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Inspector Karen Pirie #2
A Darker Domain: A Novel
Past and present intertwine in this brilliant exploration of loyalty and greed from bestselling mistress of suspense Val McDermid. Fife, Scotland, 1984 . Mick Prentice abandons his family at the height of a politically charged national miners' strike to join the strikebreakers down south. Despised and disowned by friends and relatives, he is not reported missing until twenty-three years later. Fife, Scotland, 1985 . Kidnapped heiress Catriona Maclennan Grant is killed and her baby son vanishes when the ransom payoff goes horribly wrong. In 2008, a tourist in Tuscany stumbles upon dramatic new evidence that reopens the investigation. Already immersed in the Prentice affair, Detective Karen Pirie, newly appointed head of the Cold Case Review Team, wants to make her mark with this second unsolved 1980s mystery. But two decades' worth of secrets are leading Pirie into a dark domain of violence and betrayal—a place darker than any she has previously entered.
368 pages, Paperback
First published September 4, 2008
1416 people are currently reading
5302 people want to read
About the author
Val McDermid
308 books5,369 followersVal McDermid is a No. 1 bestseller whose novels have been translated into more than thirty languages, and have sold over eleven million copies.
She has won many awards internationally, including the CWA Gold Dagger for best crime novel of the year and the LA Times Book of the Year Award. She was inducted into the ITV3 Crime Thriller Awards Hall of Fame in 2009 and was the recipient of the CWA Cartier Diamond Dagger for 2010. In 2011 she received the Lambda Literary Foundation Pioneer Award.
She writes full time and divides her time between Cheshire and Edinburgh.
She has won many awards internationally, including the CWA Gold Dagger for best crime novel of the year and the LA Times Book of the Year Award. She was inducted into the ITV3 Crime Thriller Awards Hall of Fame in 2009 and was the recipient of the CWA Cartier Diamond Dagger for 2010. In 2011 she received the Lambda Literary Foundation Pioneer Award.
She writes full time and divides her time between Cheshire and Edinburgh.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,054 reviews
September 30, 2024
Karen Pirie #2: Investigating a missing miner who has just been declared missing from 25 years ago; Karen finds herself directed to focus on another case from the exact same year, of the richest man in Scotland's daughter and grandson's kidnap where the child was never seen again! Every time I read a McDermid book I am reminded of just what a superb write of characters, plot and mysteries she is. The non-nonsense and un-intimidate-able Pirie is one of my favourite fiction police detectives. This is an artfully most splendidly cold case investigation and mystery.
2024 read
2024 read
September 30, 2016
McDermid returns with a novel that gives Karen Pirie the central role she lacked in the series' opening novel. Now a Detective Inspector with Cold Cases, Pirie is approached by a woman who wishes to report her father missing after twenty-two years. Pirie learns that Mick Prentice was presumed to have left for Nottingham during the miner's strike of 1984, where he worked as a scab. However, the more Pirie learns, the less likely Prentice appears to be prone to cross the union, no matter his financial situation. She agrees to poke around, off the books, already on bad terms with her superior. When handed a high-profile case, Pirie heads out to meet with Sir Broderick Maclennan Grant, whose daughter and grandson made headlines in the late 1980s. After Catriona Maclennan Grant and her son, Adam, were kidnapped, a group of purported anarchists contacted the family and demanded a significant ransom. During the ensuing exchange, Catriona was shot and killed, leaving the kidnappers to flee with baby Adam. For the past twenty years, Sir Broderick has been unsure what might have happened to his grandson. Distrusting of the authorities, Grant liaises with a journalist in hopes that she can use her skills to investigate and hopefully crack the case wide open. Pirie works on a few leads, though both cases seem to be going nowhere. None of the other miners who left Scotland had seen Mick Prentice since heading to Nottingham, though Pirie did uncover proof that life in the Prentice household was anything but peaceful. This fuels her belief that Mick abandoned his family, though there is no clear lead as to where he might have gone. The Grant cases takes Pirie to Italy, where the kidnappers might have fled with Adam, offering him a new identity and life, wiped clean by the little one's young age. With her superiors breathing down her neck, Pirie pushes forward to piece together the new evidence and offer two families the answers they have lacked for the better part of twenty years. With all cold cases, answers are sometimes met with frigid responses for all parties involved. Another fabulous novel, chock-full of flashback narrative, that pulls the reader in from the early pages and refuses to let anyone rest before justice is served.
While I did make mention of Pirie's smaller role played in the opening novel, McDermid has changed this by placing her in the middle of these two convoluted cases, which push the authorities to their limits. McDermid build a great plot around numerous well-developed characters, each bringing their own flavour to the story. With two cases running parallel to one another in the narrative, McDermid must juggle all aspects effectively, keeping the story from getting too confusing or bogged down. As with any narrative dealing with cold cases, use of flashbacks fuels the story and the reader learns much from the use of past and present. However, McDermid has a means of using varied timelines effectively while not convoluting the larger picture. The reader can confidently navigate the story without losing their way as they seek answers. Additionally, the novel boasts realistic dialogue peppered with colloquialisms and Scottish settings, allowing McDermid to write using what she knows best while delivering a superior product. Readers will not be let down by this novel, which paves the way for another explosive story to come.
Kudos, Madam McDermid for an exciting novel. It kept my attention and had me wondering where you'd take your twists until the very end.
Like/hate the review? An ever-growing collection of others appears at:
http://pecheyponderings.wordpress.com/
While I did make mention of Pirie's smaller role played in the opening novel, McDermid has changed this by placing her in the middle of these two convoluted cases, which push the authorities to their limits. McDermid build a great plot around numerous well-developed characters, each bringing their own flavour to the story. With two cases running parallel to one another in the narrative, McDermid must juggle all aspects effectively, keeping the story from getting too confusing or bogged down. As with any narrative dealing with cold cases, use of flashbacks fuels the story and the reader learns much from the use of past and present. However, McDermid has a means of using varied timelines effectively while not convoluting the larger picture. The reader can confidently navigate the story without losing their way as they seek answers. Additionally, the novel boasts realistic dialogue peppered with colloquialisms and Scottish settings, allowing McDermid to write using what she knows best while delivering a superior product. Readers will not be let down by this novel, which paves the way for another explosive story to come.
Kudos, Madam McDermid for an exciting novel. It kept my attention and had me wondering where you'd take your twists until the very end.
Like/hate the review? An ever-growing collection of others appears at:
http://pecheyponderings.wordpress.com/
January 22, 2019
Second in the Karen Pirie series, this was much better than the first. Karen is front and center of this book. I now know her better, and I like her.
I’m really enjoying Val McDermid’s writing style. It’s a slower pace, there’s more character development, and the storylines make me very curious about how things connect. Most of this book takes place in 2007, with Karen and Phil Parhatka working two cold cases. A mother and her infant are kidnapped in 1985 and the child has never been found. Another storyline is about a coal miner who left his wife and daughter in 1984 due to the miners’ strike, and his daughter now needs to find him because her son needs a lifesaving bone marrow transplant.
I really liked how McDermid transitioned from 2007 to 1985 and back. There are no chapters per se; there are sections with breaks, and their length varies. She labels sections with date and/or location. In 2007 when people are speaking of their memories, the next section immediately goes back to the past where the characters, even deceased characters, relate events as if they were current time. The transitions felt seamless, and I didn’t always need to check date and location labels.
McDermid also does not wrap the ending up in a pretty package with a bow on it. As I neared the end, I had to pay close attention to details. I had to read some sections two or three times to be clear on what was happening, to make sense of the evidence, and to understand relationships. And that final half-page section had me researching back in the story. I believe McDermid understands her readers are astute enough to figure some things out for themselves.
I will definitely be reading the third book, and soon.
I’m really enjoying Val McDermid’s writing style. It’s a slower pace, there’s more character development, and the storylines make me very curious about how things connect. Most of this book takes place in 2007, with Karen and Phil Parhatka working two cold cases. A mother and her infant are kidnapped in 1985 and the child has never been found. Another storyline is about a coal miner who left his wife and daughter in 1984 due to the miners’ strike, and his daughter now needs to find him because her son needs a lifesaving bone marrow transplant.
