Explore the latest books of this year!
Bookbot

The Detective Inspector Karen Pirie Series Series

This gripping crime series follows a tenacious detective operating out of Scotland's historic Fife region. Each installment presents a new complex case, delving into dark secrets and intricate plots. The author expertly crafts atmospheric settings and compelling character studies. Readers who enjoy challenging mysteries and the moody ambiance of the Scottish coast will find much to savor.

Still Life
Broken ground
Out Of Bounds
The Skeleton Road
Detective Karen Pirie - 2: A Darker Domain
The Distant Echo

Recommended Reading Order

  1. The Distant Echo

    • 576 pages
    • 21 hours of reading

    Powerful and atmospheric psychological thriller from the multi-award-winning Val McDermid: 'McDermid's capacity to enter the warped mind of a deviant criminal is shiveringly convincing' The TimesSOME THINGS JUST WON'T LET YOU GOThe past, for instance. That night in the cemetery. The girl's body in the snow, her blood scarlet against the white ground... Four a. m. on a freezing Fife morning and four drunken students stumble upon the body of a woman lying in the snow. Rosie has been raped, stabbed and left for dead in an ancient Pictish cemetery. And the only suspects are the four young men now stained with her blood. Twenty-five years later the police mount a 'cold case' review of Rosie's unsolved murder and the four are still suspects. But when one of them dies in a suspicious house fire and another in a burglary gone bad, it seems that someone is pursuing their own brand of justice. For the remaining two there is only one way to avoid becoming the next victim -- find out who really killed Rosie all those years ago...

    The Distant Echo1
    3.9

  2. Detective Karen Pirie - 2: A Darker Domain

    • 371 pages
    • 13 hours of reading

    Past and present intertwine in this rare stand-alone novel of taut psychological drama--a brilliant exploration of loyalty and greed from the bestselling mistress of suspense. 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.

    Detective Karen Pirie - 2: A Darker Domain2
    3.8

  3. The Skeleton Road

    When a skeleton is discovered hidden at the top of a crumbling, gothic building in Edinburgh, Detective Chief Inspector Karen Pirie is faced with the unenviable task of identifying the bones. As Karen's investigation gathers momentum, she is drawn deeper into a dark world of intrigue and betrayal. Meanwhile, someone is taking the law into their own hands in the name of justice and revenge -- but when present resentment collides with secrets of the past, the truth is more shocking than anyone could have imagined . . . From number one bestseller, Val McDermid comes an atmospheric, spine-chilling tour de force -- her richest and most accomplished psychological thriller to date.

    The Skeleton Road3
    3.8

  4. Out Of Bounds

    • 496 pages
    • 18 hours of reading

    Number one bestseller Val McDermid is back with her most gripping, chilling and suspenseful novel yet.

    Out Of Bounds4
    4.0

  5. Broken ground

    • 422 pages
    • 15 hours of reading

    Number one bestseller and queen of crime Val McDermid returns with her most breathtakingly atmospheric and exhilarating novel yet. 'Somebody has been here before us. And he's still here . . .' When a body is discovered in the remote depths of the Highlands, DCI Karen Pirie finds herself in the right place at the right time. Unearthed with someone's long-buried inheritance, the victim seems to belong to the distant past - until new evidence suggests otherwise, and Karen is called in to unravel a case where nothing is as it seems. It's not long before an overheard conversation draws Karen into the heart of a different case, however - a shocking crime she thought she'd already prevented. As she inches closer to the twisted truths at the centre of these murders, it becomes clear that she's dealing with a version of justice terrifyingly different to her own...

    Broken ground5
    4.1

  6. Still Life

    • 448 pages
    • 16 hours of reading

    Praise for Val McDermid: 'Brilliant . . . Sensational . . . Unforgettable' - Guardian 'No one can plot or tell a story like she can' - Daily Express 'Compulsively readable' - Irish Times 'One of today's most accomplished crime writers' - Literary Review 'As good a psychological thriller as it is possible to get' - Sunday Express 'It grabs the reader by the throat and never lets go' - Daily Mail Discover the phenomenal, heart-pounding new novel from the queen of crime and number one bestseller, Val McDermid.

    Still Life6
    4.1