A
Darker Domain
Non-series
Val
McDermid
Harper
(Hardcover)
ISBN-10: 0-06-168898-3 (0061688983)
ISBN-13: 978-0-06-168898-0 (9780061688980)
Publication Date: January 2009
List Price: $24.99
Synopsis (from
the publisher): Fife, Scotland, 1985. Heiress Catriona Maclennan Grant
and her baby son are kidnapped. The ransom payoff goes horribly wrong
and Grant is killed. Her son disappears without a trace -- until 2008,
when a tourist in Tuscany stumbles upon dramatic new evidence that
reopens the investigation.
Fife, 1984. At the height of the politically charged national miners'
strike, Mick Prentice abandons his family to join the strikebreakers
down south. Labelled a blackleg scab, he's as good as dead as far as
his friends and relatives care. Twenty-three years later, a young woman
walks into a police station to report Mick Prentice missing. Detective
Karen Pirie, head of the Cold Case Review Team, wants to know why it's
taken so long for anyone to notice.
For Pirie, already immersed in the Prentice investigation, a second
foray into a 1980s investigation gone cold -- this time, the Grant
kidnapping -- offers an opportunity to make her mark. But it's sure to
come at an extremely high price. As she works to unravel these
mysteries, two decades of secrets will lead Karen Pirie into a dark
domain of violence and betrayal -- darker than any she has yet
encountered.
Review:
Val McDermid crafts an intriguing decades old cold case mystery in the
stand-alone thriller A Darker Domain
featuring Detective Inspector Karen Pirie of the Fife (Scotland) police
department.
Pirie is actually handed two cases almost simultaneously. The first is
a missing persons investigation. What interests Pirie is that the case
is 20 some odd years old and the life of a seriously ill child depends
on the outcome. Unfortunately, to her superiors, the case is not nearly
as important as new evidence that has recently been discovered in Italy
regarding the decades old, and still unsolved, kidnapping of a baby boy
that also resulted in the murder of his mother. The boy was the
grandson of a wealthy, and powerful, local industrialist who blames the
police for mishandling the situation. Pirie knows she risks her career
pursuing the missing persons investigation while also following up on
the new leads in the kidnapping case. But when she suspects there may
be a link, if only tenuous, between the two, she plunges forward
knowing the dead do not give up their secrets easily ... if ever.
A
Darker Domain is a superior
mystery novel in so many ways, from the meticulously drawn characters
and the intricately developed plot to the superbly written narrative.
The seamless use of backstories to fill in the details during Pirie's
investigation helps keep the story briskly moving along and the
alternate points of view provide depth and interest. The coincident
reopening of both cases from a plot perspective is, at best,
improbable, yet the author makes it seem credible, linking the two in
unexpected, though plausible ways. The overly melodramatic ending is a
minor quibble.
A
Darker Domain, written as a
non-series novel, is a gripping mystery thriller at its best. It is
rather unfortunate, however, readers won't have the opportunity to see
Karen Pirie in action again.
Special thanks to HarperCollins for providing an ARC of A Darker Domain for this review.
Review Copyright © 2009 — Hidden Staircase Mystery Books — All Rights Reserved
Have you read A Darker Domain? How would you rate it?
Non-series novels by this author …
A
Place
of Execution
St. Martin's Minotaur (Hardcover), September 2000
ISBN-10: 0-312-26632-4 (0312266324)
ISBN-13: 978-0-312-26632-5 (9780312266325)
Killing
the Shadows
St. Martin's Minotaur (Hardcover), October 2001
ISBN-10: 0-312-26615-4 (0312266154)
ISBN-13: 978-0-312-26615-8 (9780312266158)
The
Distant Echo
St. Martin's Minotaur (Hardcover), October 2003
ISBN-10: 0-312-30199-5 (0312301995)
ISBN-13: 978-0-312-30199-6 (9780312301996)
The
Grave
Tattoo
St. Martin's Minotaur (Hardcover), February 2007
ISBN-10: 0-312-33921-6 (0312339216)
ISBN-13: 978-0-312-33921-0 (9780312339210)
A Darker Domain
Harper (Hardcover), January 2009
ISBN-10: 0-06-168898-3 (0061688983)
ISBN-13: 978-0-06-168898-0 (9780061688980)
Omnimystery
keywords for A Darker Domain
...
Location(s) referenced: Scotland, Italy.
