By Val McDermid https://www.valmcdermid.com/ @valmcdermid
Narrated by Lauren Lyle @LlaurenLyle
Published by Sphere https://www.littlebrown.co.uk/imprint/sphere/page/lbbg-imprint-sphere/ @BooksSphere, (an imprint of Little, Brown Book Group) text, WF Howes Ltd https://www.wfhowes.co.uk/ @WFHowes audio
512 pages (13 hours 9 minutes) ISBN 9781004138401
Publication date 12 October 2023
I was allowed access to an audio review copy on Net Galley https://www.netgalley.com/ @NetGalley. Thanks to the Author and Publisher for organising this.
The cover
The iconic Forth Rail Bridge. A nice picture but has little to do with the story other than the broad setting being in Edinburgh.
The narration
The series is now on its third narrator after Tom Cotcher and Kathleen McCarron. Switching narrator can be frustrating for the listener and both the Tom and Kathleen (in particular) had proved good narrators. The switch to Lauren Lyle is probably an obvious one, and a bit of a coup because she plays Karen Pirie in the television adaptation. She did a good job overall, not using too many distinctive voices and her attempt at an Australian accent raised a snigger but she managed to nail posh English to perfection.
My thoughts
I’ve listened to audiobooks of the first few Karen Pirie novels and then seemingly in a blink of an eye we are up to book seven, and there has been a first series on television, so I find myself with some catching up to do. I like to keep on track with series I’m invested in, but the last three years have turned life upside down for most of us, which this novel acknowledges.
Covid was a significant event and the fall out from it is still being felt by some and evaluated by others. Though it did affect the elderly much more adversely than the young, it was a leveller in the sense that it spared nobody, regardless of income or status, we were all at risk. However, it now seems that some people, in positions of power, paid lip-service to the restrictions. The novel is set during the first covid lockdown, when the experience was new for us all and we found our way of life compromised. Karen and her team must negotiate a cold case within the draconian restrictions of self-isolation, bubbles, social distancing and just an hour outdoor exercise a day. This along with hospitalisation is accurately and vividly brought back to life. If like me you lost a loved one to covid this may be a little bit too soon, but at least you can take comfort that you are not alone and it will not be forgotten.
Karen has formed her own support bubble with colleague DS Daisy Mortimer at her boyfriend Hamish’s place, as he has headed to the highlands to attend to his croft. They have an amicable enough co-existence, but Karen is missing her coping mechanisms that she developed to get over the death of her partner Phil Parhatka. Her long night walks are now restricted to an hour, and there are no gin sampling evenings with Jimmy Hutton or trips to the Aleppo café. Her frustrations are palpable, what she needs is a case to occupy her, but investigations are supposedly on hold.
The opportunity comes from an unexpected source, the National Library. The crime writer Jake Stein has recently passed away and his archive has been donated to the library. Included within is the first draft of a manuscript, The Disappearance of Laurel Oliver, which piques the interest of a member of the staff. In it a young woman is murdered, and she has a rare condition which co-incidentally is shared by a young woman who went missing the year before. Could this novel really be a thinly disguised roman-à-clef? Once Karen and Daisy are reading it, they start to take this possibility seriously.
The concept of getting away with the perfect murder still fascinates us all and here dues are paid to Patricia Highsmith’s Strangers on a Train, but this no murder swap here, but a murder that is documented within a novel. Whole chapters of manuscript are included within the story, so we have a story within a story. The plot is carefully crafted, twisting and turning fiendishly, with elements of bluff to contend with, such that it is hard to pin down. The motivation behind the crime are jealousy and revenge, but there is also a counterpoint in the kindness of strangers. This becomes apparent in a sub-plot involving the Aleppo café.
The effects of the lockdown on the regular characters adds an extra dimension to the story. Daisy met a new girlfriend the week before lockdown started, can she keep a relationship going after only two dates? Jason provides the few moments of light relief but as always it is a sympathetic portrayal. Poor Jason is put through the wringer by events and needs the support of the team just to keep going. Will his soft and easy-going nature be affected by events, or will he find an inner strength? Karen starts to evaluate her relationship with Hamish, are they an item for the long term? The one good thing about the changing methods of operation is Karen can avoid the attention of senior officers which is essential if you are going to pursue a maverick investigation. Boy does Karen love giving Markie the runaround.
The pairing of Karen and Daisy together in a bubble works well as two very individuals must learn to live in close proximity and build up a rapport. They even manage to develop a friendship based on mutual respect.
Being set in the Scottish crime writing scene allows to author to name drop her friends and colleagues amongst the invented central protagonists which adds to a sense of realism. There are occasional uses of Scots vernacular, I would have liked more, and the naming of a small independent Scottish publisher Stooshie Press made me chuckle (stooshie being a commotion over a minor irritant.) As ever there are the nicknames (Karen Pirie = KP nuts, Jason Murray = the mint, Ann Markie = the dog biscuit) but overall, there is little humour which is fine considering the subject matter. That said, its not overly dark either.
Past Lying is a fiendishly constructed lockdown puzzle for Karen Pirie to solve. Another great addition to an excellent series.
Past Lying can be purchased via the publisher’s website here and as an audiobook here
The author
Val McDermid is a number one bestseller whose novels have been translated into forty languages, and have sold over nineteen million copies. She has won many awards internationally, including the CWA Gold Dagger for best crime novel of the year and the LA Times Book of the Year Award. She was inducted into the ITV3 Crime Thriller Awards Hall of Fame in 2009, was the recipient of the CWA Cartier Diamond Dagger in 2010 and received the Lambda Literary Foundation Pioneer Award in 2011. In 2016, Val received the Outstanding Contribution to Crime Fiction Award at the Theakston’s Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival and in 2017 received the DIVA Literary Prize for Crime, and was elected a Fellow of both the Royal Society of Literature and the Royal Society of Edinburgh. Val has served as a judge for the Women’s Prize for Fiction and the Man Booker Prize, and was Chair of the Wellcome Book Prize in 2017. She is the recipient of seven honorary doctorates, is an Honorary Fellow of St Hilda’s College, Oxford and a Professor at the University of Otago in New Zealand. She writes full time and divides her time between Edinburgh and East Neuk of Fife.
Source: Publisher’s website
The narrator
She kicked off her extensive CV as a lead in BBC comedy ‘Radges’ and in The Old Vic’s West End 5* hit ‘The Crucible’. She was then a part of the National Youth Theatre REP company in 2015 where she was picked as a stand-out talent after her performance as Diane in ‘Consensual’ at the Ambassadors Theatre in the West End.
Soon after, Lauren joined the phenomenally popular TV series ‘Outlander’ as key cast playing fan favourite high spirited Marsali Fraser for the last 4 seasons. She also recently starred alongside Sean Bean in Jimmy McGovern’s BAFTA award winning BBC drama ‘Broken’ and as Jade Antoniak in six-part thriller ‘Vigil’ (BBC/World Productions) She also hosts popular podcast ‘She’s a Rec’.
On the big screen, Lauren most recently featured in ‘Tell it to the Bees’ with Anna Paquin and Holiday Grainger – the film was picked as part of the Great Eight at Cannes Film Festival and premiered at Toronto International Film Festival.
Lauren stars in the titular role in ITV’s new cold case drama ‘Karen Pirie’ (World Productions).
She can currently be seen starring in the independent murder thriller ‘Mercy Falls’.
Source: Loud and Clear Voices
Peter turns the page 