‘A Darker Domain’ by Val McDermid

My Review (5 stars out of 5)

The case of a woman and her baby son – kidnapped twenty-five years earlier – lands on DI Karen Pirie’s desk following a recent development in Tuscany. But Karen already has another case to deal with from 1984 – the same year of the kidnap. Risking her boss’s wrath, Karen decides to run the investigations at the same time, but is there a link between the two mysteries?

This is book two in the Karen Pirie series. As soon as I started reading, I knew I’d read it before, though couldn’t recall much of the plot. The book is written in locations and years, rather than chapters, the story shifting between the time of the miners’ strike in 1984 and the disappearance of pitman Mick Prentice and Catriona Grant, and the 2007 investigation into both cases. Along with her running mate DS Parhatka, Pirie must also deal with a reporter enlisted by the grandfather of the missing baby, Sir Broderick Maclennan Grant, whose domineering attitude doesn’t necessarily include sharing information with the police.

The detail around the miners’ strike adds authenticity to the story and Ms McDermid’s storytelling quickly draws the reader in. The last hundred or so pages are totally gripping, throwing in a few surprises which I didn’t see coming.

An excellent murder mystery that kept me gripped all the way through.

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