I really liked how McDermid transitioned from 2007 to 1985 and back. There are no chapters per se; there are sections with breaks, and their length varies. She labels sections with date and/or location. In 2007 when people are speaking of their memories, the next section immediately goes back to the past where the characters, even deceased characters, relate events as if they were current time. The transitions felt seamless, and I didn’t always need to check date and location labels.
McDermid also does not wrap the ending up in a pretty package with a bow on it. As I neared the end, I had to pay close attention to details. I had to read some sections two or three times to be clear on what was happening, to make sense of the evidence, and to understand relationships. And that final half-page section had me researching back in the story. I believe McDermid understands her readers are astute enough to figure some things out for themselves.
I will definitely be reading the third book, and soon.
November 4, 2021
3.5 stars
In this 2nd book in the 'Inspector Karen Pirie' series, the cold case cop looks for a man who disappeared 22 years ago and a kidnapped baby boy who's been missing for over two decades. The book can be read as a standalone.
*****
The 1984 coal miners' strike in Great Britain hit the Scottish town of Newton of Wemyss very hard.
Miners' families had no heat, no food, and no hope. In desperation, a few blacklegs (scabs) went south to work in the mines of Nottingham, England. The scabs were scorned and despised by Newton townspeople, and the families they left behind were vilified.
So.....when miner Mick Prentice disappeared from Newton in 1984 his wife Jennie and daughter Misha assumed he'd gone scabbing and wrote him out of their lives forever.
Jump ahead to 2007 and Misha's little son Luke is dying from leukemia and in dire need of a blood marrow transplant.
Unable to find a compatible donor among local family members, Misha tries to locate her father.....and discovers he never went to Nottingham. So after 22 years Misha goes to the police and declares Mick Prentice a missing person.
Detective Inspector Karen Pirie, a cold case cop who tends to go her own way, dives into the inquiry. However she has to hide this from her disapproving boss, Assistant Chief Constable Simon Lees - who's been nicknamed 'The Macaroon' and considered a 'numpty' (bit of a fool).
ACC Lees doesn't want to spend money on this old case, and his interactions with Karen are the funniest parts of the book.
Karen is soon assigned an additional cold case. More than two decades ago an heiress named Catriona Maclennan Grant and her infant son Adam were kidnapped. Catriona's father, Sir Broderick Maclennan Grant, agreed to pay a huge ransom, but the handover went wrong. In the confusion Catriona was killed, the kidnappers escaped, and baby Adam disappeared.
Now, 20-plus years later, a freelance journalist named Bel Richmond is vacationing in Italy when she happens upon a clue to the Catriona kidnapping. The journalist parlays her discovery into an interview with the reclusive Sir Broderick Maclennan Grant, who reports the clue to the cops and insists that DI Pirie handle the case.
Grant also asks Bel to (secretly) gather more information in Tuscany.....perhaps thinking of dispatching a little frontier justice. Bel readily agrees to go, hoping to get a book deal - or even a movie - out of the whole business.
Meanwhile, DI Pirie and her partner - DS Phil Parhatka - juggle the two cases.
To locate Mick, the detectives speak to his family and friends as well as officers of the old National Miner's Union. They also ask the Nottingham police to interview the scabs who settled there years before. To find Catriona's kidnappers, the cops talk to her father and ex-boyfriend and get help from the carabinieri in Italy.
As the investigations proceed new information and discoveries come to light regarding both inquiries.
The story alternates between the past and present, so we learn what was going on in the characters' lives twenty years ago and how the investigations are proceeding now.
To say much more would give away spoilers. I will say, though, that there's a little flirty tension between DI Karen and DS Phil. However Karen - who sees herself as plain, chubby, and rumpled - doesn't really believe Phil could be romantically interested in her.
As the investigations into the two cold cases proceed some readers may think they know how things will turn out....but there are some big surprises. I'd recommend the book to mystery fans.
(I've read McDermid's non-fiction book Forensics: What Bugs, Burns, Prints, DNA and More Tell Us About Crime - which is excellent.)
You can follow my reviews at http://reviewsbybarbsaffer.blogspot.com/
February 10, 2025
Decent cold case police procedural with well developed characters, even though a couple of them were stereotypical. I particularly enjoyed the 1984 miners strike being the backdrop to this well constructed story. The writing conveys the feeling of hatred when you’re part of a scab family, with no change in that treatment 20+ years later. Breaking the picket line at the time has still not been forgiven. I’m guessing that Val is not a big fan of Margaret Thatcher!
September 24, 2019
A Darker Domain (Inspector Karen Pirie, #2) by Val McDermid.
This gifted author and this particular series in her repertoire are now among my favorites.
This story focuses on two cold cases. The first is a man presumed a scab/strike breaker due to his turning his back on his family and fellow coal miners by walking out presumably to a town down south. Now his daughter has a gravely ill child that desperately needs a match for a donor to save her son. His daughter, Misha, needs to find her father.
The second cold case like the first also happened twenty-two years ago. It involves the daughter and grandson of the wealthiest men in all of Scotland. Catriona heiress and daughter of Sir Broderick Maclennan Grant and her son Adam. The arrangement for the ransom to be paid in exchange for the kidnap victims goes horribly wrong. Someone is killed and the grandson goes missing for twenty-two years.
The author blends the past with the present (1987-2007). Karen Pirie presence grows with the story as does her private life which takes on a new interest outside of work.
The author also is quite the clever one in not laying out the end results in words but rather trusting her readers to grasp the results. Val McDermid is quite the clever one.
This gifted author and this particular series in her repertoire are now among my favorites.
This story focuses on two cold cases. The first is a man presumed a scab/strike breaker due to his turning his back on his family and fellow coal miners by walking out presumably to a town down south. Now his daughter has a gravely ill child that desperately needs a match for a donor to save her son. His daughter, Misha, needs to find her father.
The second cold case like the first also happened twenty-two years ago. It involves the daughter and grandson of the wealthiest men in all of Scotland. Catriona heiress and daughter of Sir Broderick Maclennan Grant and her son Adam. The arrangement for the ransom to be paid in exchange for the kidnap victims goes horribly wrong. Someone is killed and the grandson goes missing for twenty-two years.
The author blends the past with the present (1987-2007). Karen Pirie presence grows with the story as does her private life which takes on a new interest outside of work.
The author also is quite the clever one in not laying out the end results in words but rather trusting her readers to grasp the results. Val McDermid is quite the clever one.
August 18, 2015
Karen leaned back in her chair, not liking the answer she came up with, but knowing there would be nothing better coming from the man opposite her. ‘You were a right bunch of fucking cowboys in the old days, weren’t you?’ There was no admiration in her tone.
I don't know what I expected but I did not expect to like this book as much as I did. I gather from a lot of comments and other reviews that this is one of McDermid's weaker offerings but I actually really enjoyed the mix of interlinking stories, each of which had it's own element of suspense:
The search for a donor that is compatible with a sick child.
The disappearance of a man who seemingly one day walks out on his family in the midst of the 1984 miners' strikes.
The journalist in search of a story.
The business oligarch in search of his peace of mind.
And DI Karen Pirie searching for the solutions to all of these puzzles.
As mentioned before, I'm not keen on reading gory tales or scary thrillers, and I was pleasantly surprised that the suspense - and there are oodles of suspense in this - was built not on gory facts but on characters and atmosphere. The elements of forensic detail just helped piece the clues together and follow the investigation.
So, yes, my apprehension of reading this was totally unwarranted - and yes, it was all in my head. Just as well, because having read this one I look forward to reading more by McDermid. It's is not just her writing style that made me hungry for more but also the setting - Kingdom of Fife - and the historical snippets.
I don't know what I expected but I did not expect to like this book as much as I did. I gather from a lot of comments and other reviews that this is one of McDermid's weaker offerings but I actually really enjoyed the mix of interlinking stories, each of which had it's own element of suspense:
The search for a donor that is compatible with a sick child.
The disappearance of a man who seemingly one day walks out on his family in the midst of the 1984 miners' strikes.
The journalist in search of a story.
The business oligarch in search of his peace of mind.
And DI Karen Pirie searching for the solutions to all of these puzzles.
As mentioned before, I'm not keen on reading gory tales or scary thrillers, and I was pleasantly surprised that the suspense - and there are oodles of suspense in this - was built not on gory facts but on characters and atmosphere. The elements of forensic detail just helped piece the clues together and follow the investigation.
