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A review by batrock
Past Lying by Val McDermid
3.0
Val McDermid took a break from her established characters for two books with Allie Burns, intrepid lesbian reporter of yore, in 1979 and 1989. In Past Lying, she returns to Karen Pirie, possibly the weakest member of her stable and, as threatened at the end of Still Life, all crime is conducted under the veil of a COVID lockdown.
After an archivist finds a suspicious manuscript in the literary estate of a disgraced crime writer, the Historical Crime Unit decides to look into its parallels with a real life historical case from before the author's death. Flouting various lockdown rules and living in close quarters with relatively new hire Daisy, Karen Pirie is on the case. Jason is also trying his best, but his mother is sick and his ne'er-do-well brother is on the lam.
Past Lying has the issue of many books that are constructed partially from in-universe manuscripts: you have to wade through a not particularly interesting fictional story, which not even the characters in the book much enjoyed reading - and it doesn't even seem to be edited highlights, either. Why we couldn't have just received the meta-commentary is a mystery, because the passages serve little purpose other than inflating the page count.
It's practically impossible not to call the outcome of Past Lying, and McDermid dares us to conceive of another option so that we can pretend to be surprised, but the writing has been on the wall almost literally from the start.

Unsurprisingly for a McDermid novel, Karen essentially gets a free pass to do whatever she wants, because she's always right. This is made more interesting by the pronounced COVID era of the setting, where everyone must behave completely within the lines and the rule of law, except for Karen who can bend it the tiniest bit. This is particularly apparent with Jason's plot line seeing him getting caught up in his brother's transgressions.
Yet the character work is still solid. The new characters, the meat of the investigation, are essentially there out of necessity, but Karen and Jason and even Daisy get their moments. McDermid gives Karen a healthy dose of personal dread and ultimately resolves it; Jason is even affecting.
So Past Lying ends up as an interesting capsule of a terrible time, with a nothing crime that's immediately soluble to even the most amateur armchair detective, multiple bad decisions made, and still that little something compelling about it. Far from essential McDermid, but it hits a certain spot.
After an archivist finds a suspicious manuscript in the literary estate of a disgraced crime writer, the Historical Crime Unit decides to look into its parallels with a real life historical case from before the author's death. Flouting various lockdown rules and living in close quarters with relatively new hire Daisy, Karen Pirie is on the case. Jason is also trying his best, but his mother is sick and his ne'er-do-well brother is on the lam.
Past Lying has the issue of many books that are constructed partially from in-universe manuscripts: you have to wade through a not particularly interesting fictional story, which not even the characters in the book much enjoyed reading - and it doesn't even seem to be edited highlights, either. Why we couldn't have just received the meta-commentary is a mystery, because the passages serve little purpose other than inflating the page count.
It's practically impossible not to call the outcome of Past Lying, and McDermid dares us to conceive of another option so that we can pretend to be surprised, but the writing has been on the wall almost literally from the start.

Unsurprisingly for a McDermid novel, Karen essentially gets a free pass to do whatever she wants, because she's always right. This is made more interesting by the pronounced COVID era of the setting, where everyone must behave completely within the lines and the rule of law, except for Karen who can bend it the tiniest bit. This is particularly apparent with Jason's plot line seeing him getting caught up in his brother's transgressions.
Yet the character work is still solid. The new characters, the meat of the investigation, are essentially there out of necessity, but Karen and Jason and even Daisy get their moments. McDermid gives Karen a healthy dose of personal dread and ultimately resolves it; Jason is even affecting.
So Past Lying ends up as an interesting capsule of a terrible time, with a nothing crime that's immediately soluble to even the most amateur armchair detective, multiple bad decisions made, and still that little something compelling about it. Far from essential McDermid, but it hits a certain spot.