Book Review: The Skeleton Road . Ms McDermid takes us from Buildering up a derelict Edinburgh school to experiencing war torn Croatia through the eyes of a woman in love, to the cloistered elite of Oxford Academia. – not bad considering she’s recently been busy having mortuaries named after her, writing her take on Northanger Abbey and having her Forensics Book published.

Book Review: The Skeleton Road .  Ms McDermid takes us from Buildering up a derelict school to experiencing  war torn Croatia through the eyes of a woman in love, to the cloistered elite of Oxford Academia. – not bad considering she’s recently been busy having mortuaries named after her, writing her take on Northanger Abbey and having her Forensics Book published.

I’m an avid McDermid fan and have enjoyed most of her books but …  The Skeleton Road blew my mind!

To be clear about where I am with this I’ll put it in perspective- My top three McDermid books were until now (in no particular order) The Torment of Others, The Mermaids Singing and A Place of Execution.. now I’ve just got to add  The Skeleton Road to my favourites...  Hell, I’m not ditching any of them… I now have a top four  Val McDermid novels.

So what's The Skeleton Road about?

A Skeleton is found with a bullet hole to the skull concealed in the parapet of a disused Edinburgh school and is suspected of being involved in the illegal  Urban sport of Buildering (climbing city buildings as if they are a rock face). 
Detective Karen Pirie’s cold case team soon link the skeleton to a Croatian , Ex- adviser to the UN on war crimes  and the lover of an Oxford University Professor. 

Oxford University

Meanwhile, as The Hague winds up its’ war crimes department, the last few identified criminals are being murdered by a vigilante with inside knowledge days before the victim is due to be arrested for war crimes.

Reading The Skeleton Road was as compelling as picking a healing scab on your knee, (disgusting but enjoyable and addictive)... TheSkeleton Road niggled me – I couldn’t let it alone. I kept picking and picking at it till I felt I was bleeding ... and the bits I read and re-read (usually with tears tripping me)were, of course, Maggie’s memoirs. 

The siege of Dubrovnik

It’s clear that  the story is very personal to Val and indeed she acknowledges that her inspiration for the book came from two of her close friends; one who worked on the Kosovo war graves and the other a Mentor from her Uni days who  infiltrated the Iron Curtain in the way described Val in the book.. as a tribute to their work I think Val's done a fantastic job.

The poignantly beautiful synergy between Professor Maggie Drakes War Memoirs, Karen Piries ongoing investigation into Dmitri Petrovic (the skeleton’s) murder,  and the investigation by The Hague into the vigilante murders of war criminals before they could be prosecuted gave the story unstoppable momentum.  and had me weeping one minute, angry and disillusioned the next and laughing like a policeman (of the rotund jovial variety) at other times.

The siege of Dubrovnik

The Skeleton Road is sensitively written, informative, beautifully  and appallingly descriptive - mass graves, gang-raped women, murdered children and graves callously covered by dead animals in an attempt to confuse the cadaver dogs, the contrast of the beauty of night skies lit by wars destructive fires and scarred buildings in Dubrovnik- none of this is ‘beautiful’ but Val described these horrors honestly.

Humour,satire, anger, truthfulness and  her usual  keen attention to detail  make this story work as, not only a damn good crime novel but as a social commentary, a tribute to the brave and selfless Feminists who infiltrated the Eastern Block to help educate ordinary people there and a much needed reminder of the  and complexities of war and peoples actions taken in such situations.

One phrase from Skeleton Road that sticks in my mind was uttered by Professor Maggie Drake about individual people’s actions in this sort of abominable situation – “That one action is not the sum of the man – he was more than that” (I paraphrase) – I agree with the idea that one thing doesn’t define all that we are but I can’t get my head round how far individual responsibility goes and when is the right time to draw a line under the past and look to the future – yep she got me thinking.

Val McDermid

Don’t think I need to say it but just to be sure …. I recommend Skeleton Road… Read It… It’s Great.








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