So, yes, my apprehension of reading this was totally unwarranted - and yes, it was all in my head. Just as well, because having read this one I look forward to reading more by McDermid. It's is not just her writing style that made me hungry for more but also the setting - Kingdom of Fife - and the historical snippets.
November 20, 2022
As I continue my backward trip through the Karen Pirie series, I come to A DARKER DOMAIN, which is officially #2 in the sequence. Except that, in reality, it’s the first real Karen Pirie novel, as she only played a bit part in “The Distant Echo”.
I did appreciate the backward look at “The Distant Echo” that we got when Karen visited former DI James Lawson, but our brief view of Lawson is the only thing that ties these two books together.
This is a difficult book to rate—internally I give it 4.5 stars—for the reasons described below. After waffling back and forth, I ended up giving it a four-star rating. For all it’s positive points, its format really bothered me; in my eyes, this kept this from being a top-level read.
FORMAT
-1 out of 10 for the writing format.
The entire book consists of ONE chapter. That means NO BREAKS to signal time, place, or POV changes. Consequently, after following Karen Pirie in Fife, Scotland, and the beginning of a case that interests Karen, we suddenly switch to Bel, a woman visiting Tuscany without warning or explanation. Confusing? Definitely. A confusion that could have easily been cleared up by starting a new chapter focusing on Bel. I assume that many simply stopped reading here, or that those who continued on found the plot confusing with far too many characters and storylines.
I continued reading, primarily because I wanted to return to Karen Pirie, and about the 35% point, started to notice the small italic print on the left-hand side of the pages that indicated time/place shifts—not all the shifts, but many of them. Then the story became more flowing. But having to read 35% of a novel before it becomes easy-to-read is unwarranted.
CHARACTERS
9 out of 10
I continued reading because of the great characterization, and I definitely prefer character-based writing to novels that stress plot. This is the first time we get a good picture of Karen Pirie, and what a wonderful lead detective she is. In the manner of many in this genre, she is flawed, but not because of a conflicted past (like many investigators in crime thrillers) but because of self-doubt about her physical attractiveness. Around thirty, she is short, somewhat pudgy, and average looking. In her mind, she is ”a wee fat woman crammed into a Marks and Spencer suit, mid-brown hair needing a visit to a hairdresser, might be pretty if you could see the definition of her bones under the flesh.” She has low self-esteem because she is not tall, svelte, and elegant. Many women can identify with her. Karen is not addicted to alcohol or cigarettes; she loves eating. Criminals and witnesses could seldom fool Karen, but when it came to food, she could fool herself seventeen ways before breakfast.
Karen has a crush on her co-worker, Phil—as she did in the earlier novel, “The Distant Echo”. But here it is more explicit, and whereas in “The Distant Echo” they were of equal rank, in A DARKER DOMAIN, Karen now outranks Phil (DI Karen Pirie versus DS Phil Parhatka) precisely because of events that took place in that earlier novel. But Phil is still a close friend because he ”finds her mind sexy.”
In THE DARKER DOMAIN, we are also introduced to the third member of Karen’s team, The Mint—a brief introduction that will be fleshed out in later novels of this series.
The second main character in this novel is Bel Richmond, a journalist who is somewhat older than Karen (maybe in her forties?), and although never physically described, is confident about her overall appearance and it’s effect on others. In both appearance and demeanour, Bel is a counterpoint to Karen, but both women share several common traits—intelligence, curiosity, and a burning desire to discover the truth. I didn’t care for Bel in the same way I loved Karen, but I admired her doggedness and ambition.
Then there are the villains, and there are several. Not one is a stereotypical criminal. Perhaps Sir Broderick Macllenan Grant is the closest to a stereotype in terms of super-wealthy, cold-blooded industry titan, but even he has unexpected traits. I’m not going to name the other villains because that would mean moving into spoiler territory.
PLOT
8 out of 10
There are two main storylines that took place in the past (1984) in Fife, Scotland, and one occurring in the present (2007) that begins in Tuscany and soon moves to Scotland.
The first case to catch Karen’s interest is that of Mick Prentice, who disappeared after he supposedly broke ranks and worked as a scab in Nottingham during a devastating miners’ strike of 1984. There’s also the baffling disappearance of Mick’s best friend, Andy, around the same time. (The view back in time to see the damage caused by the strike—within families, within the community—is a major strength of this novel.) The more Karen and Phil delve into this case, the more unlikely it appears that Mick just walked away.
The second case is one given to Karen by her superior, the Macaroon—a kidnapping and murder that also took place in 1984 and was never solved. Sir Broderick Macllenan Grant’s daughter and young grandson were kidnapped by a group of purported anarchists, a ransom was paid, but Grant’s daughter, Catriona, died in the mayhem, his grandson disappeared, and the anarchists never reappeared. New evidence found in Tuscany by Bel Richmond suggests that at least one of the kidnapers is still alive. To me, it was immediately obvious who initiated the kidnapping plot, and what went wrong, but inexplicably, no other character in the story, including Karen, seem to notice the obvious. To me this was a weak storyline, but it was needed to tie the other parts together.
Events taking place at Tuscany in 2007 involve a possible murder and a tie to the 1984 kidnapping case—a cue unearthed by Bel but then followed up by Karen.
Altogether, wonderfully complex.
THE ENDING
6 out of 10
McDermid seems to have difficulty with endings. Here, the various plot lines are tied up so quickly that I had to read the last section three times to ensure that everything ended satisfactorily.
I did appreciate the backward look at “The Distant Echo” that we got when Karen visited former DI James Lawson, but our brief view of Lawson is the only thing that ties these two books together.
This is a difficult book to rate—internally I give it 4.5 stars—for the reasons described below. After waffling back and forth, I ended up giving it a four-star rating. For all it’s positive points, its format really bothered me; in my eyes, this kept this from being a top-level read.
FORMAT
-1 out of 10 for the writing format.
The entire book consists of ONE chapter. That means NO BREAKS to signal time, place, or POV changes. Consequently, after following Karen Pirie in Fife, Scotland, and the beginning of a case that interests Karen, we suddenly switch to Bel, a woman visiting Tuscany without warning or explanation. Confusing? Definitely. A confusion that could have easily been cleared up by starting a new chapter focusing on Bel. I assume that many simply stopped reading here, or that those who continued on found the plot confusing with far too many characters and storylines.
I continued reading, primarily because I wanted to return to Karen Pirie, and about the 35% point, started to notice the small italic print on the left-hand side of the pages that indicated time/place shifts—not all the shifts, but many of them. Then the story became more flowing. But having to read 35% of a novel before it becomes easy-to-read is unwarranted.
CHARACTERS
9 out of 10
I continued reading because of the great characterization, and I definitely prefer character-based writing to novels that stress plot. This is the first time we get a good picture of Karen Pirie, and what a wonderful lead detective she is. In the manner of many in this genre, she is flawed, but not because of a conflicted past (like many investigators in crime thrillers) but because of self-doubt about her physical attractiveness. Around thirty, she is short, somewhat pudgy, and average looking. In her mind, she is ”a wee fat woman crammed into a Marks and Spencer suit, mid-brown hair needing a visit to a hairdresser, might be pretty if you could see the definition of her bones under the flesh.” She has low self-esteem because she is not tall, svelte, and elegant. Many women can identify with her. Karen is not addicted to alcohol or cigarettes; she loves eating. Criminals and witnesses could seldom fool Karen, but when it came to food, she could fool herself seventeen ways before breakfast.
Karen has a crush on her co-worker, Phil—as she did in the earlier novel, “The Distant Echo”. But here it is more explicit, and whereas in “The Distant Echo” they were of equal rank, in A DARKER DOMAIN, Karen now outranks Phil (DI Karen Pirie versus DS Phil Parhatka) precisely because of events that took place in that earlier novel. But Phil is still a close friend because he ”finds her mind sexy.”
In THE DARKER DOMAIN, we are also introduced to the third member of Karen’s team, The Mint—a brief introduction that will be fleshed out in later novels of this series.
The second main character in this novel is Bel Richmond, a journalist who is somewhat older than Karen (maybe in her forties?), and although never physically described, is confident about her overall appearance and it’s effect on others. In both appearance and demeanour, Bel is a counterpoint to Karen, but both women share several common traits—intelligence, curiosity, and a burning desire to discover the truth. I didn’t care for Bel in the same way I loved Karen, but I admired her doggedness and ambition.
