Out of Bounds

Val McDermid

Dec 2016 · Karen Pirie Novels Book 4 · Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

About this ebook

Forensic evidence leads to places a Scottish cop never expected in “a thriller as steely and superlative as its heroine” (O, The Oprah Magazine).

When a teenage joyrider crashes a stolen car and ends up in a coma, a routine DNA test reveals a connection to an unsolved murder from twenty-two years before. Finding the answer to the cold case should be straightforward. But it’s as twisted as the DNA helix itself.

Meanwhile, Inspector Karen Pirie finds herself irresistibly drawn to another mystery that she has no business investigating, a mystery that has its roots in a terrorist bombing two decades ago. And again, she finds that nothing is as it seems.

From a Diamond Dagger Award-winning author, Out of Bounds is a riveting cold case novel starring detective Karen Pirie, who’s been described by the Associated Press as “a formidable character worthy of her own series.”

“I would like to see a great deal more of DCI Pirie.” —Irish Times

About the author

Val McDermid was born in Scotland on June 4, 1955. She was the first student from a state school in Scotland accepted to read English at St Hilda's College, Oxford. She graduated in 1975 and became a journalist. She wrote her first novel at the age of 21. It didn't get published, but she turned it into a play entitled Like a Happy Ending. It was performed by the Plymouth Theatre Company and was later adapted for BBC radio. Her first book, Report for Murder, was published in 1987. She is the author of the Lindsay Gordon Mystery series, the Kate Brannigan Mystery series, and the Dr. Tony Hill and Carol Jordan Mysteries series as well as several stand alone books including The Distant Echo, A Darker Domain, Trick of the Dark and Out of Bounds. The Mermaids Singing won the Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger for Best Crime Novel of the Year.