Val McDermid: Past Lying (UK 2024)

From the Publisher:
KAREN PIRIE RETURNS...
Edinburgh, haunted by the ghosts of its many writers, is also the cold case beat of DCI Karen Pirie. So she shouldn't be surprised when an author's manuscript appears to be a blueprint for an actual crime.

Karen can't ignore the plot's chilling similarities to the unsolved case of an Edinburgh University student who vanished from her own doorstep. The manuscript seems to be the key to unlocking what happened to Lara Hardie, but there's a problem: the author died before he finished it.

As Karen digs deeper, she uncovers a spiralling game of betrayal and revenge, where lies are indistinguishable from the truth and with more than one unexpected twist...

The Queen of Crime Val McDermid is at the top of her game in her most gripping and fiendishly clever case yet.

Val McDermid: Past Lying. A Karen Pirie Thriller. Sphere, ISBN: 9781408729090 (February, 2024), 452 p., £9.99.

Val McDermid: Past Lying (USA 2023)

From the Publisher:
In this superb new addition to Val McDermid's masterful crime series, DCI Karen Pirie returns in a propulsive thriller of deceit and vengeance, set against the disquiet of a global pandemic

Britain's reigning "Queen of Crime" (The Scotsman), Val McDermid is the award-winning, internationally bestselling author of over thirty novels. The long-awaited seventh novel in the acclaimed series that has captivated audiences for twenty years, both on the page and now in the Edgar Award-nominated ITV/BritBox show, Past Lying is a full tilt novel of ego, retribution, deceit, and just how far one will go to settle the score.

It's April 2020 and Edinburgh is in lockdown. It would seem like a strange time for a cold case to go hot -- the streets all but empty, an hour's outdoor exercise the maximum allowed -- but a mere pandemic doesn't mean crime takes a holiday. When a source at the National Library contacts DCI Karen Pirie's team about documents in the archive of a recently deceased crime novelist, it seems it's game on again. At the center of it, a novel: two crime novelists facing off over a chessboard. But it quickly emerges that their real-life competition is drawing blood. What unspools is a twisted game of betrayal and revenge, and as Karen and her team attempt to disentangle fact from fiction, it becomes clear that their investigation is more complicated than they ever imagined.

A tense, atmospheric page-turner, Past Lying reaffirms McDermid as one of the most talented crime writers of her generation.

Val McDermid: Past Lying. A Karen Pirie Novel. Atlantic Monthly Press, ISBN: 9780802161499 (November, 2023), 464 p., $27.00, eBook $27.00.

Val McDermid: Past Lying (UK 2023)

From the Publisher:
KAREN PIRIE RETURNS...
Edinburgh, haunted by the ghosts of its many writers, is also the cold case beat of DCI Karen Pirie. So she shouldn't be surprised when an author's manuscript appears to be a blueprint for an actual crime.

Karen can't ignore the plot's chilling similarities to the unsolved case of an Edinburgh University student who vanished from her own doorstep. The manuscript seems to be the key to unlocking what happened to Lara Hardie, but there's a problem: the author died before he finished it.

As Karen digs deeper, she uncovers a spiralling game of betrayal and revenge, where lies are indistinguishable from the truth and with more than one unexpected twist...

The Queen of Crime Val McDermid is at the top of her game in her most gripping and fiendishly clever case yet.

Val McDermid: Past Lying. A Karen Pirie Thriller. Little, Brown, ISBN: 9781408729076 (October, 2023), 452 p., £22.00, eBook £12.99.