Then there are the villains, and there are several. Not one is a stereotypical criminal. Perhaps Sir Broderick Macllenan Grant is the closest to a stereotype in terms of super-wealthy, cold-blooded industry titan, but even he has unexpected traits. I’m not going to name the other villains because that would mean moving into spoiler territory.
PLOT
8 out of 10
There are two main storylines that took place in the past (1984) in Fife, Scotland, and one occurring in the present (2007) that begins in Tuscany and soon moves to Scotland.
The first case to catch Karen’s interest is that of Mick Prentice, who disappeared after he supposedly broke ranks and worked as a scab in Nottingham during a devastating miners’ strike of 1984. There’s also the baffling disappearance of Mick’s best friend, Andy, around the same time. (The view back in time to see the damage caused by the strike—within families, within the community—is a major strength of this novel.) The more Karen and Phil delve into this case, the more unlikely it appears that Mick just walked away.
The second case is one given to Karen by her superior, the Macaroon—a kidnapping and murder that also took place in 1984 and was never solved. Sir Broderick Macllenan Grant’s daughter and young grandson were kidnapped by a group of purported anarchists, a ransom was paid, but Grant’s daughter, Catriona, died in the mayhem, his grandson disappeared, and the anarchists never reappeared. New evidence found in Tuscany by Bel Richmond suggests that at least one of the kidnapers is still alive. To me, it was immediately obvious who initiated the kidnapping plot, and what went wrong, but inexplicably, no other character in the story, including Karen, seem to notice the obvious. To me this was a weak storyline, but it was needed to tie the other parts together.
Events taking place at Tuscany in 2007 involve a possible murder and a tie to the 1984 kidnapping case—a cue unearthed by Bel but then followed up by Karen.
Altogether, wonderfully complex.
THE ENDING
6 out of 10
McDermid seems to have difficulty with endings. Here, the various plot lines are tied up so quickly that I had to read the last section three times to ensure that everything ended satisfactorily.
September 1, 2016
A Darker Domain started strong with a cold case involving miners who went missing during the brutal strike of 1984-1985. Having recently read How Green Was My Valley I appreciated being brought up to date on UK mining and the strike's impact. There were some interesting settings including the Wemyss Caves in Fife that actually exist and have famous Pictish wall drawings. DI Karen Pirie is likable character who describes herself as a wee fat person.
But there were far too many characters (quite literally dozens!) and almost as many shifts in POV. McDermid's attempt to tie the miners story in with a kidnapping gone wrong gets impossibly complicated. I particularly loathed the improbable romance thrown in at the end for no apparent reason except perhaps to prove By the end all the characters had morphed from being real people into mere plot devices and I no longer gave a hoot about any of them. I guessed the basic solution 80 pages from the end and skimmed to reach the last page...on which McDermid has the nerve to introduce yet another new character.
One final sore point: McDermid's plot resolutions relied heavily on DNA analysis, yet she has not done enough homework to know how DNA testing really works, how long it took in 2007 with even ideal samples, how shaky the results can be, and how slowly actual police labs work.
This is the first McDermid I've read and I'm not likely to read another, though now that I've read more GR review of this it seems I was unlucky enough to pick one of her weaker books.
Content PG: Lots of F bombs and a stupid sex scene.
But there were far too many characters (quite literally dozens!) and almost as many shifts in POV. McDermid's attempt to tie the miners story in with a kidnapping gone wrong gets impossibly complicated. I particularly loathed the improbable romance thrown in at the end for no apparent reason except perhaps to prove By the end all the characters had morphed from being real people into mere plot devices and I no longer gave a hoot about any of them. I guessed the basic solution 80 pages from the end and skimmed to reach the last page...on which McDermid has the nerve to introduce yet another new character.
One final sore point: McDermid's plot resolutions relied heavily on DNA analysis, yet she has not done enough homework to know how DNA testing really works, how long it took in 2007 with even ideal samples, how shaky the results can be, and how slowly actual police labs work.
This is the first McDermid I've read and I'm not likely to read another, though now that I've read more GR review of this it seems I was unlucky enough to pick one of her weaker books.
Content PG: Lots of F bombs and a stupid sex scene.
April 24, 2017
This is the second of the Karen Pirrie novels. It is a complicated story of a kidnapping gone wrong, and a separate case of a missing miner. Both cases date back to 1984. I didn't realize that Scotland had extensive coal mining, and were part of the Miners' Strikes 1984-85, when Thatcher and the union leader Arthur Scargil, shared the blame for destroying the livelihood of so many.
A UK journalist on holiday breaks into an abandoned villa in Italy. She discovers a large blood stain, and a silkscreened poster that is familiar. She learns squatters had been living there until recently, and that the poster is connected to a Scottish kidnapping. Karen Pirrie is in the mix as she is investigating the missing miner case, and suspects a connection to the kidnapping. As always, Karen manages to infuriate her boss, and alienate some of her co-workers. We see her relationship with her colleague, Phil, develop.
I listened to the audiobook which was not the same narrator as Karen Pirrie #4. She didn't differentiate the accents although the author clearly describes the character's accent and its origin.
Worth a listen (or read) for those who like the Karen Pirrie series.
A UK journalist on holiday breaks into an abandoned villa in Italy. She discovers a large blood stain, and a silkscreened poster that is familiar. She learns squatters had been living there until recently, and that the poster is connected to a Scottish kidnapping. Karen Pirrie is in the mix as she is investigating the missing miner case, and suspects a connection to the kidnapping. As always, Karen manages to infuriate her boss, and alienate some of her co-workers. We see her relationship with her colleague, Phil, develop.
I listened to the audiobook which was not the same narrator as Karen Pirrie #4. She didn't differentiate the accents although the author clearly describes the character's accent and its origin.
Worth a listen (or read) for those who like the Karen Pirrie series.
June 26, 2022
I can't say that the plot or that the characters impressed me in any way for me to like the story!
It was predictable, too descriptive and it made me bored at several points!
A series I don't plan to continue except for one more installment already in my possession!
Hope to have better luck with her other series!
It was predictable, too descriptive and it made me bored at several points!
A series I don't plan to continue except for one more installment already in my possession!
Hope to have better luck with her other series!
November 9, 2025
I love discovering new mystery authors that either keep me guessing until the end or (in this case) introduce me to new places and people that I want to learn more about. Loved Karen Pirie and her colleagues and the two Cold Cases she worked on were great! I look forward to reading other McDermid books as well as hoping she writes another Pirie installment.
(Reviewed 12/12/09)
PS— apparently there are 6/7 more books now! Definitely checking back on this series soon!
(Reviewed 12/12/09)
PS— apparently there are 6/7 more books now! Definitely checking back on this series soon!
June 25, 2020
After enjoying a couple later books in the Karen Pirie series I just had to go back closer to the beginning so I could catch a glimpse of Phil and the beginning of the relationship between the two.
This was quite a complicated story and rather gripping in the thick of things as a journalist bravely moves forward in her independent investigation of a 20+ year-old kidnapping gone wrong.
Karen's reputation at this early point is stamped with having sent her former boss to life in prison for murders. At work on a cold case due to request of a mother with dying child who needs DNA help in seeking her long lost father for help. This case dovetails into another request from a wealthy man. She does not bow down or back down to this wealthy Scot who wants to know what happened to the kidnappers of his daughter and grandson. The police cooperation between Italy and Scotland goes well as does Karen's close connection with forensics as usual. Very good yarn, another long book that does not fail to hold the reader's attention.
I should mention that there is good information on what the miners went through during the strike of 1984 and how they felt about Margaret Thatcher.
Library Loan
This was quite a complicated story and rather gripping in the thick of things as a journalist bravely moves forward in her independent investigation of a 20+ year-old kidnapping gone wrong.
Karen's reputation at this early point is stamped with having sent her former boss to life in prison for murders. At work on a cold case due to request of a mother with dying child who needs DNA help in seeking her long lost father for help. This case dovetails into another request from a wealthy man. She does not bow down or back down to this wealthy Scot who wants to know what happened to the kidnappers of his daughter and grandson. The police cooperation between Italy and Scotland goes well as does Karen's close connection with forensics as usual. Very good yarn, another long book that does not fail to hold the reader's attention.
