Liars and Saints

 For a long while, Val McDermid's bread-and-buttter was the world of serial killer stories. McDermid's Tony Hill series often featured a killer on the loose; there was a ticking clock; yadda yadda yadda. At a certain point, McDermid began to pursue a different kind of story, the cold-case story. This was through her Karen Pirie series. Cold-case narratives are a nice way of steering around one problem of a serial killer narrative. Serial killers can become dull and repetitive; I began to sense this in the Tony Hill stories. Is it conceivable that there are *not* inexhaustible options for making a crazed "spree killer" seem interesting? With a cold case, it's possible that someone committed one terrible crime--then chose to "self-correct." But failing to acknowledge the crime is a kind of societal disease. It's a disease because victims of the crime may still be trying to live their lives; they have "ingested" the idea that someone can terro...

  It's called Words; among its strengths is its popularity. There are always browsers. It's a great source of joy for me just to go and eavesdrop. The other day, I was trying to talk myself into reading "The Correspondent"--when I heard one buyer saying to another, "I just really, really love reading about serial killers." This was like a clarion call.  "You don't actually want to read literary fiction," I said to myself. "You want to read about a killer." And I chose a sinister tale of real estate mayhem, "Best Offer Wins." The other thing I love about Words is its occasional surprises. Yes, it has the Reese Witherspoon novel, and it has the new memoir about Jeffrey Epstein--but it also has a small Scottish book of essays about winter. The book is called "Winter"--by Val McDermid. No one in America will read this book. No one will even hear about it. But there it is at my bookstore--connecting me to Europe and to ...

  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...

One of my favorite novelists, Val McDermid, has her new thriller out, at long last.  McDermid is sometimes called the heir to PD James and to Ruth Rendell, but she doesn't really have a massive reputation in the US. It's distressing to me that so many people read "Galbraith," and few of my friends spend time with the works of Val McDermid. Despite not having a "Stephen King" name, McDermid is undeterred; she writes around one novel per year. Some of the books concern Tony Hill and Carol Jordan--wonderfully dysfunctional crime-stoppers. Another series concerns Karen Pirie, who is slightly hot-headed and is also committed to solving a variety of cold cases. The new book--"Still Life"--has Pirie focused on two mysteries. In one corner of Scotland, a woman dies, and a search of her property reveals a human skeleton in the garage. Who could this other corpse be? Was she murdered? How? In another part of Scotland, a man seems to kill his brother, then he...

I really liked McDermid's bizarre and grisly new novel, "How the Dead Speak." A story is nothing without great characters, and McDermid gives us: *Sadistic nuns, possibly murdering young girls and burying them in unmarked graves. *A woman at war with PTSD, discovering she has a strong, creepy urge "to bully." *A convicted murderer, hoping to introduce mindfulness training to his (wary) fellow inmates. McDermid is an inspiration because she has been so creative for so long. The new novel has bits of a fictional "memoir" from the invented character, Tony Hill; it has a climax that hinges on cutting-edge technology that is capable of finding "invisible ghosts" of bloodstains on certain fabrics; it has the compelling sadist, "Vanessa," in a wacky revenge subplot. I thought the ending was hasty. But: no matter. I'll keep returning to this author, who is like a smarter and more-graceful version of Stephen King. Your thoughts? ...

It’s a downer to think about the week ahead, after a long weekend, but I’m happy to know that the following titles are on the way: * Scott Spencer, “An Ocean without a Shore.” Spencer is past seventy; this guy just loves writing. He is known for having “literary cred” while still telling juicy stories. Big things actually happen in his novels. * Val McDermid, “How the Dead Speak.” This one comes out in a few days. McDermid has two protagonists, and they love each other, but they can’t act on their love; one, the victim of childhood abuse, can’t have normal romantic relationships. The other is struggling with alcohol after the murder of her brother. In “Insidious Intent,” the most recent Tony Hill novel from McDermid, a major character killed someone in cold blood. This was shocking; no one could have anticipated that the character would act this way. I’m curious to see how McDermid digs herself out of the narrative hole she has created--maybe the biggest narrative hole in her lon...

Many great mystery writers choose detectives who are exemplary human beings. Donna Leon's Guido Brunetti is almost relentlessly imperturbable; Reginald Wexford, in Rendell's series, rarely has an untidy inner life; Adam Dalgliesh, in the PD James novels, consistently has himself pulled together. What a treat, then, to contemplate the mess that is Carol Jordan. Ms. Jordan is Val McDermid's invention. She first appeared in 1995, in "The Mermaids Singing." She isn't even-tempered or fully reliable. She has a serious drinking problem; she is in love with an impotent man, just as damaged as she is; she regularly fails to say the politically sound thing during charged departmental meetings. She is dangling by a thread. I really love her. McDermid explores depravity a bit more thoroughly than Rendell, Leon, and James. How do you know you're in a McDermid story? A child is made to stand in excrement, in a toilet, for hours on end. A serial killer runs around m...