Don't miss Past Lying, the twisty new Karen Pirie thriller

'No one can tell a story like she can' Daily Express

'The queen of psychological thrillers' Irish Independent
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'The bodies never stay buried forever . . .'

On a freezing winter morning, fishermen pull a body from the sea. It is quickly discovered that the dead man was the prime suspect in a decade-old investigation, when a prominent civil servant disappeared without trace. DCI Karen Pirie was the last detective to review the file and is drawn into a sinister world of betrayal and dark secrets.

But Karen is already grappling with another case, one with even more questions and fewer answers. A skeleton has been discovered in an abandoned campervan and all clues point to a killer who never faced justice - a killer who is still out there.

In her search for the truth, Karen uncovers a network of lies that has gone unchallenged for years. But lies and secrets can turn deadly when someone is determined to keep them hidden for good . . .
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Praise for Val McDermid:

'Brilliant . . . Sensational . . . Unforgettable' Guardian

'Compulsively readable' Irish Times

'As good a psychological thriller as it is possible to get' Sunday Express

'It grabs the reader by the throat and never lets go' Daily Mail

'One of today's most accomplished crime writers' Literary Review

About the Author
Val McDermid is a number one bestseller whose novels have been translated into forty languages, and have sold over nineteen million copies. She has won many awards internationally, including the CWA Gold Dagger for best crime novel of the year and the LA Times Book of the Year Award. She was inducted into the ITV3 Crime Thriller Awards Hall of Fame in 2009, was the recipient of the CWA Cartier Diamond Dagger in 2010 and received the Lambda Literary Foundation Pioneer Award in 2011. In 2016, Val received the Outstanding Contribution to Crime Fiction Award at the Theakston's Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival and in 2017 received the DIVA Literary Prize for Crime, and was elected a Fellow of both the Royal Society of Literature and the Royal Society of Edinburgh. Val has served as a judge for the Women's Prize for Fiction and the Man Booker Prize, and was Chair of the Wellcome Book Prize in 2017. She is the recipient of seven honorary doctorates, is an Honorary Fellow of St Hilda's College, Oxford and a Professor at the University of Otago in New Zealand. She writes full time and divides her time between Edinburgh and East Neuk of Fife.

Reviews
The sense of McDermid's books getting entangled with real life is particularly powerful * The Times *
Still Life shows that she is still at the height of her powers . . . deeply enjoyable, one of her best * Scotsman *
An elegant and richly satisfying read * Daily Mail *
Tremendous. An effortlessly gripping read * The Observer *
Her most exhilarating, breath-taking thriller yet * East Anglian Daily Times *


Awards
Long-listed for Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year 2021 (UK).



Book Information
ISBN 9780751576948
Author Val McDermid
Format Paperback
Page Count 512
Imprint Sphere
Publisher Little, Brown Book Group
Weight(grams) 359g
Dimensions(mm) 196mm * 128mm * 40mm