I should mention that there is good information on what the miners went through during the strike of 1984 and how they felt about Margaret Thatcher.
Library Loan
February 5, 2012
2008. A cold missing persons case in a Scottish mining town reopens an unsolved twenty-two year old kidnapping and murder and leads Detective Inspector Karen Pirie to a pair of "unrelated" disappearances which altogether unravel the complex relationship between the miners and the most powerful man in Scotland.
If that sounds like a huge story, it is. We've got: Class warfare. Gender warfare. Abuse of power. Press connivance. Provincialism. Nationalism. Union busters and scabs. Art versus commerce versus love. Marital infidelity and betrayal. Families versus families versus neighbors and friends. Murder, robbery, conspiracy. And the 1984 miners strike in Great Britain.
Plus, to set the clock ticking, a young child is in desperate need of a bone marrow transplant from his missing father.
I admire Val McDermid and so do alot of other people. She's won a shelf of awards and has had her characters and novels brought to life in acclaimed TV programs and serials. She doesn't need me to write a few words about anything she's done as journalist or novelist. Her place is secure. My two stars will twinkle in the nighttime sky unseen by anyone but me.
But I barely got through this book. Which made me wonder why we like one book and not another. What makes us connect to a character, say, or a voice? Why do we fall deeply into one story and not care about another? It isn't simply that one book is well-written and another one isn't. McDermid writes expertly. She is a master of her craft. I have read other work by her and been blown away.
I like the genre. I lived in London--not Scotland, I admit--and traveled the novel's terrain. I remember the time and the history of the miners strike.
But reading this book was a chore. So why didn't I just chuck it and move on to something else? No one forced me to keep reading. That's what puzzles me.
I kept reading even though I felt led along by made-up characters purposefully created to bring out the class warfare etc as listed above. The plot was overly complex and over the course of four hundred pages it unfolded backwards, as any good mystery does, at a snail's pace. It didn't help that nothing was much of a surprise. It didn't help that nearly all the characters were unlikeable, with the exception of the protag, DI Pirie. It didn't help that--without giving anything away--a key character explained everything he did in a fifteen page letter, the epistolary equivalent of a drawing room confession, making that character utterly despicable in the process.
McDermid's fans will probably tell me to get stuffed. Even though the author has deep heartfelt passion for the community of miners, that's not enough to make for a great or even a good book. Her passion is genuine. The well-crafted book though is a failure. It is flat. It is predictable. It is paint-by-the-numbers.
I guess I'm getting to the reasons why I don't like this book. But does that translate to why we don't like one book over another? Do we need to be surprised, if not wowed, or at least steered into a new direction by either story, voice, or character? Do we need to be transported somehow somewhere? Do we need to be more than entertained? Do we need to look up from the book and consider our world a bit differently? What makes a story work, resonate, remain with us?
Don’t have those answers yet. But I'll keep trying.
Looking on the bright side, if someone with McDermid's talent can turn out an occasional clunker, maybe there's hope for the rest of us. We might just turn the tables on the writing muses and toss off the odd winner.
If that sounds like a huge story, it is. We've got: Class warfare. Gender warfare. Abuse of power. Press connivance. Provincialism. Nationalism. Union busters and scabs. Art versus commerce versus love. Marital infidelity and betrayal. Families versus families versus neighbors and friends. Murder, robbery, conspiracy. And the 1984 miners strike in Great Britain.
Plus, to set the clock ticking, a young child is in desperate need of a bone marrow transplant from his missing father.
I admire Val McDermid and so do alot of other people. She's won a shelf of awards and has had her characters and novels brought to life in acclaimed TV programs and serials. She doesn't need me to write a few words about anything she's done as journalist or novelist. Her place is secure. My two stars will twinkle in the nighttime sky unseen by anyone but me.
But I barely got through this book. Which made me wonder why we like one book and not another. What makes us connect to a character, say, or a voice? Why do we fall deeply into one story and not care about another? It isn't simply that one book is well-written and another one isn't. McDermid writes expertly. She is a master of her craft. I have read other work by her and been blown away.
I like the genre. I lived in London--not Scotland, I admit--and traveled the novel's terrain. I remember the time and the history of the miners strike.
But reading this book was a chore. So why didn't I just chuck it and move on to something else? No one forced me to keep reading. That's what puzzles me.
I kept reading even though I felt led along by made-up characters purposefully created to bring out the class warfare etc as listed above. The plot was overly complex and over the course of four hundred pages it unfolded backwards, as any good mystery does, at a snail's pace. It didn't help that nothing was much of a surprise. It didn't help that nearly all the characters were unlikeable, with the exception of the protag, DI Pirie. It didn't help that--without giving anything away--a key character explained everything he did in a fifteen page letter, the epistolary equivalent of a drawing room confession, making that character utterly despicable in the process.
McDermid's fans will probably tell me to get stuffed. Even though the author has deep heartfelt passion for the community of miners, that's not enough to make for a great or even a good book. Her passion is genuine. The well-crafted book though is a failure. It is flat. It is predictable. It is paint-by-the-numbers.
I guess I'm getting to the reasons why I don't like this book. But does that translate to why we don't like one book over another? Do we need to be surprised, if not wowed, or at least steered into a new direction by either story, voice, or character? Do we need to be transported somehow somewhere? Do we need to be more than entertained? Do we need to look up from the book and consider our world a bit differently? What makes a story work, resonate, remain with us?
Don’t have those answers yet. But I'll keep trying.
Looking on the bright side, if someone with McDermid's talent can turn out an occasional clunker, maybe there's hope for the rest of us. We might just turn the tables on the writing muses and toss off the odd winner.
March 27, 2018
Many reviewers seem to take issue with the complexity of the plot and the number of characters. While both are true, I enjoyed this book and the interlocking pieces of the plot.
November 22, 2019
Scabs and kidnappers...
As the miners’ strike of 1984 dragged on, the miners and their families were increasingly desperate, relying on donations of food from sympathisers and collecting wood for fuel. A group of miners from the Fife village of Newton of Wemyss secretly left one morning to make their way to Nottingham, where the pits had re-opened, worked by men who were considered traitors – scabs – by the men of the National Union of Mineworkers. That morning, Mick Prentice disappeared too, and it was assumed he had gone with the men to Nottingham. Now in 2007, his daughter has an urgent need to contact him but can find no trace, so she reports him as a missing person. Because of the length of time since he was last seen, Karen Pirie of the Cold Case Review Team takes on the investigation. But she’ll soon be distracted by another cold case that has resurfaced.
Long ago, the daughter of local business magnate Sir Broderick Maclennan Grant was kidnapped with her baby son and held to ransom. The pay-off went wrong – Catherine, the daughter, was killed and no trace has ever been found of the child, Adam, nor were the kidnappers ever caught. Now an investigative journalist, Bel Richmond, has happened across something while on holiday in Italy that may provide the key to the mystery. Sir Brodie uses his considerable influence to have the case moved to the top of Karen’s priority list...
When Val McDermid is on form, as she is here, there are few authors to touch her in terms of telling a great story. This series, by concentrating on cold cases, allows her to revisit aspects of Scotland’s past and she does so with a deep understanding of the effect of events on the lives of the people caught up in them. The miners’ strike was a major turning point for Scotland, and for Britain more widely, as the Prime Minister nicknamed the Iron Lady (Mrs Thatcher) and the most powerful union leader in the land nicknamed King Arthur (Arthur Scargill) met head on in a battle for supremacy: a battle in which, as always, the foot soldiers – the miners and their families – became little more than cannon fodder. McDermid doesn’t delve deeply into the rights and wrongs of the dispute, but she shows with devastating clarity the impact the long-running strike had on mining communities, causing major hardship, testing old loyalties, straining marriages to their limits and dividing families, and leaving a legacy of bitterness that still lives on today.
She doesn’t allow the story to get lost amid the background, however. Karen soon discovers that there’s more to Mick’s disappearance than first appears. As she interviews his wife, still bitter about the disgrace he brought on his family by scabbing, and then the various other people who knew him back then, Karen gradually unearths a very human story with elements of love and betrayal, selfishness and greed, tragedy and guilt.
