a b "Dr Val McDermid – English, 1972". St Hilda's College, Oxford. 29 January 2016 . Retrieved 29 May 2019. 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. stars rounded up. Terrific police procedural involving Detective Chief Inspector Karen Pirie of Police Scotland's Historic Cases Unit. In this outing, the sixth in the series, Karen gets called in when a skeleton is found in a caravan parked in the garage of a recently deceased woman. But her attention is split when she's asked to take the lead in a current murder investigation with its roots in a 10-year-old cold case she'd recently reviewed. Valarie McDermid, FRSE , FRSL (born 4 June 1955) is a Scottish crime writer, best known for a series of novels featuring clinical psychologist Dr. Tony Hill, in a grim sub-genre known as Tartan Noir. There is quite a lot going on in this Karen Pirie mystery. Missing people, murdered people, art theft, identity theft, more missing people and alongside that there is the troubled relationship of Karen and Hamish. All is not well there.

Queen of crime in stadium thriller". University of Sunderland News and Events. 14 July 2011. Archived from the original on 2 April 2015 . Retrieved 15 July 2013. Although I've been a fan since the Karen Pirie series began, I have to confess to being a wee bit disappointed with this entry. The tone felt different from the earlier books, and I've been puzzling over why that's so. With Karen already struggling on another case where a skeleton has been discovered in an abandoned camper van the pressure is on. Everything is pointing to a killer who was never arrested and still on the loose. Karen encounters a network of lies and secrets that must beMcDermid has been writing as a full time author since the success of her initial novels and she spends equal amounts of time in her homes in Edinburgh and Cheshire. She hails from the Kirkcaldy town of Fife in Scotland and completed her college studies from the St. Hilda’s College in Oxford. Pirie is re-assigned to the body in the sea case by Assistant Chief Constable Anne Markie, one of the few characters that didn’t ring true to me. In her exchanges with Pirie she is high-handed and discourteous, and I was not convinced that any senior police officer would act in that way towards subordinates. However, Pirie soon realises that she’s been set up to fail, and her periodic clashes with Markie are a theme running through the book. With the case to assist Pirie comes Detective Sergeant Daisy Mortimer, a sympathetic character that McDermid fleshes out nicely during the course of the book, and who I suspect we’ll see more of in future Karen Pirie novels. “Desperate pursuit” Another case is the disappearance ten years ago of Iain Auld, a civil servant with the Scottish government.

On 23 October 2016 McDermid married her partner of two years, Jo Sharp, a professor of geography at the University of Glasgow. [34] [35] McDermid knows how to tell a story, how to take all the different threads and weave them into one glorious picture that never could be imagined from the outset. Kudos, Madam McDermid, for a stellar piece of writing. I am happy to see you still have it and keep your fans buzzing with excitement. Karen is balancing two cases. A skeleton has been found in a van parked in the garage of a recently deceased woman. She is drawn into the second case, albeit a current one, because one of the suspects in the years old killing of his brother has been found dead. The familiar supporting characters are here, as well as a new female colleague, Sergeant Daisy Mortimer. Still mourning the death of her love, Phil, Karen has established a new relationship with Hamish, who was introduced in the prior novel.McDermid was inducted into the prestigious Detection Club in 2000, and won the CWA Diamond Dagger for her lifetime contribution to crime writing in the English language in 2010. She was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Sunderland in 2011. [4] She is co-founder of the Harrogate Crime Writing Festival and the Theakston's Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award, part of the Harrogate International Festivals. In 2016 she captained a team of St Hilda's alumnæ to win the Christmas University Challenge. [5] In 2017, McDermid was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, [6] as well as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. [7] Work [ edit ]

The Second Murder at the Vicarage in Marple, Twelve New Mysteries (2022) p.33-52, ( HarperCollins, New York, ISBN 978-0-06-313605-2) contemporaryfiction #crime #detectivefiction #familydrama #murdermystery #mystery #policeprocedural #scottishnoir #thriller DISCLOSURE: Thank you to Grove Atlantic via Netgalley for providing a digital ARC of Still Life by Val McDermid for review. All opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own personal opinions. In this sixth book in the Detective Chief Inspector Karen Pirie series, the police investigate two cold cases. The book works fine as a standalone. She is perhaps best known for her Wire in the Blood series, featuring clinical psychologist Dr Tony Hill and DCI Carol Jordan, which was adapted for television starring Robson Green and Hermione Norris. Her most recent TV series Traces aired in a BBC1 primetime slot in January of this year (2021), and a second series is currently in production, as is ITV’s adaptation of Karen Pirie, based on Val’s cold case detective of the same name.The police work is necessarily plodding as Karen and her team must dig for information and sush out clues to take the cases forward but I enjoyed the pace at which everything is revealed. The teamwork between these officers is excellent and I enjoyed the way the author brings Karen's personal life and theirs into the story without being too heavy handed about it. There's enough action and suspense to keep the reader riveted till the exciting conclusion! The best recent thrillers – review roundup". the Guardian. 7 September 2021 . Retrieved 16 April 2022.

DCI Karen Pirie is called on to revisit one of her old cases when a fishermen pulls a body from the sea. The dead man was the prime suspect in an old investigation, when a prominent civil servant disappeared without trace. DCI Karen Pirie was the last detective to review the file and is drawn into a sinister world of betrayal and dark secrets. Iain was presumed dead, and his brother James - who had argued with Iain about Scottish independence - was the prime suspect. James ran away before he could be arrested and was in the wind until now..... Val comes from Kirkcaldy, Fife, and read English at St Hilda’s College, Oxford (where she is now an Honorary Fellow). She was the first ever student from a state school in Scotland. Following graduation she became a journalist, and worked briefly as a dramatist.Ruth Lawson (13 December 2012). "Ink thrown at author Val McDermid during Sunderland book signing". Journal Live. Archived from the original on 8 April 2013 . Retrieved 26 December 2012.