Past Lying

When anyone asks about my favorite mystery series, Val McDermid's Karen Pirie books are right up at the top of the list. With its lovely twisty plot, Past Lying is an excellent addition. The story is made even more engrossing by showing readers policing in the time of Covid. There are rules that must be obeyed, or there will be consequences, and Karen and her team have to be very careful (and quick-witted) about how they conduct themselves.

Speaking of Karen and her team, there is a lot in Past Lying to further the lives of the main characters. There's Karen's relationship with Hamish, the entrepreneur, which is complicated by the fact that he's miles away while Karen is in his apartment in Edinburgh with team member, Daisy, during the show more lockdown. And Daisy? She shows a lot of talent as a police officer, but I'm not sure how much I can trust her. After all, Daisy herself says, it's "... always handy to have something on your boss." This doubt makes the back of my mind itch as I watch Karen work hard to make both Daisy and Jason stronger members of the team.

There's even more going on in the characters' lives, which makes sense due to the personal nature of lockdown; however, there is also an insider's look at the craft of writing, manuscripts, publishing, author events, and workshops, as well as the plight of refugees. Past Lying is a densely layered, completely satisfying mystery, and I don't want to wait until December for the next book in the series. show less

IN A NUTSHELL
‘Past Lying’ was an entertaining, slightly quirky mystery that worked well even though I dived in at the seventh book in the Karne Pirie series. The plot was clever. The insider view of the Scottish crime writing community was fun. Best of all, Karen and her colleagues felt real to me. I liked the realistically slow, deliberately low-key pace. Val McDermid did a good job in capturing the world-out-of-joint feeling of COVID and the fears and frustrations associated with it. Lauren Lyle‘s calm narration enhanced my enjoyment.

I had a really good time with 'Past Lying'. I gave up on Val McDermid’s Tony Hill and Carol Jordan books in the 1990s because they were too bloody for me and made me feel like a voyeur. I was show more pleased that this Karen Pirie book was quite different. The focus was on the police officers and their approach to solving a case rather than on getting inside the mind of some sadistic serial killer. I think it also helped that Karen Pirie investigates cold cases, so she has the time to be thorough rather than racing to prevent the next death.

The writing was smooth and accessible. The plot was elaborate and clever. Its many twists kept me actively involved in trying to figure out who the murderer was. By the 80% point, I thought I’d guessed what the final twist would be, but I had no idea as to the why of it. I think getting me to that point and having me eager to find out if I was right is a sign of how well the plot was constructed.

Val McDermid has been at the centre of the Scottish crime writing community for decades, and I was amused and pleased by the way this novel gave me the feeling of getting an insider's view of that world. Although the story was about a cold-blooded murder, the depiction of writers attending conferences, giving readings, and running writing workshops, all while competing with each other for book deals and literary prizes, was almost playful. It felt to me that Val McDermid was having fun with inserting extracts from books in different writing styles and playing with book titles.

What I liked most about the book was that Karen and her colleagues felt real to me. Even though I hadn’t read the six books that preceded ‘Past Lying’, I felt at home with Karen and her team. I liked the slightly slower pace that working on a cold case allowed, and that working any case during a COVID Lockdown imposed. It made Karen’s methodical approach a strength and gave space for the personalities of the police officers and the relationships between them to develop.

I wouldn’t normally jump in at the seventh book in a series, but ‘Past Lying' is Val McDermid’s Lockdown novel, and I wanted to see what Lockdown in Edinburgh had been like. I think Val McDermid did a good job not only in capturing the world-out-of-joint feeling of COVID times and the fears and frustrations associated with it, but in using them to enhance the plot.

I recommend the audiobook, narrated by Lauren Lyle, who plays Karen Pirie in the TV series. Click on the YouTube link below to hear a sample.

https://youtu.be/13fa-Z3E5ts?si=ogDu1OQoj4OM9Xin show less

Past Lying, the seventh book in the Karen Pirie series from Val McDermid, is everything I have come to expect in one of her novels, in other words, a very good story with engaging characters.

I became a fan of McDermid in the early 90s with the Kate Brannigan series but really loved the Tony Hill/Carol Jordan books (and TV show for that matter). Whether dark and foreboding or more along the lines of less dark procedurals, the thing that always brings me back are the characters. Of course, if you're following a series, you care about the recurring characters, but even the ones who only make an appearance in one or two books are still presented as people with a life outside the immediate action of the novel.

