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Award-winning author Val McDermid offers up a suspense-filled stand-alone novel with A Darker Domain. Karen Pirie is the newly appointed Deputy Inspector of the Cold Case Unit, and her first investigation takes her 25 years into the past to the national miners' strike. At the time, a kidnapping gone wrong left a small boy missing, but new evidence suggests he might still be alive. As Pirie delves deeper, she realizes the boy's disappearance may be linked to another cold case involving a show more missing miner. show lessTags
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Two cold cases come to DI Karen Pirie’s Cold Case Review Team in Fife. One is the disappearance of a miner during the 1984 strike that created deep divisions within the communities, and the other is the kidnapping of a wealthy industrialist’s daughter and grandson, where the ransom handover ended with the death of the daughter and the disappearance of the grandson.
This is my favourite of McDermid’s series; the cold cases are interesting, especially how both the absence of information and the sudden revelation of information have such an impact on the present; there aren’t too many gory details or getting into the head of creepy serial killers; and Pirie makes a solid protagonist. And as a Doctor Who fan I must state that I show more always picture Dr. River Wilde looking like Alex Kingston’s River Song. River Song is an archaeologist herself, so not far off Dr. Wilde’s line of work.
I was carried along very easily by this story, and was so invested in it that a revelation in it made me exclaim “What!” out loud at the book. This one *might* stretch the bounds of credulity a little, but coincidences happen in real life, so I think they’re allowed in fiction (to a degree).
This book contains spoilers for the first book in the series, The Distant Echo, so if you are a person who likes to read series in order, you may want to do so with this one. show less
This is my favourite of McDermid’s series; the cold cases are interesting, especially how both the absence of information and the sudden revelation of information have such an impact on the present; there aren’t too many gory details or getting into the head of creepy serial killers; and Pirie makes a solid protagonist. And as a Doctor Who fan I must state that I show more always picture Dr. River Wilde looking like Alex Kingston’s River Song. River Song is an archaeologist herself, so not far off Dr. Wilde’s line of work.
I was carried along very easily by this story, and was so invested in it that a revelation in it made me exclaim “What!” out loud at the book. This one *might* stretch the bounds of credulity a little, but coincidences happen in real life, so I think they’re allowed in fiction (to a degree).
This book contains spoilers for the first book in the series, The Distant Echo, so if you are a person who likes to read series in order, you may want to do so with this one. show less
The second of McDermid's books that I've read, and I quite enjoyed this one as much as the first. Good character development and a well paced mystery with just enough threads to keep things interesting.
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 show more 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. show less
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 show more 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. show less
I was initially drawn to the premise of a missing persons case where the person isn't reported missing until more than 20 years after he disappeared. How could that be? As it turns out, a miner who disappeared during a tumultuous strike in 1984 was assumed to have gone south with several other `blackleg miners' to work as a scab. In such circumstances his absence was considered good riddance and nobody tried to find him. But now, years later, his grandson is ill and needs a transplant so his daughter sets out to find her dad only to find that her dad never went with the blacklegs and that nobody had seen him since. Is there any hope of finding him with a trail this cold? Is there any chance he may be alive?
At the same time she is drawn show more into another cold case, one of a kidnapping gone horribly wrong. Are the cases connected? Can the kidnapped child still be alive?
As I read A Darker Domain I got the impression that this book was much more personal to the author the other books of hers that I have read. I felt that she saw her story through the eyes of her protagonist, Detective Inspector Karen Pirie. As I learned later, McDermid did grow up in the coal towns she writes about and her father and grandfather were both miners. As there is far more than just fiction here, the reader can't help but get emotionally involved in the story and its outcome.
Perhaps this intimacy with the setting is partially responsible for my one minor complaint. She discusses the strike and bandies about miners slang in such a way that one thinks she expects the whole world to know who Scargill was or what a `pit bing' is. It doesn't distract from the story but I can't help feeling that know would have given me a deeper understanding of the situation.
