Letter from Three Lives

The best novel I've read in a while is "Past Lying," by Val McDermid. The writer paused her "Karen Pirie" series during Covid, because she couldn't wrestle with the enormity of the pandemic. But now--with distance--she has written a terrific story about Scotland-in-2021.

Sometimes, thrillers neglect the problem of character development; you feel you're reading about stick figures, in various absurd situations. But McDermid really cares about her protagonist, Karen Pirie. She is smart and conflicted; she is in a relationship, but her boyfriend can be impetuous and self-serving. (Also, the boyfriend has found a way to profit off Covid, by selling a homemade hand sanitizer; his lack of interest in charitable donations seems like a bad sign.)

As Karen manages inner debates about her love life, she also ponders questions about a document that has arrived on her doorstep. A crime writer has died. He has left his papers with a library. Buried among the papers is a draft of a novel with odd similarities to an unsolved "real world" disappearance case. Part-Highsmith, part-Horowitz, the novel describes one man's efforts to ruin another man's life--by murdering a random victim, entombing the victim in an enemy's garage, and then pointing the authorities toward that garage.

I'm not sure how McDermid invented this novelist character, but I loved reading about him. Without delivering a lecture, McDermid also manages to weave in her thoughts on the publishing world, the MeToo movement, and the Syrian refugee situation. It's an ambitious, surprising, and graceful book.

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