A Darker Domain, by Val McDermid (REVIEW) — The Tangled Messes We Weave...

"Desperate times call for desperate measures."

 

We've all heard that... but what, precisely, qualifies as "desperate times"? And, more importantly, what "desperate measures" do we find acceptable? 

 

Such questions—and eventually a few answers—lie at the heart of Scottish crime novelist Val McDermid's A Darker Domain.

 

 

The story centers around a small Scottish police force's Cold Case team, as new evidence in one very cold case (going back more than 20 years) comes to light, and another, "new" case (also 20-odd years old) is reported for the first time. 

 

The lead detective in charge of the team—Detective Inspector Karen Pirie—has her hands full with the two cases.

 

The first involves a long-unsolved kidnapping-gone-wrong, in which a wealthy industrialist's daughter and her infant son were held for ransom... only to end in tragedy when the heiress-daughter got killed at the hand-off and the baby disappeared. 

 

When a reporter stumbles upon evidence relevant to the old case, everything must be dug out of storage... and the still-powerful father hand-picks Karen to lead the new investigation.

 

The second case involves a young woman walking into the station and making a report about her father’s mysterious disappearance... more than two decades earlier. 

 

Everyone assumed the man had scarpered from his familial obligations in the midst of a miner's strike, but now finding him is imperative, as only he can provide a life-saving transfusion. 

 

What follows is a fascinating look at how Karen and her little team try to unravel both mysteries simultaneously, with precious little help from anyone who was involved in either case all those years ago. 

 

And the question is, which case is more urgent... finding the missing miner, to save the grandson he doesn't even know exists, or finding the kidnappers/killers—and possibly the missing grandson—for the uber-wealthy and influential old man?

 

 

A Darker Domain isn't a simple crime story, though. (For anyone who's never read her work, McDermid doesn't "do" simple.) 

 

Neither case is what it appears to be on the surface—not what everyone accepted as the "truth" back then, not what the police concluded (in the kidnap case) to be the likely scenario, and not what any of the characters with an active current role in either case wants anyone to know.

 

There are layers upon layers, as the team slowly uncovers just who is hiding what, and from whom, and where and how and why... and as they realize there’s an unexpected intertwining of the two, seemingly-disparate stories.

 

It's a wonderfully-complex and gripping psychological tale of love, loss, friendship, politics—and a great deal of desperation, which ultimately serves to provide the motivation behind so many unhappy outcomes

 

By the end of the book, everything makes a crystal-clear kind of sense. The very bad choices people made—and the results they're forced to live with—are exposed, and the reader is forced to confront their own feelings about those choices. 

 

It’s also fascinating because it offers a compelling look at a bit of history (the Scottish mining strike in the mid-80s was very real, and very serious) via a taut, well-told tale of suspense. 

 

As is typical for everything McDermid writes, A Darker Domain is a smart psychological drama that pulls you in and maintains your interest from start to finish. 

 

And it’s a very easy recommendation to make.

~GlamKitty