Reviewed by Rod McLary
After two books in a new series featuring journalist Allie Burns [1979 and 1989 ], Val McDermid has returned to a favourite protagonist Detective Chief Inspector Karen Pirie head of the Historical Cases Unit of Police Scotland. DCI Pirie has been the primary character in six previous books. The author has said that her novels are within the ‘tartan noir’ genre which is confined to Scottish crime writers among which are those of the calibre of Ian Rankin and Peter May – and of course Val McDermid.
Set in early 2020 just as the world was coming to terms with the Covid-19 pandemic and all its implications, DCI Pirie is facing a challenging investigation compounded by the first country-wide lockdown. With a nod to the Patricia Highsmith novel Strangers on a Train and the later film of the same name by Alfred Hitchcock. As set out in the novel, there appears to be no connection between the alleged perpetrator/s and the victim – the perfect crime perhaps?
The investigation in Past Lying begins with the discovery of an incomplete manuscript which seems to be frighteningly similar to the unexplained and unsolved disappearance of a young female university student. The manuscript was written by a successful crime writer and seems to implicate an up-and-coming crime writer in a tale of murder and betrayal.
As DCI Pirie and her team – DS Daisy Mortimer and DC Jason Murray – begin their investigations while rigorously observing the obligatory social distancing, masking and sanitising, they discover more and more similarities between the manuscript and the young woman’s disappearance.
But there is more to this novel than the investigation. Each of the police team has personal and family issues to contend with. Karen is grappling with a personal relationship which may or may not be an emotionally coercive one; Jason’s mother has contracted Covid-19 and has been hospitalised; while Daisy is exploring a new online relationship. As well, Karen’s nemesis ACC Ann Markie – nicknamed Dog Biscuit [but never to her face] because her surname is also a Scottish brand name – is only too ready to complicate Karen’s investigations. But even she must accept, however grudgingly, the overwhelming evidence that Karen and her team have accumulated. The novel’s backstories while secondary to the central investigation nevertheless add a further dimension and interest to the characters and the novel. All the characters are well realised and the reader readily engages with each of them.
There is also a sub-plot involving Rafiq Yasin who was a doctor in a prison in Syria whose family were killed. He is now in Scotland in a hostel but ‘they’ are still looking for him and will kill him. DCI Pirie has been asked to assist him – which she does. Rafiq is now in Canada and DCI Pirie is thinking of visiting him there – is there a romance in the air? Possibly – after a successful investigation, the novel concludes on an upbeat note.
Val McDermid is one of the finest crime writers and never disappoints. Past Lying is a masterclass in police procedures and investigations; and as the title suggests secrets and lies abound.
Past Lying
[2023]
by Val McDermid
Hachette
ISBN 978 140872 908 3
$32.99; 452pp