The other story too, the kidnapping, is just as human. Sir Brodie loved his daughter, perhaps too much, wanting to control her life and objecting to her choices, both in boyfriends and in career. As obstinate as her father, Catherine showed no desire to compromise or yield, leaving her mother trying to be the peacemaker in the middle. Her death left Sir Brodie not only bereaved, but with no opportunity for the reconciliation they might have had if they had been given time. Now, although he has made a new life for himself, Sir Brodie is still driven to find the kidnappers and have revenge, legally or otherwise, and to find what happened to the child – he has never given up hope that his grandson may be alive. He doesn’t have faith that the police will solve the crime after all this time, so he persuades the journalist, Bell, to investigate the Italian connection and, hoping for the scoop of a lifetime, she’s only too happy to oblige.
The book skips about a lot between the various timelines and sometimes following Karen, sometimes Bel. But McDermid keeps total control, so that the reader never feels lost despite the complexities of plot and structure. It’s a fairly lengthy book but never dips or drags – the settings and story hold the attention throughout, and the characterisation is excellent, done with some degree of sympathy for even the least likeable among them. Karen herself is one of the most enjoyable detectives on the contemporary crime scene, not perfect but not an angst-ridden maverick, professional and skilled at her job, but with a life outside work. Here she’s working mostly with her long-term friend and now sergeant, Phil Parhatka, and there’s a welcome lack of the tedious sexism storyline most crime writers seem to feel necessary whenever they have a female protagonist.
One of her best, in my opinion, and considering how good she is, that’s saying a lot. Highly recommended.
www.fictionfanblog.wordpress.com
As the miners’ strike of 1984 dragged on, the miners and their families were increasingly desperate, relying on donations of food from sympathisers and collecting wood for fuel. A group of miners from the Fife village of Newton of Wemyss secretly left one morning to make their way to Nottingham, where the pits had re-opened, worked by men who were considered traitors – scabs – by the men of the National Union of Mineworkers. That morning, Mick Prentice disappeared too, and it was assumed he had gone with the men to Nottingham. Now in 2007, his daughter has an urgent need to contact him but can find no trace, so she reports him as a missing person. Because of the length of time since he was last seen, Karen Pirie of the Cold Case Review Team takes on the investigation. But she’ll soon be distracted by another cold case that has resurfaced.
Long ago, the daughter of local business magnate Sir Broderick Maclennan Grant was kidnapped with her baby son and held to ransom. The pay-off went wrong – Catherine, the daughter, was killed and no trace has ever been found of the child, Adam, nor were the kidnappers ever caught. Now an investigative journalist, Bel Richmond, has happened across something while on holiday in Italy that may provide the key to the mystery. Sir Brodie uses his considerable influence to have the case moved to the top of Karen’s priority list...
When Val McDermid is on form, as she is here, there are few authors to touch her in terms of telling a great story. This series, by concentrating on cold cases, allows her to revisit aspects of Scotland’s past and she does so with a deep understanding of the effect of events on the lives of the people caught up in them. The miners’ strike was a major turning point for Scotland, and for Britain more widely, as the Prime Minister nicknamed the Iron Lady (Mrs Thatcher) and the most powerful union leader in the land nicknamed King Arthur (Arthur Scargill) met head on in a battle for supremacy: a battle in which, as always, the foot soldiers – the miners and their families – became little more than cannon fodder. McDermid doesn’t delve deeply into the rights and wrongs of the dispute, but she shows with devastating clarity the impact the long-running strike had on mining communities, causing major hardship, testing old loyalties, straining marriages to their limits and dividing families, and leaving a legacy of bitterness that still lives on today.
She doesn’t allow the story to get lost amid the background, however. Karen soon discovers that there’s more to Mick’s disappearance than first appears. As she interviews his wife, still bitter about the disgrace he brought on his family by scabbing, and then the various other people who knew him back then, Karen gradually unearths a very human story with elements of love and betrayal, selfishness and greed, tragedy and guilt.
The other story too, the kidnapping, is just as human. Sir Brodie loved his daughter, perhaps too much, wanting to control her life and objecting to her choices, both in boyfriends and in career. As obstinate as her father, Catherine showed no desire to compromise or yield, leaving her mother trying to be the peacemaker in the middle. Her death left Sir Brodie not only bereaved, but with no opportunity for the reconciliation they might have had if they had been given time. Now, although he has made a new life for himself, Sir Brodie is still driven to find the kidnappers and have revenge, legally or otherwise, and to find what happened to the child – he has never given up hope that his grandson may be alive. He doesn’t have faith that the police will solve the crime after all this time, so he persuades the journalist, Bell, to investigate the Italian connection and, hoping for the scoop of a lifetime, she’s only too happy to oblige.
The book skips about a lot between the various timelines and sometimes following Karen, sometimes Bel. But McDermid keeps total control, so that the reader never feels lost despite the complexities of plot and structure. It’s a fairly lengthy book but never dips or drags – the settings and story hold the attention throughout, and the characterisation is excellent, done with some degree of sympathy for even the least likeable among them. Karen herself is one of the most enjoyable detectives on the contemporary crime scene, not perfect but not an angst-ridden maverick, professional and skilled at her job, but with a life outside work. Here she’s working mostly with her long-term friend and now sergeant, Phil Parhatka, and there’s a welcome lack of the tedious sexism storyline most crime writers seem to feel necessary whenever they have a female protagonist.
One of her best, in my opinion, and considering how good she is, that’s saying a lot. Highly recommended.
www.fictionfanblog.wordpress.com
April 7, 2009
It may have been a mistake to read "A Dark Domain" as close to the new Laura Lippman novel as I did. Lippman's stories always set my expectations bar high for mystery stories.
I really did think Val McDermid had it in her to compete with Lippman. I consumed "A Place of Execution" a few years ago, but I have to be honest that McDermid's novels since then have been rather hit or miss for me.
Chalk "A Dark Domain" up as a miss.
And it's got such an intriguing premise. A woman walks into the cold case division, wanting them to help her find her missing father. He vanished under mysterious circumstances 20 years before, during the British coal strike. The family never bothered to look for him since they felt abandoned by him. Now, the daughter is married and has a child with a rare disease who could use a bone marrow transfusion from a close family member. With options running out, she decides that the time has come to try and track down her dad, to see if he might help the grandchild.
Meanwhile, a journalist on vacation stumbles across evidence in the cold case of a vanished woman and her son. The woman is the daughter of a wealthy Scottish man and the disappearance has gone unsolved these many years.
Two cold cases involving the disapparance of family members. The story is told between the present and the past, with each flashback illuminating the case in a different way. It's a simliar storytelling technique to the one used on "Lost" where our glimpses of the past help illuminate things currently unfolding in the present.
And yet as intriguing as the premise is, it never really connected with me. There is a clock ticking, but there's not a sense of urgency to the solve the cases. And once you do get to the solution, it's a bit disappointing and not as rewarding as I'd hoped it would be. The worst thing you can say about a mystery novel is that the solution isn't worth the journey. Unfortunately, that's the case with this one.
I really did think Val McDermid had it in her to compete with Lippman. I consumed "A Place of Execution" a few years ago, but I have to be honest that McDermid's novels since then have been rather hit or miss for me.
Chalk "A Dark Domain" up as a miss.
And it's got such an intriguing premise. A woman walks into the cold case division, wanting them to help her find her missing father. He vanished under mysterious circumstances 20 years before, during the British coal strike. The family never bothered to look for him since they felt abandoned by him. Now, the daughter is married and has a child with a rare disease who could use a bone marrow transfusion from a close family member. With options running out, she decides that the time has come to try and track down her dad, to see if he might help the grandchild.
Meanwhile, a journalist on vacation stumbles across evidence in the cold case of a vanished woman and her son. The woman is the daughter of a wealthy Scottish man and the disappearance has gone unsolved these many years.
Two cold cases involving the disapparance of family members. The story is told between the present and the past, with each flashback illuminating the case in a different way. It's a simliar storytelling technique to the one used on "Lost" where our glimpses of the past help illuminate things currently unfolding in the present.
And yet as intriguing as the premise is, it never really connected with me. There is a clock ticking, but there's not a sense of urgency to the solve the cases. And once you do get to the solution, it's a bit disappointing and not as rewarding as I'd hoped it would be. The worst thing you can say about a mystery novel is that the solution isn't worth the journey. Unfortunately, that's the case with this one.
