A Darker Domain by Val McDermid is Murky Ground

A New Novel From a Prolific Writer Deals With Old Murder, Politics

Aug 14, 2009

Widely known for her crime fiction, McDermid takes on the Miners Strike in Scotland and combines it with a twenty five year old murder, making for a dizzying storyline.

McDermid's novels are always complex, and always detailed. She gives the reader no less in her newest, A Darker Domain, in which she combines old murder and the Miners Strike.

The main character is DI Karen Pirie, a strong, independent woman who, with her male partner, investigates the kidnapping of a young rich woman twenty five years prior. The woman is killed during the ransom exchange, and her young son disappears entirely.

McDermid handles the confluence of money and grief well, showing the lengths to which a person will go to find, and avenge, a loved one. But she does it in such a way that the reader is never really sure if the rich person is a true villain, or if there is, in fact, some justification in their behavior.

DI Pirie takes on another case, however, simply because she finds it interesting. The disappearance of a miner during the miners’ strike is reported to her twenty five years after the fact, when the need for a matching donor becomes necessary to save the life of a child.

Strangely, the characters in this seemingly separate case are rather unlikeable, even given their circumstances. The mother of the child is fairly one dimensional, and the grandmother (wife of the missing man) is easily perceived as an uncaring liar. The sick child never appears. This makes it fairly difficult to hope for a good outcome for this family, even given what they went through in a mining town where it was assumed the husband had run off to work another mine.

When the two cases collide, the story becomes murky and somewhat farfetched. While McDermid usually does an amazing job of creating crime scenes both believable and cringe-worthy, here she creates a collusion of art and murder that is somewhat difficult to swallow.

The Complex Nature of Humans

However, what she does do, as always, is give the reader characters who are both deep and complex. The bad guy isn’t all bad, and the good guys don’t really exist outside the police force (and even within it to some extent). A character you connect to and wonder about dies, all in the name of pursing fame. There is no clear right or wrong in either of the stories, and although the outcome is fairly clear several chapters before the ending, it is the explanation of the outcome that makes the reader stop and ponder the complexities of human relationships.

Perhaps the most unusual aspect of this novel is the love connection. In this novel, the tough, outspoken and independent DI Pirie is in love with her partner, fanning the flames from afar so that she doesn’t lose his friendship. This romantic sub-theme doesn’t even rate a mention on the back cover, and yet becomes focal in the second half of the novel. And while the reader is certainly glad when they get together, there is little dramatic tension before they actually get together.

Anything McDermid writes is worth reading. And while this novel certainly isn’t her best, it does hold her usual compliment of complex characters and situations.

The copyright of the article A Darker Domain by Val McDermid is Murky Ground in Entertainment Books is owned by Victoria Oldham. Permission to republish A Darker Domain by Val McDermid is Murky Ground in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.