role? Enter cold case detective Karen Pirie, who gets to work trying to establish the corpse’s identity. And when it turns out the bones may be from as far away as former Yugoslavia, Karen will need to dig deeper than she ever imagined into the tragic history of the Balkans: to war crimes and their consequences, and ultimately to the notion of what justice is and who serves it.
Out of Bounds
When a teenage joyrider crashes a stolen car and ends up in a coma, a routine DNA test reveals a connection to an unsolved murder from twenty-two years before. Finding the answer to the cold case should be straightforward. But it’s as twisted as the DNA helix itself.
Meanwhile, Karen finds herself irresistibly drawn to another mystery that she has no business investigating, a mystery that has its roots in a terrorist bombing two decades ago. And again, she finds that nothing is as it seems.
Broken Ground
Alice Somerville’s inheritance lies six feet under in a Highland peat bog – a pair of valuable vintage motorbikes buried by her grandfather at the end of World War II. But when Alice finally organises their recovery, she finds an unwelcome surprise -a body with a pair of bullet holes . . . and Nike trainers. DCI Karen Pirie of Police Scotland’s Historic Cases Unit is called in to unravel a case where nothing is quite as it seems.
Meanwhile an overheard conversation in a cafe draws Karen to the heart of a murder she thought she’d already prevented.
As Karen gets closer to the several truths, it becomes clear that not everyone shares her desire for justice. Or even the idea of what justice is.
Still Life
From internationally bestselling author Val McDermid comes a propulsive new Karen Pirie thriller that delves into a historic missing persons case, fake identities, and art forgery.
When a lobster fisherman discovers a dead body in Scotland’s Firth of Forth, Karen is called into investigate. She quickly discovers that the case will require untangling a complicated web—including a historic disappearance, art forgery, and secret identities—that seems to orbit around a painting copyist who can mimic anyone from Holbein to Hockney. Meanwhile, a traffic crash leads to the discovery of a skeleton in a suburban garage. Needless to say, Karen has her plate full. Meanwhile, the man responsible for the death of the love of her life is being released from prison, reopening old wounds just as she was getting back on her feet.
Tightly plotted and intensely gripping, Still Life is Val McDermid at her best, and new and longtime readers alike will delight in the latest addition to this superior series.
Past Lying
Val McDermid returns with DCI Karen Pirie in a new thriller of deceit and vengeance, set against the disquiet and investigative challenges of a global pandemic.
It’s April 2020 and Edinburgh is in lockdown, but that doesn’t mean crime takes a holiday. It would seem like a strange time for a cold case to go hot — the streets all but empty, an hour’s outdoor exercise the maximum allowed — but when a source at the National Library contacts DCI Karen Pirie’s team about documents in the archive of a recently deceased crime novelist, it seems it’s game on again. What unspools is a twisted game of betrayal and revenge, but no one quite expects how many twists it will turn out to have.
My Take
I read the first two books in this series pre-Goodreads (so before 2010), the third in 2016, and recently read the next four. (An eighth book is due out in December 2025.) I like all of Val McDermid’s work. This series might be my favorite. Not as dark as Tony Hill & Carol Jordan, but dark enough.
It has things that I enjoy in a good mystery series:
- A good sense of place. Most of the action is in Edinburgh, a place I’ve been to but certainly don’t know well. I feel like I know it better after reading these books.
- Something to learn about. These aren’t straight police procedurals. Often there’s a topic — art theft and counterfeiting, lifestyles of mystery writers, the plight of refugees — related to the crime that is covered in enough depth to feel like I’ve learned something, without getting info-dumped on.
- Interesting characters. The main characters are likeable without being perfect and the bit characters still feel real. One nice touch is the circle of friends and colleagues that provide expert advice and support.
These are cold cases (or as they refer to them, historic cases) so there isn’t a lot of edge-of-your-seat tension. Nor are they traditional whodunits. A case comes together and gets wrapped up fairly calmly. As mysteries go they’re pretty relaxing reads, sprinkled with a lot of coffee, food, gin, and camaraderie.