Val McDermid: Past Lying
Karen Pirie #7
This is the series I think of as Val McDermid’s “gentler” series. Unlike the gruesomeness of the Tony Hill books, these books are more cerebral. Cerebral in an un-putdownable way. Karen Pirie heads up Edinburgh’s cold case squad – called in Scotland the HCU or Historical Cases Unit. At the close of the last book, Karen and her squad mate, Daisy, had agreed to go into lockdown together as COVID was just taking its hold on the world. At that moment, it seemed like lockdown would be a few short weeks, but as this novel opens COVID is in full swing.