Val McDermid A Darker Domain

Just read a darker domain over a couple of days and really enjoyed the easeful sequencing of past and nearly present. Manages to combine a high profile kidnapping narrative with a very intimate exploration of the miners' suffering during the infamous strike of the early 1980s. Unlike some of her other novels where forensic investigation is central to the narrative and 'gore' is very much expilcitly to the fore, this reads like a more old fashioned thriller, perhaps penned by Ruth Rendell's alter ego Barbara Vine.

I enjoyed the persistence of the female detective and her strongly expressed value system as well as the very enaging romance with her thorny side kick too. I cared!

Great for its exploration of lateral thinking..or NLP 'reframes'...Pirie gains ascendancy over the obfuscation of others through her willingness to try new ways of reading characters' translations of events. Again, I felt involved and enjoyed the intelligence and imaginative power of the story telling and detection...

Clever, engrossing and well expressed. My only negative commen was that McDermid seemed to have run out of energy( or paper!) in the last few pages and I felt slightly cheated by the rapidity of the denouement.

Never mind. It was otherwise a most satisfying read!

A Darker Domain

Val McDermid

Harper, Feb 2009, $24.95

ISBN 9780061688980

Michelle Gibson informs the Fife Police Department that her father Mick Prentice is missing; no one seems interested. That changes when she mentions her dad vanished in 1984 during a miners' strike. The Cold Case Review Team Detective Inspector Karen Pirie decides it is worth an inquiry and learns everyone assumed Mick went to Nottingham to find work as a scab, but never bothered to come back to the Fife area.

Wealthy Sir Broderick Maclennan Grant informs Karen that in 1985 his daughter Catriona and grandson Adam were kidnapped. He tried to pay the ransom demand, but everything turned ugly; his daughter was murdered and his grandchild vanished. He never gave up hope of finding Adam. Karen has two missing persons' cold cases to solve so family members can have closure.

This interesting Scottish cold case police procedural is filled with plenty of action as DI Price investigates the two missing persons mid 1980s cases. The story line is fast-paced but lose some momentum and plausibility when the inquiries converge. Though Dr. Tony Hill takes a needed breather, fans of Val McDermid will enjoy her latest mystery though most will have preferred two separate investigations.

Harriet Klausner