Silent Bones by Val McDermid
Silent Bones by Val McDermid is the most recent (eighth) novel in the DCI Karen Pirie detective series. Published in hardback in 2025, it was published in paperback in June 2026 and I received my pre-ordered copy from Waterstones on publication day. I started reading Val McDermid’s books in autumn 2023, after seeing her at Cheltenham Literature Festival. I binged the Karen Pirie series and the Tony Hill and Carol Jordan series throughout 2024 and 2025. I’m pretty sure this is her first new novel since I saw her at the literature festival.
DCI Karen Pirie is head of the Historic Cases Unit at Police Scotland. When heavy rain causes a motorway landslide, a body is revealed, which was buried there 11 years earlier. Sam Nimmo was an investigative journalist and also the prime suspect in the murder of his fiancee and their unborn child. How did he end up buried under the motorway? It’s up to Karen and her team – DS Daisy Mortimer and newly promoted DS Jason ‘the Mint’ Murray to investigate.
Meanwhile, the team are approached by a grieving man who doesn’t believe his brother really died in an accident. He is convinced the hotel manager was murdered. Why was the case closed? Is there a link to a book club of powerful men? How far would they go to protect their secrets?
Silent Bones is another brilliant page turner from Val McDermid. The amount of detective work that goes into finding the answers in phenomenal. I also love the use of language in a Val McDermid, with all the Scottish phrases and nicknames. If you enjoy a detective story, I would highly recommend the Karen Pirie series. You can read this as a standalone novel or go back to an earlier point in the series.