February 17, 2017
Meh.
This started out promising. DCI Karen Pirie has been promoted from The Distant Echo, as a cold case detective and as a character, after having put her former boss in prison for murder.
Two cases from December 1984 (during the Scottish mining strike) come to the surface at the same time. One is the disappearance of a miner who was presumed to have departed with a group of Scabs, but his daughter has discovered that he didn't go with those men after all. (As she now has a young son dying of leukemia, her interest in finding her missing father has returned.). The other is the kidnapping and subsequent murder of a young heiress. Her infant son was ransomed with her, but after the botched payoff, he and the kidnappers disappeared without a trace.
Of course these two cases are connected, because this is a mystery novel and not real life, but the solution to the mystery is too bizarre, plot developments come out of nowhere, and the conclusion is unsatisfying. Some of the forensic science is unrealistic (i.e. how quickly DNA can be tested).
This may be my last Val McDermid.
This started out promising. DCI Karen Pirie has been promoted from The Distant Echo, as a cold case detective and as a character, after having put her former boss in prison for murder.
Two cases from December 1984 (during the Scottish mining strike) come to the surface at the same time. One is the disappearance of a miner who was presumed to have departed with a group of Scabs, but his daughter has discovered that he didn't go with those men after all. (As she now has a young son dying of leukemia, her interest in finding her missing father has returned.). The other is the kidnapping and subsequent murder of a young heiress. Her infant son was ransomed with her, but after the botched payoff, he and the kidnappers disappeared without a trace.
Of course these two cases are connected, because this is a mystery novel and not real life, but the solution to the mystery is too bizarre, plot developments come out of nowhere, and the conclusion is unsatisfying. Some of the forensic science is unrealistic (i.e. how quickly DNA can be tested).
This may be my last Val McDermid.
June 9, 2022
My second book in the series.I didn’t find it that much interesting or involving It has it’s surprising elements but …at the moments I wanted just to finished.It’s was way too long for reading(listening)
April 28, 2020
The second book in the Inspector Karen Pirie series by Val McDermid. I have read the other four books in this series and in my opinion this is the weakest. I still enjoyed it but didn't quite feel it was as good.
Inspector Karen Pirie investigates cold cases and in this book she takes on solving the disappearance of a young boy who was kidnapped 22 years ago. At the same time she investigates the disappearance of mine worker Mick Prentice, his wife believes he joined a group of strike breakers in Nottingham but recent evidence suggests that his disappearance might not have been as simple as that. Prentice's daughter Misha is desperate to find her father to save her son who has a medical condition.
The story is told by jumping back in time and present day to give the background as well as the investigation. It was still a decent read and I do enjoy the characters but feel it just fell short of the other books in the series.
Inspector Karen Pirie investigates cold cases and in this book she takes on solving the disappearance of a young boy who was kidnapped 22 years ago. At the same time she investigates the disappearance of mine worker Mick Prentice, his wife believes he joined a group of strike breakers in Nottingham but recent evidence suggests that his disappearance might not have been as simple as that. Prentice's daughter Misha is desperate to find her father to save her son who has a medical condition.
The story is told by jumping back in time and present day to give the background as well as the investigation. It was still a decent read and I do enjoy the characters but feel it just fell short of the other books in the series.
May 23, 2011
This lady can write!!! She is rapidly rising in the ranks of my favorite authors, almost equal to P.D. James! This book is not a part of her Tony Hill series but is a stand-alone. Cold Case Detective Karen Pirie takes on a missing person case from 1984, a man missing during the Welsh miners' strike. She's also assigned to another cold case, that of a kidnap/ransom/murder case around the same time period. I enjoyed the way the author develops these cases and then brings everything together. I didn't want to put the book down it was such enjoyable reading! I'm looking forward to reading all of her books!
April 5, 2022
El libro tiene muchísimas páginas que no aportan nada y que ya desde la página 18 me sobran por lo que empiezo a leer muy por encima, además la ambientación y la descripción de personajes son muy largas y demasiado exhaustivas. Dejo el libro es pesado, soso y me cansa y me aburre. Creo que estilo de esta autora no es para mí.
December 25, 2025
I’ve read two books now in the Detective Inspector Karen Pirie series, and both of them have been a bit unorthodox in hitting the usual benchmarks of a murder mystery genre.
‘A Darker Domain’, book two in the Pirie series, by Val McDermid is full of twists and turns! Readers will find it difficult to put the mystery down, but if you do, I’d get the hardcover so you can go back and review more easily! There are two convoluted cases, two sets of characters, two timelines, which seemingly are unrelated for about half of the novel. But of course, eventually the separated strands (sort of a pun, which readers will understand after finishing the book) of the mystery become tangled together. Then, unexpectedly, the tangles sort themselves out in a direction I didn’t see coming.
McDermid really creates an extremely intricate plot in this murder mystery! Readers will have to work at it to keep up.
I have copied the book blurb:
”Past and present intertwine in this rare stand-alone novel of taut psychological drama—a brilliant exploration of loyalty and greed from the bestselling mistress of suspense.
Fife, Scotland, 1985. Heiress Catriona Maclennan Grant and her baby son are kidnapped. The ransom payoff goes horribly wrong and Grant is killed. Her son disappears without a trace—until 2008, when a tourist in Tuscany stumbles upon dramatic new evidence that reopens the investigation.
Fife, 1984. At the height of the politically charged national miners' strike, Mick Prentice abandons his family to join the strikebreakers down south. Labelled a blackleg scab, he's as good as dead as far as his friends and relatives care.
Twenty-three years later, a young woman walks into a police station to report Mick Prentice missing. Detective Karen Pirie, head of the Cold Case Review Team, wants to know why it's taken so long for anyone to notice.
For Pirie, already immersed in the Prentice investigation, a second foray into a 1980s investigation gone cold—this time, the Grant kidnapping—offers an opportunity to make her mark. But it's sure to come at an extremely high price. As she works to unravel these mysteries, two decades of secrets will lead Karen Pirie into a dark domain of violence and betrayal—darker than any she has yet encountered.”
‘A Darker Domain’, which supposedly is book two in the Detective Inspector Karen Pirie series, is really the first novel which features Pirie. Book one, The Distant Echo, barely goes beyond introducing Pirie, and then that is far into the story. She is a minor character in book one, and I had no inkling when I read it Pirie would end up being any kind of main character. But in this number two in the series, Pirie drives ‘A Darker Domain’ forward to a conclusion, providing a connection to the various narrations which introduce the other involved main characters. She is much more of a presence in this novel than the first one.
Frankly, I’m not certain I like her yet, but her quirks are intriguing. She is not afraid to take risks despite lingering uncertainties that could mean the end of her career! I admire that, even if people like Pirie kinda scare me. Bull in a china-tableware store type of personality!
‘A Darker Domain’, book two in the Pirie series, by Val McDermid is full of twists and turns! Readers will find it difficult to put the mystery down, but if you do, I’d get the hardcover so you can go back and review more easily! There are two convoluted cases, two sets of characters, two timelines, which seemingly are unrelated for about half of the novel. But of course, eventually the separated strands (sort of a pun, which readers will understand after finishing the book) of the mystery become tangled together. Then, unexpectedly, the tangles sort themselves out in a direction I didn’t see coming.
McDermid really creates an extremely intricate plot in this murder mystery! Readers will have to work at it to keep up.
I have copied the book blurb:
”Past and present intertwine in this rare stand-alone novel of taut psychological drama—a brilliant exploration of loyalty and greed from the bestselling mistress of suspense.
Fife, Scotland, 1985. Heiress Catriona Maclennan Grant and her baby son are kidnapped. The ransom payoff goes horribly wrong and Grant is killed. Her son disappears without a trace—until 2008, when a tourist in Tuscany stumbles upon dramatic new evidence that reopens the investigation.
Fife, 1984. At the height of the politically charged national miners' strike, Mick Prentice abandons his family to join the strikebreakers down south. Labelled a blackleg scab, he's as good as dead as far as his friends and relatives care.
Twenty-three years later, a young woman walks into a police station to report Mick Prentice missing. Detective Karen Pirie, head of the Cold Case Review Team, wants to know why it's taken so long for anyone to notice.
