A Darker Domain
A Novel
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4.2 • 103 Ratings
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- $10.99
Publisher Description
Don't miss the British mystery series "Karen Pirie" on BritBox! Season 2—based on A Darker Domain—premieres October 2, 2025!
A New York Times Notable Crime Book of the Year • A Finalist for the Los Angeles Book Prize
“A thrilling story with heartbreaking questions of social justice and history.” —Seattle Times
The New York Times calls Val McDermid, “As smooth a practitioner of crime fiction as anyone out there. . . the best we’ve got.” Time spent with her extraordinary thriller, A Darker Domain, will prove that it’s true. Set in Scotland, McDermid’s brilliant exploration of loyalty and greed intertwines the past and present.
Fife, Scotland, 1984. Mick Prentice abandons his family at the height of a politically charged national miners' strike to join the strikebreakers down south. Despised and disowned by friends and relatives, he is not reported missing until twenty-three years later.
Fife, Scotland, 1985. Kidnapped heiress Catriona Maclennan Grant is killed and her baby son vanishes when the ransom payoff goes horribly wrong. In 2008, a tourist in Tuscany stumbles upon dramatic new evidence that reopens the investigation.
Already immersed in the Prentice affair, Detective Karen Pirie, newly appointed head of the Cold Case Review Team, wants to make her mark with this second unsolved 1980s mystery. But two decades' worth of secrets are leading Pirie into a dark domain of violence and betrayal—a place darker than any she has previously entered.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
When Michelle Gibson reports her father, Mick Prentice, missing at the start of McDermid's intricate but underwhelming stand-alone psychological thriller, Det. Insp. Karen Pirie, head of the Fife police Cold Case Review Team, isn't interested until Michelle reveals that Mick disappeared during the 1984 miners' strike. At the time, everyone believed Mick went "scabbing" in Nottingham. Later, Karen is summoned to the home of wealthy Sir Broderick Maclennan Grant, whose daughter, Catriona, and baby grandson, Adam, were abducted in 1985. A botched ransom hand-off left Catriona dead and Adam nowhere to be found. New evidence linked to the kidnapping has surfaced, and now Karen has two missing people to locate. McDermid tries to pack too much story into one book, and the connection she draws between the cases feels forced. Fans of the Scottish author may be better off waiting for the next outing of McDermid's series to feature psychologist Tony Hill (The Mermaid Singing, etc.). Author tour.
Customer Reviews
A darker domain
Def a page turner-keeps your mind racing within the plot.
A Darker Domain
A Darker Domain, by Val McDermid, is yet another captivating and tightly woven story which McDermid is known for. She has not lost her touch!
McDermid brings to life believable, fascinating, and complex characters, and a plot which leaves the reader with another sleepless night.
My genes don't fit ! Liz32906
What a tangled web we weave when we practice to conceive.Crazy good from start to finish.