A Darker Domain is an excellent example of the quality detective fiction coming out of Scotland these days and it's a far cry from Miss Marple. Thank God for that as I've never been one for tea and knitting. show less
At the same time she is drawn show more into another cold case, one of a kidnapping gone horribly wrong. Are the cases connected? Can the kidnapped child still be alive?
As I read A Darker Domain I got the impression that this book was much more personal to the author the other books of hers that I have read. I felt that she saw her story through the eyes of her protagonist, Detective Inspector Karen Pirie. As I learned later, McDermid did grow up in the coal towns she writes about and her father and grandfather were both miners. As there is far more than just fiction here, the reader can't help but get emotionally involved in the story and its outcome.
Perhaps this intimacy with the setting is partially responsible for my one minor complaint. She discusses the strike and bandies about miners slang in such a way that one thinks she expects the whole world to know who Scargill was or what a `pit bing' is. It doesn't distract from the story but I can't help feeling that know would have given me a deeper understanding of the situation.
A Darker Domain is an excellent example of the quality detective fiction coming out of Scotland these days and it's a far cry from Miss Marple. Thank God for that as I've never been one for tea and knitting. show less
I enjoyed reading this novel a lot, but not quite as much as the first book of the series. That is mainly due to the structure - there are a lot of time warps in the first half of the book, the time and setting changes every few pages because there are so many flashbacks. The flashbacks are effectively used to tell the story and convey the emotions of the characters, but I needed some time to get into this kind of storytelling.
There are two cold cases which I found equally interesting:
A woman desperately seeks to save her son who needs a bone marrow transplant, so she is looking for her father, a miner who left without a trace in the 1980s during the miners' strike.
One of the richest men in Scotland is looking for his grandson who was show more lost without a trace after he and his mother were kidnapped and the ransom delivery went terribly wrong. This happened in the 1980s as well and for a long time there was no hope, until suddenly, some new evidence appears.
Karen Pirie is assigned to the second case, although to her, the first case seems much more interesting and urgent.
I found both cases very compelling, although the novel takes a lot of time in the beginning and the plot could have moved a little faster. On the other hand, the ending seemed a little rushed and I would have liked a few more explanations. It is a bit of a sudden ending.
All in all, I was still spell-bound by this novel, though, and cannot wait to read the third installment and meet Karen Pirie again! show less
There are two cold cases which I found equally interesting:
A woman desperately seeks to save her son who needs a bone marrow transplant, so she is looking for her father, a miner who left without a trace in the 1980s during the miners' strike.
One of the richest men in Scotland is looking for his grandson who was show more lost without a trace after he and his mother were kidnapped and the ransom delivery went terribly wrong. This happened in the 1980s as well and for a long time there was no hope, until suddenly, some new evidence appears.
Karen Pirie is assigned to the second case, although to her, the first case seems much more interesting and urgent.
I found both cases very compelling, although the novel takes a lot of time in the beginning and the plot could have moved a little faster. On the other hand, the ending seemed a little rushed and I would have liked a few more explanations. It is a bit of a sudden ending.
All in all, I was still spell-bound by this novel, though, and cannot wait to read the third installment and meet Karen Pirie again! show less
I quite enjoyed this, a pair of twisted tales of a missing father and a missing grandson. The tale starts when a young woman walking into a Police station and declares her father missing for over 20 years. Seems he went missing in the Miner's strike of 1984, and hasn't been seen or heard of since. The solution everyone thinks is the answer turns out not to be quite as simple as assumption had made it seem.
In parallel to this, a journalist finds a copy of a poster that was used as the ransom demand in a kidnapping that took place at about the same time and ended in a botched handover and the death of one of those kidnapped.
Along side two cases, Karen is dealing with politics, a daft boss and Phil. It's all entertaining enough and while show more I had an idea of where we were going, it took a couple of unexpected twists and turns.
This is the second in the series and is a much stronger book, with Karen being given a much stronger role. The style of story telling is also different, with the past events being told in flashbacks by the interviewee, rather than as a block before the case is solved in the later time frame. show less
In parallel to this, a journalist finds a copy of a poster that was used as the ransom demand in a kidnapping that took place at about the same time and ended in a botched handover and the death of one of those kidnapped.
