by Val McDermid
First published 2019
Alice Somerville finally decides to excavate what her grandfather buried in a Highland peat bog after World War II ended. She expects to find valuable items he hid from the war, but instead discovers a decades-old body with a bullet wound through the skull. Cold case detective Karen Pirie arrives to investigate the mysterious remains. The case pulls her into a web where appearances deceive and motives hide beneath the surface. As Pirie digs deeper into the truth, she realizes that others around her hold very different ideas about justice. Some people actively work against her investigation, unwilling to let buried secrets surface. The detective must navigate conflicting interests and hidden agendas while pursuing answers about the murdered victim. Pirie faces mounting resistance as she gets closer to solving who killed the person in the bog and why someone wanted them dead badly enough to execute them and hide the evidence for decades.
Genres: historical-fiction, mystery, crime, thriller, detective
Vibes: atmospheric, dark, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: conflicting-interests, hidden-agendas, investigation, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Highland, Scotland
Period: 20th-century, World War II
432 pages · Paperback · Grove Press
Content warnings: death, murder, violence