For Pirie, already immersed in the Prentice investigation, a second foray into a 1980s investigation gone cold—this time, the Grant kidnapping—offers an opportunity to make her mark. But it's sure to come at an extremely high price. As she works to unravel these mysteries, two decades of secrets will lead Karen Pirie into a dark domain of violence and betrayal—darker than any she has yet encountered.”
‘A Darker Domain’, which supposedly is book two in the Detective Inspector Karen Pirie series, is really the first novel which features Pirie. Book one, The Distant Echo, barely goes beyond introducing Pirie, and then that is far into the story. She is a minor character in book one, and I had no inkling when I read it Pirie would end up being any kind of main character. But in this number two in the series, Pirie drives ‘A Darker Domain’ forward to a conclusion, providing a connection to the various narrations which introduce the other involved main characters. She is much more of a presence in this novel than the first one.
Frankly, I’m not certain I like her yet, but her quirks are intriguing. She is not afraid to take risks despite lingering uncertainties that could mean the end of her career! I admire that, even if people like Pirie kinda scare me. Bull in a china-tableware store type of personality!
August 1, 2025
Karen Pirie is fast becoming one of my favourite Scottish detectives. There's grit and spike to her, there's a sense of humour but also kindness and certain level of vulnerability.
Val McDermid writes with ease and manages to seamlessly connect all the different threads of the story without mudding the waters. Different timelines, different characters, different countries and yet it all comes together beautifully in a novel that kept me interested throughout.
Really liked it and looking forward to the next book in the series.
Val McDermid writes with ease and manages to seamlessly connect all the different threads of the story without mudding the waters. Different timelines, different characters, different countries and yet it all comes together beautifully in a novel that kept me interested throughout.
Really liked it and looking forward to the next book in the series.
July 22, 2021
Karen Pirie is a police inspector in charge of cold cases. There are two investigations going on here: one involving a miner who went missing during the miner's strike in the 1980's and another about a kidnapping of an heiress and her son around the same time.
Could they be connected?
Really good story from Val McDermid.
Could they be connected?
Really good story from Val McDermid.
February 2, 2009
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 Strikes in early 1980's Britain, it carries the story of three unfathomable disappearances.
Cold Case squad detectives DI Karen Pirie and DS Phil Parhatka are initially looking into the disappearance of Mick Prentice - reported missing 22 years after he supposedly broke ranks and joined the scabs in the devastating miners' strike of 1984. There's also the baffling disappearance of Mick's mate Andy about the same time. Unfortunately Karen's boss thinks that new evidence in the case of the dead heiress and missing son (and grandson) of a wealthy and powerful man is more important. Karen isn't all that fazed by pressure from on high though, and she's able to dance a fine line between both investigations.
The action in this book does take a couple of overseas trips to Tuscany, but mostly it stays within the small mining community of East Wemyss (a place that Val spent time with her grandparents as a child), and the way that the setting is portrayed in this book is wonderful. Not just the look and layout of the place, but the psyche of the place. The damage that the miners' strike caused, within families, throughout the community, the fractured lives demonstrated was really moving in some places, but at no stage did it become sentimental or overblown. There's also romantic element to this book which is also well done and quite funny. In fact that is something about this book which you wouldn't expect - there is a sense of humour amidst the sadness that lifts the story beautifully.
DI Karen Pirie is a tremendous character, with (hopefully), real possibilities for an ongoing series. An archetypal maverick police officer maybe - she's just not afraid to manipulate, defy and flat out be as devious as she needs, to do what she thinks is the right thing. Phil as her offsider is perfect, less emotional, equally as determined, they are a really good team.
An extremely solid and nicely twisting plot; a couple of very engaging central characters; an interfering and weak boss; a powerful man who wants to know where his grandson is; a daughter who needs to find her father; a wife who cannot forgive; and a sister who is grief stricken 22 years after the unexplained; there's an enormous amount in A DARKER DOMAIN. But at the base of it is a community that was destroyed - to the point where the abnormal was accepted as the normal, and there's no sign of recovery. Beautifully done, A DARKER DOMAIN is simply and utterly a wow of a book.
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Cold Case squad detectives DI Karen Pirie and DS Phil Parhatka are initially looking into the disappearance of Mick Prentice - reported missing 22 years after he supposedly broke ranks and joined the scabs in the devastating miners' strike of 1984. There's also the baffling disappearance of Mick's mate Andy about the same time. Unfortunately Karen's boss thinks that new evidence in the case of the dead heiress and missing son (and grandson) of a wealthy and powerful man is more important. Karen isn't all that fazed by pressure from on high though, and she's able to dance a fine line between both investigations.
The action in this book does take a couple of overseas trips to Tuscany, but mostly it stays within the small mining community of East Wemyss (a place that Val spent time with her grandparents as a child), and the way that the setting is portrayed in this book is wonderful. Not just the look and layout of the place, but the psyche of the place. The damage that the miners' strike caused, within families, throughout the community, the fractured lives demonstrated was really moving in some places, but at no stage did it become sentimental or overblown. There's also romantic element to this book which is also well done and quite funny. In fact that is something about this book which you wouldn't expect - there is a sense of humour amidst the sadness that lifts the story beautifully.
DI Karen Pirie is a tremendous character, with (hopefully), real possibilities for an ongoing series. An archetypal maverick police officer maybe - she's just not afraid to manipulate, defy and flat out be as devious as she needs, to do what she thinks is the right thing. Phil as her offsider is perfect, less emotional, equally as determined, they are a really good team.
An extremely solid and nicely twisting plot; a couple of very engaging central characters; an interfering and weak boss; a powerful man who wants to know where his grandson is; a daughter who needs to find her father; a wife who cannot forgive; and a sister who is grief stricken 22 years after the unexplained; there's an enormous amount in A DARKER DOMAIN. But at the base of it is a community that was destroyed - to the point where the abnormal was accepted as the normal, and there's no sign of recovery. Beautifully done, A DARKER DOMAIN is simply and utterly a wow of a book.
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October 20, 2020
I'm still having an adjustment period with this author's writing style. The premise was good, I just felt there were a few too many players to keep track of plus they had alias' too and the jumping from past to present kept my mind racing a bit! And to top it off, it kind of left it as a cliff hanger!!!
A thumbs up and 4 stars
From the blurb: The superb new psychological thriller from bestselling author Val McDermid mixes fiction with one of the most symbolic and exceptional moments in recent history - the national miners' strike 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 DI Karen Pirie doesn't hold much hope of unravelling the infamous enigma. She's already investigating a case from the same year. At the height of the miner's strike, Mick Prentice broke ranks to join 'scab' strike-breakers down south. But new evidence suggests Mick's disappearance may not be as straightforward as that - and Karen's investigations take her into a dark domain of secrets, betrayal and the ultimate violence! Past and present intertwine in a novel of taut psychological suspense that explores the intersection of desire and greed.
A thumbs up and 4 stars
From the blurb: The superb new psychological thriller from bestselling author Val McDermid mixes fiction with one of the most symbolic and exceptional moments in recent history - the national miners' strike 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 DI Karen Pirie doesn't hold much hope of unravelling the infamous enigma. She's already investigating a case from the same year. At the height of the miner's strike, Mick Prentice broke ranks to join 'scab' strike-breakers down south. But new evidence suggests Mick's disappearance may not be as straightforward as that - and Karen's investigations take her into a dark domain of secrets, betrayal and the ultimate violence! Past and present intertwine in a novel of taut psychological suspense that explores the intersection of desire and greed.
February 15, 2009
This is another standalone from the talented Val McDermid, who as usual is able to weave together many threads to produce one compelling narrative. By the time I got to the end of the book I couldn't stop reading it. The main character is Detective Karen Pirie, a cold case detective in Fife, Scotland. She gets two cases that are real heartbreakers: one is the case of a young woman looking for her long missing father - she hopes his bone marrow can help save her gravely ill son. The other is the case of the long murdered Catriona Grant, who was kidnapped with her infant son and killed. New evidence has surfaced that suggests the case isn't cold and that her son may be alive somewhere. THe investigative threads weave back and forth while the skillful MDermid paints the characters with her usual detailed brush. This is a perfect combination of plot, character, setting and lovely writing.
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