'The bodies never stay buried forever...'
On a freezing winter morning, fishermen pull a body from the sea. It is quickly discovered that the dead man was the prime suspect in a decade-old investigation, when a prominent civil servant disappeared without trace...Read more
Edinburgh, haunted by the ghosts of its many writers, is also the cold case beat of DCI Karen Pirie. So she shouldn't be surprised when an author's manuscript appears to be a blueprint for an actual crime.
Karen can't ignore the plot's chilling similarities to the unsolved case...Read more
In the new installment to her historical crime series that began with 1979, internationally bestselling author Val McDermid delivers a propulsive new thriller that finds journalist Allie Burns has become an editor, and as the Cold War and...Read more
It seemed like an unsolvable mystery at the time: a wealthy heiress and son kidnapped in Fife, then a botched payoff, leaving her dead with no trace of the child.
So when, over twenty-five years later, a possible clue is discovered by a journalist in Tuscany, cold-case expert...Read more
The year started badly and only got worse–blizzards, strikes, power cuts, and political unrest were the norm. For journalist Allie Burns, however, someone else's bad news was the unmistakable sound of opportunity knocking, and the year is ripe with possibilities. But Allie is a woman in a man's world.Read more
The first in the Allie Burns series, 1979 was released in 2021 with the second, 1989 out in October 2022. It was the arrival of the second book that made me realise I hadn't read the the first - and then I realised I'm behind with the Karen Pirie novels (now a TV series into the bargain),...Read more
Val McDermid, Reginald Hill, and Peter James are just some of the 24 top selling crime writers who have contributed stories to Criminal Tendencies, an exciting new crime short collection. Alongside the big names will be stories from first-time authors Chris Nickson and Caroline Shiach,...Read more
In his foreword to this fantastic collection Mark Billingham points out so many of the mysteries behind the decline of the short story. In these days of short periods of available quiet time for reading, it does seem strange that fewer and fewer short story collections seem to be published...Read more
Val McDermid has tackled some social history that is obviously very dear to her own heart in A DARKER DOMAIN, and it has to be said, she's done it with considerable style. Not only does this book give you a fascinating glimpse into the social chaos and personal pain caused by the Miner's...Read more
Winter 1963: two children have disappeared in Manchester; the murderous careers of Myra Hindley and Ian Brady have begun. On a freezing day in December, another child goes missing: 13-year-old Alison Carter vanishes from the isolated Derbyshire hamlet of Scardale. For the young George...Read more
"But down these mean streets must go a man who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished or afraid." When Raymond Chandler wrote these words in his classic The Simple Art of Murder, he drew a blueprint for the male private eyes who descend from Philip Marlowe to populate the world of...Read more