{"id":5278,"date":"2023-11-05T06:53:12","date_gmt":"2023-11-05T14:53:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/?p=5278"},"modified":"2023-11-05T06:53:12","modified_gmt":"2023-11-05T14:53:12","slug":"val-mcdermid-past-lying","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/val-mcdermid-past-lying\/","title":{"rendered":"Val McDermid: Past Lying"},"content":{"rendered":"

Karen Pirie #7<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>This is the series I think of as Val McDermid\u2019s \u201cgentler\u201d series.\u00a0 Unlike the gruesomeness of the Tony Hill books, these books are more cerebral.\u00a0 Cerebral in an un-putdownable way. Karen Pirie heads up Edinburgh\u2019s cold case squad \u2013 called in Scotland the HCU or Historical Cases Unit.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 At that moment, it seemed like lockdown would be a few short weeks, but as this novel opens COVID is in full swing.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve read several excellent mysteries which have examined our experiences with the pandemic, and this is one of them.\u00a0 The unfortunate sidebar is that it brings the pandemic all back in a rush \u2013 the isolation, the masks, and of course the overcrowded hospitals and the deaths. \u00a0The one nice thing about the pandemic, however, was the quiet and lack of traffic, and the quiet and the chance for a city walkabout are what keeps Karen sane as she and Daisy adjust to living with each other and to lockdown (for Daisy, this includes a lot of chocolate).<\/p>\n

And because of the pandemic and the squad\u2019s desire to keep busy at something, they follow a lead called in from a librarian at Scotland\u2019s National Library.\u00a0 She\u2019s discovered an unfinished manuscript in the files she\u2019s organizing of a recently deceased bestselling crime novelist, and the story seems to eerily and creepily explain the mysterious disappearance of one Lara Hardie.\u00a0 The manuscript is titled The Vanishing of Laurel Oliver, <\/em>and it\u2019s the story of two crime writers, one on the way up, one on the way down, who play chess together.\u00a0 The one on the downward swing begins to plot the perfect murder \u2013 one that would implicate the other writer and leave him in every way the obvious killer.<\/p>\n

Maybe only a crime writer could have planned that plot, and McDermid is one of the best in the biz.\u00a0 The sly nods to the crime writing community, the way publishing and fandom function, is done with affection as well as with obvious knowledge of the community\u2019s inner workings. The complication of the book and for the squad working the case is finding connections between the real Lara Hardie and the fictional Laurel Oliver.<\/p>\n

This is a book of meticulous and careful police work as the connections are uncovered as the case proceeds.\u00a0 One member of the squad is dealing with a serious case of COVID in his family; Karen is struggling with her relationship to her boyfriend.\u00a0 She\u2019s living in his apartment while he\u2019s in the north of Scotland making a killing on hand sanitizer. There\u2019s also a Syrian refugee in the mix.\u00a0 McDermid balances these different threads with the ease of an expert.<\/p>\n

She\u2019s also got a little message about male bullying and entitlement, and though it\u2019s fairly subtle, it\u2019s a definite theme relating to the two male, chess playing protagonists of the novel.\u00a0 However, as I was churning through the pages I had to think back a bit to take it in.\u00a0 McDermid is nothing if not a gifted storyteller.\u00a0 Similar to writers like Ann Cleeves, Peter Robinson and Deborah Crombie, these books are a slow burn, but once the fire catches you really can\u2019t look away.<\/p>\n

The book ends post COVID but it\u2019s brought changes to everyone\u2019s life and to the characters in Karen Pirie\u2019s universe.\u00a0 McDermid makes an experience lived through by everyone on the planet a shared one, and she\u2019s helping us to take it in and reflect on it.\u00a0\u00a0 In the guise, of course, of a rocket powered crime novel. —\u00a0Robin Agnew<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Karen Pirie #7 This is the series I think of as Val McDermid\u2019s \u201cgentler\u201d series.\u00a0 Unlike the gruesomeness of the Tony Hill books, these books are more cerebral.\u00a0 Cerebral in an un-putdownable way. Karen Pirie heads up Edinburgh\u2019s cold case squad \u2013 called in Scotland the HCU or Historical Cases Unit.\u00a0 At the close of … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[1394,857,1395,1131,1392,1393,8,1276,729],"class_list":["post-5278","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-cold-case","tag-covid","tag-crime-writers","tag-edinburgh","tag-grove-atlantic","tag-karen-pirie","tag-police","tag-robin-agnew","tag-val-mcdermid"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5278","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5278"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5278\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5280,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5278\/revisions\/5280"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5278"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5278"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5278"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}