A Darker Domain by Val McDermid

"We're cold cases, Dave. We don't process fresh inquiries." Karen rolled her eyes at Phil, smirking at her obvious frustration.

"It's not exactly fresh, Inspector. This guy went missing twenty-two years ago."

Karen straightened up in her chair. "Twenty-two years ago? And they've only just got round to reporting it?"

"That's right. So does that make it cold, or what?"

Technically, Karen knew Cruickshank should refer the woman to CID. But she'd always been a sucker for anything that made people shake their heads in bemused disbelief. Long shots were what got her juices flowing. Following that instinct had brought her two promotions in three years, leap-frogging peers and making colleagues uneasy. "Send her up, Dave. I'll have a word with her."

-A Darker Domain 

Karen Pirie is a detective in the cold cases department in Fife, Scotland, and in A Darker Domain, she takes charge of two unusual cases. One, illustrated in the passage above--a missing persons case, twenty-two years later--is too intriguing to pass up, and she takes it on without her boss's knowledge. The second is the reopening of a high-profile case from around the same time--the murder of heiress Catriona Maclennan Grant and the disappearance of her son, Adam. Catriona's father, Brodie Grant, still blames the police for botching the case so many years before, and Karen has her work cut out for her, juggling that investigation with the one that's off the books.

I'd never read a Val McDermid book before, but I understand that she's a respected mystery writer, and I can see why. I quickly became pretty absorbed in the two cases, both of which were trickily well plotted. McDermid did a nice job of giving the reader just enough to puzzle over without telegraphing things too much or withholding too much vital information. The ending was realistic, I suppose, but quite cynical and a little abrupt. I wished it could have been a little happier.

I would definitely be interested in reading more by McDermid. I just watched the first episode of Wire in the Blood recently, based on her series of books, and it was quite good. I have more than a few unread mysteries to go, though, so it might be a while.

Up next: Needed a change of pace from all the mayhem--the perfect time for Mindy Kaling's Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?