Browse books in this series
The Skeleton Road

About the Book


An Edinburgh detective encounters skeletal remains that may be connected to the brutal Balkan Wars of the 1990s in this "tightly paced mystery" (Los Angeles Times).

In the center of historic Edinburgh, Scotland, builders are preparing to demolish a disused Victorian Gothic building. They are understandably surprised to find skeletal remains hidden in a high pinnacle that hasn't been touched by maintenance for years. Who do the bones belong to, and how did they get there? Could the eccentric British pastime of free climbing the outside of buildings play a role? Enter cold case detective Karen Pirie, who gets to work trying to establish the corpse's identity. And when it turns out the bones may be from as far away as former Yugoslavia, Karen will need to dig deeper than she ever imagined into the tragic history of the Balkans: to war crimes and their consequences, and ultimately to the notion of what justice is and who serves it.

Get the book Buy or listen
Links open a search for this book at the selected store. Availability may vary.
Karen Pirie Novels

The series

Full series details →
Meet the author

Val McDermid

Val McDermid is a number one bestseller whose novels have been translated into more than forty languages, and have sold over eighteen million copies. She has won many awards internationally, including the CWA Gold Dagger for best crime novel of the year and the LA Times Book of the Year Award. She was inducted into…

Explore the author