Past Lying: The twisty new Karen Pirie thriller, now a major ITV series

· Hachette UK
4.8
20 reviews
Ebook
464
Pages
Eligible
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About this ebook

KAREN PIRIE RETURNS. A MASTERFUL THRILLER BY THE NO.1 SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER VAL MCDERMID

THE HEART-POUNDING NEW NOVEL IN THE KAREN PIRIE SERIES, NOW A MAJOR ITV SERIES STARRING LAUREN LYLE
__________

'Another jewel in Val McDermid's crown' MICK HERRON

'A must-read for anyone who enjoys top-knotch crime fiction' YOURS

'A chilling, twisting triumph. Past Lying is a classic mystery' CHRIS WHITAKER

Edinburgh, haunted by the ghosts of its many writers, is also the cold case beat of DCI Karen Pirie. So she shouldn't be surprised when an author's manuscript appears to be a blueprint for an actual crime.

Karen can't ignore the plot's chilling similarities to the unsolved case of an Edinburgh University student who vanished from her own doorstep. The manuscript seems to be the key to unlocking what happened to Lara Hardie, but there's a problem: the author died before he finished it.

As Karen digs deeper, she uncovers a spiralling game of betrayal and revenge, where lies are indistinguishable from the truth and with more than one unexpected twist . . .

The Queen of Crime Val McDermid is at the top of her game in her most gripping and fiendishly clever case yet.

Praise for Val McDermid

'McDermid is at her considerable best' GUARDIAN

'Irresistible' PATRICIA CORNWELL

'A brilliant novel by a supremo of the genre' PETER JAMES

'Outstanding' SPECTATOR

'Another masterpiece' DAVID BALDACCI

'Sensational. One of Britain's most accomplished writers' SUNDAY EXPRESS

'Wickedly entertaining' DAILY MAIL

Ratings and reviews

4.8
20 reviews
Duchess Sarah Ferguson
December 5, 2023
A superlative mystery-thriller from the Scottish Queen of Crime Fiction. Karen Pirie and her team investigate a twisted case with links to Scotland's crime-writing community while subject to the restrictions of the 2020 Covid-19 lockdown. I'd enthusiastically recommend Past Lying to any reader who's enjoyed previous series instalments over the past 20 years, and to those new to either D.I. Karen Pirie or Val McDermid's substantial body of much-lauded work.
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THOMAS
April 25, 2024
The author's writing is solid, with well-timed plot twists that keep readers eagerly anticipating the next page.
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ROSE
April 12, 2024
nice!
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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. X @valmcdermid Instagram @quineofcrime

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