Along side two cases, Karen is dealing with politics, a daft boss and Phil. It's all entertaining enough and while show more I had an idea of where we were going, it took a couple of unexpected twists and turns.
This is the second in the series and is a much stronger book, with Karen being given a much stronger role. The style of story telling is also different, with the past events being told in flashbacks by the interviewee, rather than as a block before the case is solved in the later time frame. show less
An excellent read with well-rounded characters and a plot which moves seamlessly from the 1984-5 ill-fated miners' strike to 2007. DI Karen Pirie is asked to take on an unusual cold case where a man disappeared during the miners' strike but was never reported missing at the time, but now has because the man's daughter has a young son suffering from an incurable disease and needs a donor. No sooner has she started the investigation, which intrigues her, than her boss instructs her to look at another cold case, the unsolved kidnap and murder of a local millionaire's daughter about which fresh evidence has come to light. Two separate cases, apparently not connected, reach a surprising conclusion. The scenes and characters relating to the show more miners' strike are particularly well-observed and reflect the author's own experience during the strike. Recommended. show less
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'McDermid mengt politieke achtergronden met een sterke plot die tal van verrassingen verbergt. Een van de beste thrillers van het voorjaar.'
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Author Information
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Val McDermid was born in Scotland on June 4, 1955. She was the first student from a state school in Scotland accepted to read English at St Hilda's College, Oxford. She graduated in 1975 and became a journalist. She wrote her first novel at the age of 21. It didn't get published, but she turned it into a play entitled Like a Happy Ending. It was show more performed by the Plymouth Theatre Company and was later adapted for BBC radio. Her first book, Report for Murder, was published in 1987. She is the author of the Lindsay Gordon Mystery series, the Kate Brannigan Mystery series, and the Dr. Tony Hill and Carol Jordan Mysteries series as well as several stand alone books including The Distant Echo, A Darker Domain, Trick of the Dark and Out of Bounds. The Mermaids Singing won the Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger for Best Crime Novel of the Year. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
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Harper Perennial Olive Editions (2019 Olive)
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Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- A Darker Domain
- Original title
- A Darker Domain
- Original publication date
- 2008-09-01
- People/Characters
- Karen Pirie (DI); Phil Parhatka (DS); Mick Prentice; Misha Gibson; Jenny Prentice; Annabel 'Bel' Richmond (show all 14); Sir Broderick Maclennan Grant; Catriona Grant; Adam Maclennan Grant; Gabriel Porteous; Daniel Porteous; Fergus Sinclair; Toby Inglis; Andy Kerr
- Important places
- Glenrothes, Fife, Scotland, UK; Newton of Wemyss, Fife, Scotland, UK; Campora, Tuscany, Italy; Kirkaldy, Fife, Scotland, UK; Edinburgh, Scotland, UK; Nottingham, Nottinghamshire, England, UK (show all 8); Tuscany, Italy; MacDuff Castle, East Wemyss, Fife, Scotland
- Important events
- UK Miners' Strike (1984-1985)
- Dedication
- This book is dedicated to the memory of Meg and Tom McCall, my maternal grandparents. They showed me love, they taught me about community, and they never forgot the shame of standing in line at a soup kitchen to feed their ba... (show all)irns. Thanks to them, I grew up loving the sea, the woods and the works of Agatha Christie. No small debt.
- First words
- The voice is soft, like the darkness that encloses them.
- Quotations
- And you know how the press love it when someone camped out on the moral high ground gets caught up in a mudslide.
Her work was beautiful. Smooth, rounded lines. Very sensual shapes. And amazing colours. I'd never seen glass like it ... The glass seemed to be on fire with different colours. You wanted to pick it up and hold it close to yo... (show all)u.
Everyone needed a sounding board who saw things differently and was smart enough to articulate those differences. - Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)And this is how it ends.
- Blurbers
- Paretsky, Sara
- Original language*
- Englisch
*Some information comes from Common Knowledge in other languages. Click "Edit" for more information.
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- Reviews
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- ISBNs
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- ASINs
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