Broken Ground

October 8, 2018
In McDermind’s fine fourth novel featuring Edinburgh Det. Chief Insp. Karen Pirie (after 2016’s Out of Bounds), Alice and Will Somerville, a married couple, set out on a treasure hunt in the Scottish Highlands. They have a map to guide them to the spot where Alice’s grandfather buried two American motorcycles in protective boxes in 1944 when he was serving in the British army. To their surprise, they discover a body along with the motorcycles in the peat. When Pirie is called to the scene—a rarity for a cold case detective, getting to see the body in situ—she realizes the peat’s preservation properties have worked in her favor. A forensic anthropologist identifies the victim as a professional athlete, who disappeared around 1995, based on his shoes. But even with a name, reconstructing a decades-old murder is tricky, and this time there’s a lot of pressure from above to solve it. Meanwhile, Pirie becomes embroiled in a contemporary crime involving domestic violence. As always, McDermid’s story lines are as richly
layered as her protagonist. Agent: Jane Gregory, David Higham Assoc. (U.K.)

DCI Karen Pirie is back in a new police procedural narrated by the versatile Cathleen McCarron with a charming Scots accent. When a body with a bullet between the eyes is found among two long-buried historical motorcycles, a cold case warms up quickly. The only clues are a pair of Nikes and the fact that the body is at the storage site of stolen goods. At the same time, additional unsolved crimes from the 1980s begin to point towards a possible suspect with an uncommon car. McCarron navigates the listener through a series of twists and turns as DCI Pirie works to close historical crimes. V.B. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award � AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine