Still Life by

Still Life (Inspector Karen Pirie Mysteries, #6)

Val McDermid is the award-winning, international bestselling author of more than thirty novels and has been hailed as Britain's Queen of Crime. In Still Life, McDermid returns to her propulsive series featuring DCI Karen Pirie, who finds herself investigating the shadowy world of forgery, where things are never what they seem.

When a lobster fisherman discovers a dead body in Scotland's Firth of Forth, Karen is called into investigate. She quickly discovers that the case will require untangling a complicated web--including a historic disappearance, art forgery, and secret identities--that seems to orbit around a painting copyist who can mimic anyone from Holbein to Hockney. Meanwhile, a traffic crash leads to the discovery of a skeleton in a suburban garage. Needless to say, Karen has her plate full. Meanwhile, the man responsible for the death of the love of her life is being released from prison, reopening old wounds just as she was getting back on her feet.

Tightly plotted and intensely gripping, Still Life is Val McDermid at her best, and new and longtime readers alike will delight in the latest addition to this superior series.

Reviewed by annieb123 on

5 of 5 stars

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Originally published on my blog: Nonstop Reader.

Still Life is the 6th Karen Pirie mystery by Val McDermid. Released 6th Oct 2020 by Grove Atlantic on their Atlantic Monthly Press imprint, it's 436 pages and is available in hardcover, audio, and ebook formats.

McDermid is a prodigiously talented and precise writer. The characters are so finely rendered and so detailed that they felt real to me. This is an ensemble cast and Inspector Pirie makes good use of her team. The plotting is well controlled and the narrative arc (despite the hefty page count) never drags or loses engagement. Something is happening all the time and it really works very well.

One thing which impresses me very much about McDermid is the realism of her prose. There's one moment in the book which literally made me *gasp* out loud I was so surprised (and dismayed). I stayed up an hour longer than my bedtime to make sure that the situation got resolved. (No spoilers, but *wow*). The language in this one is about par for the modern procedural genre. The cursing is used in context and I didn't find it egregious (there are a number of rugged Anglo-Saxon monosyllables including the f-bomb).

It works fine as a standalone, new readers needn't be intimidated by the thought of needing to read the previous books. This is an enjoyable thriller from a master at the top of their game. The disparate plot threads both those from current events and from the past, intertwine and resolve into a very satisfying and crazy denouement. I like it very much that the author doesn't feel the need to tie every single plot thread together into one overarching solution - the solutions to the mysteries are resolved, but they're not all tied together.

Five stars. Highly recommended for fans of procedurals.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.

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Reading updates

  • Started reading
  • 8 October, 2020: Finished reading
  • 8 October, 2020: Reviewed