A Darker Domain - Softcover

Val McDermid

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0007243308 ISBN 13: 9780007243303

Publisher: Harpercollins Canada, 2008

Synopsis

Val McDermid, creator of TV's Wire in the Blood, mixes fact with fiction, dealing with one of the most important and symbolic moments in recent history. Twenty-five years ago, the daughter of the richest man in Scotland and her baby son were kidnapped and held to ransom. But Catriona Grant ended up dead and little Adam's fate has remained a mystery ever since. When a new clue is discovered in a deserted Tuscan villa - along with grisly evidence of a recent murder - cold case expert DI Karen Pirie is assigned to follow the trail. She's already working a case from the same year. During the Miners' Strike of 1984, pit worker Mick Prentice vanished. He was presumed to have broken ranks and fled south with other 'scabs'! but Karen finds that the reported events of that night don't add up. Where did he really go? And is there a link to the Grant mystery? The truth is stranger - and far darker - than fiction.

About this title

From the Back Cover:

Past and present intertwine in this rare stand-alone novel of taut psychological drama—a brilliant exploration of loyalty and greed from the bestselling mistress of suspense.

Fife, Scotland, 1985. Heiress Catriona Maclennan Grant and her baby son are kidnapped. The ransom payoff goes horribly wrong and Grant is killed. Her son disappears without a trace—until 2008, when a tourist in Tuscany stumbles upon dramatic new evidence that reopens the investigation.

Fife, 1984. At the height of the politically charged national miners' strike, Mick Prentice abandons his family to join the strikebreakers down south. Labelled a blackleg scab, he's as good as dead as far as his friends and relatives care. Twenty-three years later, a young woman walks into a police station to report Mick Prentice missing. Detective Karen Pirie, head of the Cold Case Review Team, wants to know why it's taken so long for anyone to notice.

For Pirie, already immersed in the Prentice investigation, a second foray into a 1980s investigation gone cold—this time, the Grant kidnapping—offers an opportunity to make her mark. But it's sure to come at an extremely high price. As she works to unravel these mysteries, two decades of secrets will lead Karen Pirie into a dark domain of violence and betrayal—darker than any she has yet encountered.

About the Author:

VAL McDERMID is the internationally bestselling author of more than twenty crime novels. She has won the CWA Gold Dagger Award for Best Crime Novel of the Year and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize; her novels have been selected as New York Times Notable Books and have been Edgar Award finalists. She was the 2010 recipient of the CWA Cartier Diamond Dagger for Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Crime Writing. More than 10 million copies of her books have been sold around the world. She lives in the north of England. Visit her website at www.valmcdermid.com.

About this edition

• Publisher: Harpercollins Canada
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 0007243308
• ISBN 13: 9780007243303
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 371