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A review by doreeny
The Skeleton Road by Val McDermid
3.0
This is my first Val McDermid novel. She is an author I have been meaning to read for a long time, and this particular book has had many positive reviews. It was not what I expected, however.
Karen Pirie, in charge of the cold case unit with Scotland Police, has to investigate the murder of a man eight years earlier after his remains are found on the roof of an abandoned school in Edinburgh. Parallel to her investigation is the story of Professor Maggie Blake, a geographer at Oxford who has been mourning the unexplained disappearance of her Croatian lover, Mitja Petrovic. In the meantime, two men from the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTFY) are investigating a series of assassinations of ICTFY targets, assassinations thought to have been carried out by Petrovic. Eventually all three plot strands converge.
The mystery element is rather unsatisfying. There is a small cast of suspects so the identity of the murderer is obvious. Pirie’s investigation makes no missteps and encounters no dead ends, so solving the case is very straightforward. The book’s publisher tagged the book as a thriller, but the use of “thriller” is an exaggeration. There is some suspense but very little danger, and the pace, until the final chapters, is slow.
For me, it is the historical element that is the strongest. We learn a great deal about the conflict in the Balkans in the early 1990’s, mostly from a Croatian perspective. Professor Blake was in Dubrovnik during its siege in 1991, and we read excerpts from her proposed book about her time in the Balkans. Her descriptions of the massacres explain why the leaders are being investigated by the ICTFY and charged with war crimes.
The book’s examination of justice is also interesting. Pirie is obviously trying to bring a murderer to justice, and the ICTFY is trying to ensure that justice is done for the victims of wartime atrocities. But it soon becomes apparent that some people seek a more personal form of retribution. There are many skeletons to be found in the Balkans, skeletons crying out for justice, but the road between them and justice is anything but straight and smooth. And do skeleton roads ever end? The ethnic cleansing of the Serbs by the Croats and Nazis 50 years earlier served as an impetus in the 1990’s Balkan wars so it is certainly believable that the latter conflict influences events 25 years later. And, of course, the former Yugoslavia is only one part of the world which has skeletons crying out for justice. Is there a “foolishness of thinking we can keep the darkness at bay” (404)?
This novel is identified as one of McDermid’s standalone novels, but I’ve come to learn that Karen Pirie has appeared in two previous books. It would definitely not be surprising if she shows up again. There is much about her personality and tough, no-nonsense approach to investigations that appeals. In the end, events in Pirie’s personal life take the forefront, events that will have most readers wanting to know more about her future.
Though the mystery element is predictable, its historical aspects and thematic explorations make this book a good read.
Please check out my reader's blog (http://schatjesshelves.blogspot.ca/) and follow me on Twitter (@DCYakabuski).
Karen Pirie, in charge of the cold case unit with Scotland Police, has to investigate the murder of a man eight years earlier after his remains are found on the roof of an abandoned school in Edinburgh. Parallel to her investigation is the story of Professor Maggie Blake, a geographer at Oxford who has been mourning the unexplained disappearance of her Croatian lover, Mitja Petrovic. In the meantime, two men from the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTFY) are investigating a series of assassinations of ICTFY targets, assassinations thought to have been carried out by Petrovic. Eventually all three plot strands converge.
The mystery element is rather unsatisfying. There is a small cast of suspects so the identity of the murderer is obvious. Pirie’s investigation makes no missteps and encounters no dead ends, so solving the case is very straightforward. The book’s publisher tagged the book as a thriller, but the use of “thriller” is an exaggeration. There is some suspense but very little danger, and the pace, until the final chapters, is slow.
For me, it is the historical element that is the strongest. We learn a great deal about the conflict in the Balkans in the early 1990’s, mostly from a Croatian perspective. Professor Blake was in Dubrovnik during its siege in 1991, and we read excerpts from her proposed book about her time in the Balkans. Her descriptions of the massacres explain why the leaders are being investigated by the ICTFY and charged with war crimes.
The book’s examination of justice is also interesting. Pirie is obviously trying to bring a murderer to justice, and the ICTFY is trying to ensure that justice is done for the victims of wartime atrocities. But it soon becomes apparent that some people seek a more personal form of retribution. There are many skeletons to be found in the Balkans, skeletons crying out for justice, but the road between them and justice is anything but straight and smooth. And do skeleton roads ever end? The ethnic cleansing of the Serbs by the Croats and Nazis 50 years earlier served as an impetus in the 1990’s Balkan wars so it is certainly believable that the latter conflict influences events 25 years later. And, of course, the former Yugoslavia is only one part of the world which has skeletons crying out for justice. Is there a “foolishness of thinking we can keep the darkness at bay” (404)?
This novel is identified as one of McDermid’s standalone novels, but I’ve come to learn that Karen Pirie has appeared in two previous books. It would definitely not be surprising if she shows up again. There is much about her personality and tough, no-nonsense approach to investigations that appeals. In the end, events in Pirie’s personal life take the forefront, events that will have most readers wanting to know more about her future.
Though the mystery element is predictable, its historical aspects and thematic explorations make this book a good read.
Please check out my reader's blog (http://schatjesshelves.blogspot.ca/) and follow me on Twitter (@DCYakabuski).