Breaking ground with DCI Karen Pirie

I've always been interested in cold case stories. There is something about the historic nature of the crimes and the dogged pursuit of justice for the victims that fascinates me. Someone has gotten away with murder for a long time, and is just out there living their life. That's hard to reconcile.

These ideas form the premise for Val McDermid's Karen Pirie novels. DCI Pirie heads up the Historic Cases Unit in Scotland and battles to keep the unit going with police interest in cold cases waxing and waning.

I'm a huge Val McDermid fan and the Karen Pirie series showcases McDermid's skills as a crime writer. The books provide interesting insight into how cold cases are investigated and solved. The Scottish setting adds atmosphere and grit to the cases. There are usually multiple cases and timelines on the go but McDermid manages to juggle everything capably and the stories are never confusing.

Karen is dogged in her pursuit of justice, a straight shooter who has no agenda other than to find answers to crimes no one else cares about. As a series, I've come to know and love Karen and I like that her life outside of work is also woven into the stories. Each novel can be read on its own although working your way through the books in order adds depth to the reading experience, as there are elements of Karen's personal life that develop as the series progresses. The cast of support players is well fleshed out, including Karen's DC, Jason "The Mint" Murray and River Wilde, Karen's friend and forensic anthropologist.

At the time of writing this post, there were seven books in the Karen Pirie series and I've read them all. This post reviews book 5, plus I've made some comments on books 1-4 and book 6. My review of the latest book (#7), Past lying, can be found here.

Broken ground | Published August 2018 | Read again February 2022

Broken Ground is another cracking story that increased my love for Karen and for historic case stories. In Broken Ground, Karen is called to investigate the discovery of two preserved vintage motorbikes in a remote Highland peat bog and the dead body found within. The cold case takes Karen and her team back to WW2 but also to recent times, when artifacts from the mid 1990s are found with the body. There's a bonus additional current case that Karen ends up involved in after she overhears a conversation in an Edinburgh café.

Val McDermid writes with passion for the crime genre, offering up solid investigative stories, not fast paced but intriguing enough to keep you reading.

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

My comments on books 1-4 and book 6

Val McDermid began the Karen Pirie series with The distant echo, published in 2003. Karen is introduced into the novel but she's not the main player. This is the story that has been translated into the television series, but changed a bit for the medium. Anyway, it's a cracking introduction to cold case investigations. The 25-year-old unsolved murder of Rosie Duff in St Andrews resurfaces after one of the four boys accused of the crime at the time dies in suspicious circumstances. I didn't guess the ending of this one!

Darker domain came next, published in 2008. This one links a man living in Tuscany with a man who disappeared from Fife at the height of the miners' strike some 25 years earlier and a botched kidnapping of a wealthy heiress and her son. Darker domain is a complex read, exploring the ideas of revenge and greed. Karen starts to come into her own in this novel, demonstrating her dogged and no-nonsense approach to achieving closure in historic cases.

The skeleton road is one of my favourites of the books so far. The story starts with the discovery of a skeleton at the top of a crumbling building in Edinburgh and takes Karen back to the Balkan Wars. Revenge is absolutely at the core of this book. I like the focus on the Balkan Wars and found the past and present exploration of this period in history interesting.

Book 4, Out of bounds, is another of my favourites. I like it partly for the development of the relationship between Karen and DC Jason Murray. McDermid has taken an intriguing approach to cold case investigations in this book after the DNA of a boy injured in a car accident is found to link to an historic case. Karen and Jason end up investigating two cases in Out of bounds, the murder of a young woman some twenty years previously and the bombing of a light plane around the same time that is connected to a current murder. The book is complex even though it's not hard to guess what is going on. I'd say the story is more about how Karen uncovers the evidence to solve all three crimes.

Book 6, Still life, is I think the most complex of all seven books. I've read it twice and both times it took some effort to keep up. Karen and Jason are drawn into a cold case after a body is pulled form the sea and is identified as the prime suspect in a decade-old investigation. There's also a skeleton that has been discovered in campervan in a woman's garage. Both cases uncover a bunch of secrets and lies and Jason is badly injured investigating one of them. Again, I liked the way Karen and Jason's relationship developed in the story.

Karen Pirie series rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ (except for book 7!)