Review: STILL LIFE

STILL LIFE by Val McDermid (Little, Brown, 2020)

Reviewed by Craig Sisterson

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 . . . 

Pop quiz: if you were creating a modern-day version of the four Queens of Crime of the Golden Age of Detective Fiction (Agatha Christie, Ngaio Marsh, Dorothy Sayers, Margery Allingham), who would you include? Or a Mt Rushmore of the greatest living female crime writers, for our US pals? 

Whatever quartet you came up with, Val McDermid would have to be one of the names (perhaps the very first one written down, to be honest). More than three decades after she was first published, the Scottish author is undoubtedly a modern-day Queen of Crime, consistently providing readers with huge enjoyment from several long-running and beloved series characters to sharp standalones. Even more wonderfully, McDermid continues to burnish her crown with great new novels on a regular basis. 

She sets the bar high, and keeps trying to beat it rather than slipping into cruise mode. 

Her sixth tale starring cold case copper DCI Karen Pirie is another joy for long-time fans and new readers alike. Pirie’s Historic Cases Unit at Police Scotland don’t usually investigate brand-new murders, but when a body pulled from the sea is identified as the prime suspect in the historic disappearance of a prominent Scottish civil servant (a case file Pirie had reviewed without progress in the past), they’re called into double-duty. A skeleton has also been found in an abandoned campervan; another killer who’s likely evaded justice.

“The passage of time turns straightforward murders into convoluted journeys,” Pirie knows, and this proves to be the case in STILL LIFE, as she juggles both investigations, the political machinations of her boss, bumps in her love life, and trips to France and Ireland in order to find resolution. 

And hopefully, justice. 

Overall, STILL LIFE is another fascinating read from a tremendous storyteller, who this time takes us behind the scenes of the art world, as well as into the lives and investigation of Pirie and her team.

Craig Sisterson is a lawyer turned features writer from New Zealand, now living in London. In recent years he’s interviewed hundreds of crime writers and talked about the genre on national radio, top podcasts, and onstage at books festivals on three continents. He has been a judge of the Ned Kelly Awards and the McIlvanney Prize, and is founder of the Ngaio Marsh Awards and co-founder of Rotorua Noir. His first non-fiction book, SOUTHERN CROSS CRIME, was published in 2020. You can heckle him on Twitter.