In this new offering, which I show more think could be read as a standalone, the COVID lockdowns help bring to the forefront that these characters both have a life beyond the case the book is centered on as well as outside of their jobs as police officers. Many books give the impression that police only work one case at a time, and have almost no personal life. McDermid certainly shows that this line of work makes aspects of a personal life difficult but doesn't turn them into automatons that do only one thing.

I think this volume is as much about the journey, the lives of everyone involved, as it is about the final outcome of the case. I wasn't just interested in the next development in the case, even though I was invested in it. I also cared about what else was going on in their lives as well as the interactions between them. I guess you could say I read these novels to spend time with them, not just to see how they solve a case.

Recommended for McDermid fans as well as anyone who enjoys character driven thrillers. This isn't the most twisty mystery, so if that is all you care about, you may not like it as much as I did, but I still think you'll find plenty to keep you engaged.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley. show less

Love this character. It was intense to relive the early days of 2020 lockdown, so that's something to know going in. Karen, though -- I love how she knows/finds her own mind. I love how she's gathering a solid crew of investigators. I love how she proceeds come hell or high water. I wish she had less aggro from the boss, and I'm hopeful for that turn about in the future. I think Daisy will likely end up to be trouble, but I'm interested to see how that plays out. Emotionally taxing, but a great story.

I tore through this book in two days. It was a visceral reminder of the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic: although the world seems to have moved on, we must not forget how terrifying those early days were and how little we knew about the virus (and we don't know that much more now, especially about long Covid). The details were just right and accurate. I liked too that each squad member got some airtime in the story.

In this, the seventh in the DCI Karen Pirie police procedurals, it is 2020 and Pirie’s Historic Cases 3 person team joins other Scots in Covid lockdown. They are called back into action when a librarian contacts one of them because a manuscript in the archive of a recently deceased crime novelist seems provide an answer as to what happened to a young woman who went missing a year ago. Struggling to comply with lockdown rules and also avoid Pirie’s dreaded superior, “Dog Biscuit”, the team unravels a story of jealousy, deceit, retribution.

This is a clever plot that utilizes the intriguing technique of a book within a book combined with Covid lockdown and the pain many people faced with separation and loss. McDermid paints a vivid show more picture of Edinburgh and I enjoy her ongoing story of the plight of Syrian refugees in the city. Kudos to her for continuing to shed light on them.

I really like the main character. Pirie is strong, intelligent, empathetic, vulnerable. In her quest for truth and justice for victims’ families, Karen often makes no friends. Constable Jason is endearing. Sargent Daisy can be both earnest and flippant, and I wouldn’t turn my back around her.

This reads well as a stand alone, but reading the prior Pirie books may provide more context. Plus, they are a joy to read. They are among my favorites and are a “must read” for me. Incidentally, Karen Pirie is also a Britbox series. show less

I really should read more by Val McDermid. As you can see from my list below I always enjoy her books. I don't think I have read any others featuring DCI Karen Pirie. I usually favour reading a series in order to pick up on character development etc. But in this case I don't think it makes much difference. McDermid has done a lovely job of filling in the bits from the past that I needed to know.

The novel is set in Edinburgh in April 2020, the beginning of the Covid lockdown with all sorts of regulations and restrictions that placed limitations on "normal" life including where we could go, what we could do etc. In fact, so well is this setting described in the novel, I had to remind myself as I set the novel down for a breather that we show more are not now in isolation.

The plot twists and turns as DCI Pirie and her team attempt to work out the correlations between the unexplained disappearance of student in Edinburgh a year before and a manuscript donated to the National Archives which seems to describe what happened to her. About half way through the novel, as my mind played with what DCI Pirie had uncovered so far, I came up with a "what if" which in fact was close to the final resolution. Now, it is not often that happens, but it didn't prevent me from reading the rest of the book, nor did it remove the pleasure of finding out that I was "nearly right".

Somebody wiser than me remarked a year or two ago that just as World War One, and World War Two, and the assassination of JFK, have provided time markers for us where we say pre-war or post-war, so Covid 19 will provide a similar time marker for us. I really haven't read too many books that have done that so far, but here is one that reminds of the impact Covid 19 had on our daily lives. Here in Australia variants of Covid are still having an impact. For example, there are still thousands in hospital. There are still people in our communities who disappear for a week or two with it. We are raising a whole generation of young people whose schooling has been disrupted by Covid. So much is different to what it was 4 years ago. show less