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Tuesday, August 21, 2018

Review: Broken Ground by Val McDermid

A Scottish police procedural (thanks to Net Galley for their free preview in exchange for an honest review.) I haven't read a ton of McDermid and I didn't much care for her protagonist DCI Karen Pirie who ostensibly is still suffering from the loss of her significant other and seems to be taking it out on everyone else. That her boss has it in for the Historic Crimes Unit and has planted a spy in her midst in the form of DS McCartney doesn't help. Her boss is but a caricature of the bitch boss. I would have liked to understand her more. But I suppose seeing her only through Pirie's eyes the view we get is biased in the extreme.

A body has been found by a couple with the help of a crofter. They had been trying to dig up two Indian motorcycles, presumed now to be worth a considerable sum, that had been buried by the woman's grandfather who was "taking" them rather than let them be destroyed as post-war trash. Unbeknownnst to them, the pannier of one also contained a slug of diamonds that another GI was trying to smuggle out of Europe. I was a bit surprised they hadn't bothered to look in the pannier before burying it, but never mind.

I was a bit disappointed with this book. The characters just weren't particularly likeable, not that it's a necessary criteria for liking a bit. They just seemed a bit "off."

Note that the formatting in this ARC for Kindle is really awful, but I assume it will have been fixed by the time of publication.

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