Ideas, Opinions, Genealogy, and Book Reviews
I’ve been fan of Val McDermit for several years now https://www.jackreidy.com/blog/tag/val-mcdermid/ .
Past Lying: A Karen Pirie Novel is her latest. DCI Karen Pirie heads Police Scotland’s Historic Case Unit (HCU). We Americans would call it cold cases. The Scots prefer the “Historic” designation for reasons given in this book.
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I liked it but it is very different than anything I had reviewed previously so I am a bit unsure of how of proceed. So I’ll get the easy part out of the way first and them added a short bit on what I thought about the book.
The book is “Abandoned Scotland” by Alastair Horne. I thank Netgalley and Amber Books for allowing me to read the book before publication.
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Welcome to 1989. This is the second novel in Val McDermid’s series featuring journalist Allie Burns. I liked the first one (https://www.jackreidy.com/blog/2021/10/04/1979-by-val-mcdermid/) and now it is 10 years later and there have been quite a few changes in 10 years.
Val McDermid is one of my favorite writers. So I jumped at the chance to read her latest. I thank Netgalley for that chance Of course my experience with her writing is limited to 3 mysteries in the same series (see reviews at https://www.jackreidy.com/blog/2020/10/05/still-life-by-val-mcdermid/).
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Still Life is the third novel I have read and reviewed in the Karen Pirie series by Val McDermid.
The other two are Broken Ground and The Distant Echo . The first was because someone had suggested this book and the second was because I wanted to read more of the series.
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The Distant Echo by Val McDermid is her first novel in the Karen Pirie series.. Detective Perie is not the central character in this book. As I remember, she does not even make her first appearance until the second half of The Distant Echo. But I am getting a bit ahead of myself so I’ll just begin at the beginning.
I had read Val McDermit’s Broken Ground a few months ago. It was the 5th and most recent book in her Karen Pirie series. I liked the book and thought it might be interesting to read the series from the beginning. The first in the series was available in my local public library. Continue reading “The Distant Echo by Val McDermid”
Broken Ground by Val McDermid is a great Scottish crime mystery. This book came out last year but my favorite librarian suggested it to me few months ago. This is a wonderful book and I completely enjoyed it .
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The Lewis Man by Peter May is the second novel of The Lewis Trilogy. I had read the first after a friend had suggested I might enjoy it. I liked it very much as is apparent in my review of The Blackhouse.
In The Lewis Man several of the main characters are back but not necessarily in the way expected. Detective Fin Macleod is back. Detective Macleod grew-up on the remote Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides. But in this story he is no longer with the police but has moved back to Lewis. Continue reading “The Lewis Man by Peter May”
The Blackhouse by Peter May. is the first novel of The Lewis Trilogy. The prologue sets the scene which will become important as the book progresses. Although chapter 1 gets off to a start in Edinburgh where Detective Fin Macleod is dealing with personal tragedy, much of the story takes place on the remote Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides.
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