Val McDermid – A Darker Domain

One of the best modern authors again we have to introduce Val McDermid as the author of 22 bestselling novels, translated into 30 languages, selling over 10 million copies, and won many awards internationally. She was inducted into the ITV3 Crime Thriller Awards Hall of Fame in 2009 and has for many of those novels thrilled many of her fans.

BUT anyone can drop one. First the blurb from the book and then my say. —

1984. The National miners’ strike is dividing the country, and in a struggling coal-mining town, the miners and their families are living at the edge of their resources. They have no money, and there is no food or heating. On the 14th of December, five miners break ranks to travel to Nottingham and work. For those who stay behind, this is an unforgivable betrayal, and the men are branded as scabs. 23 years later, a young woman is asking the police to trace her missing father: miner Mick Prentice vanished, never to be seen again, although money has been sent to his family; he was widely considered to be one of the scabs. Soon, D I Karen Pirie and DS Phil Parharta find themselves investigating a forgotten disappearance.

This is the provocative premise of Val McDermid’s latest novel, A Darker Domain, and this utterly compelling book is further proof that McDermid is determined to stretch the parameters of what crime fiction is supposedly capable of. McDermid has always been prepared to freight serious issues into her work, and this novel — which, in many ways, is an examination of the conditions that produced the Britain we live in today — demonstrates the continuing high level of her ambition.

In fact, Karen Pirie, when taking on this new assignment, is already involved in a case of kidnapping that took place 22 years earlier (in which a woman was killed during a bungled handover of money). Journalist Bel Richmond makes a startling discovery concerning the MacLennan kidnapping while on holiday in Tuscany, and as the three protagonists dig deeper into ever-more labyrinthine mysteries, they are to make some remarkable discoveries — discoveries which throw light not just on the crimes involved, but on the whole of British society……

Yes OK Thats true as far as it goes, remember the BUT. in truth the plot is fairly simple and the reader can soon work out a likely ending. Whilst the plot is well laid out and the characters well drawn the ending falls far below the standards we have come to expect. In Val McDermid – A Darker Domain the ending, denouement or whatever is over in about two pages. First it seems the investigation is going nowhere and then BANG its all over goodbye ’till next time. I don’t know. Rarely does such an author make such a cockup.

Still it is well worth buying the paperback as its an interesting and provocative tail. Its only the ending that gets my goat!

Summer is on the way and it will make a good gentle read whilst sunbathing in a hammock or drinking a G and T by the pool.

Philip
P.S. Val McDermid – A Darker Domain is available here

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