A Darker Domain - Val McDermid

Cold case investigator for the Fife Police DI Force Karen Pirie is called upon to deal with a case that goes back to the troubled period of the 1984 Miner's Strike, when it is discovered that a man believed to gone with five other workers who left the Newton of Wemyss twenty years ago wasn't a scab like the rest of them looking for work in England, but rather Mick Prentice has simply disappeared. At the same time a journalist makes an incredible discovery while on holiday in Italy that reopens another twenty year old case - the kidnapping and murder of the daughter of one of Scotland's richest and most prominent businessmen by a group of anarchists and the disappearance of her son.

McDermid's work is among the very best in crime writing, drawing the reader immediately into the complexities of two linked cases through strong, realistic characterisation, tying the circumstances into real-world events, both historical (the '84 Miners' Strike) and current (the Madeline McCann case) in a manner that reveals the mindset of diverse sections of the community in relation to enormous upheaval, whether in relation to a crime or social unrest.

Thus in A Darker Domain we get the view of the press, the police, the wealthy and the poor, each of them with a very different perspective on events past and present, a perspective that McDermid weaves together with what seems incredible ease, not only presenting a wider view of events, but showing where those perspectives clash and how indeed the original crimes arise out of such social disparities. With such good writing, the novel then is gripping from the start, meaningful in the subjects it examines, realistic in its characterisation.

Unfortunately, this characterisation isn't sustained through to the all-important conclusion and its revelations. Even though one can start to see where the cases might be linked quite early in the novel, McDermid fails to make the connection work, offering up answers much too easily, complete with full, written death-bed confessions that are too timely in relation to other events to remain credible. There's some satisfaction in the concision and neatness of the conclusion, with characters revealing their true nature and reaping the consequences (those involved in the case, as well as the personal lives of the police force officers), but disappointingly, particularly after such a strong opening and premise, they just don't ring true.