Still Life

Written by Dani Pettrey

Narrated by Thérèse Plummer

Blacklisted in the photography business when one of her shots causes a scandal, but desperate to somehow continue in the profession, Avery Tate answered an ad for a crime scene photographer. She fully expected to be laughed at, but crime scene analyst Parker Mitchell hired her outright--taking time to teach her the trade. Now she's half in love with the man, half terrified to even acknowledge her feelings, and completely hooked on the job--until the next crime hits too close to home. Avery attends the gallery opening of a new photography exhibit to support her best friend who modeled for the show. The only image of her, though, is a chilling photo of her posing dead. Only the photographer insists he didn't take the shot, and Avery's friend can't be found. As Avery and Parker, along with Parker's brilliant friends, begin to dig into the mystery, they find themselves face-to-face with a dangerous, relentless, and deadly threat which could endanger them all.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Recorded Books, Inc.
• Release date: Jan 31, 2017
• ISBN: 9781501946325

Dani Pettrey

Dani Pettrey (DaniPettrey.com) is the bestselling author of the Coastal Guardians, Chesapeake Valor, and Alaskan Courage series. A two-time Christy Award finalist, Dani has won the National Readers' Choice Award, Daphne du Maurier Award, HOLT Medallion, and Christian Retailing's Best Award for Suspense. She plots murder and mayhem from her home in the Washington, DC, metro area.

Reviews for Still Life

[jbd1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I tend to enjoy Val McDermid's mysteries, and this is no exception. Great pacing, good plot, and a story well told.

[jennybeast · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Yes! Inspector Karen Pirie is back, and McDermid takes the bold step of setting this one in February 2020 -- so the looming spectre of Covid-19 is waiting in the background. 2 complex cases, the usual quick thinking and resolve, and some new players. Does not disappoint.


Avanced Reader's copy provided by Edelweiss.

[brianewilliams · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

It's a brilliant police procedural thriller, with two distinct storylines both involving stolen identities. There's a distinct Scottish atmosphere with plenty of unique Scots slang and jargon throughout the story. Also there's plenty of attractive characters: DS Daisy Mortimer, DC Jason Murray and of course Karen Pirie herself, a flinty hard-edge cop, with a political boss, ACC Ann Markie (AKA "the Dog Biscuit"). Readers can learn some trivia about such arcane topics as Artist's Resale Royalty and European Arrest Warrants. It can easily be read as a standalone, even though it's the sixth in a seriesA nit for me was about the plethora of acronyms (DVLA. RTA, SORN. PNC (as a verb) and GDPR) that I needed an online dictionary to sort out. Despite that, it's a superb read.

[pierthinker · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

DCI Karen Pirie of the Historic Crimes Unit in Edinburgh works two more cold cases in this thriller. A skeleton in a camper-van leads to a search for a lover and murderer. In the second case a dead body leads to a cold case involving the disappearance of a senior civil servant many years before.Both cases involve the art world, but are otherwise unrelated. The camper-van murder is straightforward and the suspect run to ground and captured after some chase shenanigans. The interest here is not the mystery of the crime and motive, but in the police procedural of identifying the remains, piecing together the victim’s relationships and tracking suspects forward in time.The second case is more convoluted, involving a present-day murder, a historic disappearance and crimes of art forgery. The threads of this mystery are more twisted and take more complex police work to unravel with ultimately less reliance on the forensic science.Not in the top drawer of McDermid’s work. The two cases are so disconnected that they could be from different stories. The camper-van murder lacks any exciting twists that change our perspective; who we think it is turns out to be who did it. The main story relies too much on coincidence and on the police being told things rather than finding them out.Having said all this, I enjoyed the book immensely and it was a consuming read. Recommended.

[francesmcnama-876774 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I read series out of order, so I've read some but not all of this series. I especially enjoyed learning about the residue of pain left from the conflicts in the Balkans. I like Karen, a middle aged experienced detective and the sidekicks are good too.

[edgoldberg · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Still Life is the sixth book in the Karen Pirie series. She is one of my favorite authors.DCI Karen Pirie is head of Police Scotland’s Historic Crime Unit, in other words she deals with cold cases. She’s currently working on the case of an unidentified long-dead skeleton found in the back of a camper van housed in the garage of Susan Leitch, a hit and run victim. The theory is that Susan’s former girlfriend, Amanda, might be involved, but the trouble is finding her.Meanwhile, the inexperienced at murder police force in Fife has just found a drowned body in the Firth of Forth. It turns out to be Jamie Auld, a prime suspect in the disappearance of his brother Ian, a high- ranking government employee, 10 years earlier. Ian’s body has never been recovered and Jamie has been invisible, first joining the French Foreign Legion for seven years and then living in Paris, playing in a jazz band. Since Pirie was the last person to review the Ian Auld case two years earlier, she is put on the current Auld case to see if they are related. She commandeers Daisy Mortimer from the Fife police as a detective. The question is what ever happened to Ian and why would anyone want to kill Jamie, who has kept his head down for this past decade. With Daisy assisting on Auld and Pirie’s right-hand man, Jason Murray, assisting with the skeleton, the investigations move forward, sometimes slowly and sometimes fast paced. In the midst of all this, Pirie must contend with the release from prison of the killer of her ex-lover Phil three years earlier. She’s got her hands full and she takes advantage of the relationships she has built up with several people on the force including a tech expert, a forensic expert and a judge. The old stalwarts are back which is always nice in a series and the introduction of Daisy Mortimer makes one hope she’ll be a continuing character. McDermid finds reason to touch on serious subjects such as Brexit, Covid-19, identity theft and art fraud, while also throwing in a few lowland Scottish terms for fun. The ending is not so surprising. I guessed part of it mid-way through the book as may other readers, but the journey is just as good. As one reviewer said, it is “…a timely and cracking good mystery that keep the pages flying.” I’ve read all the books in the series except for book #2, A Darker Domain. [Distant Echo (#1 in the series), Skeleton Road (#3 in the series), Out of Bounds (#4 in the series) and Broken Ground (#5 in the series).Val McDermid never fails to produce a good read. The Karen Pirie series is my favorite of her various series. It's a fast read, so go for it.

[dokfintong · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Karen Pirie 6I like the Karen Pirie series and was well disposed toward this one before I started. It's maybe not the best of them – the story drags a bit in places, and telegraphs plot twists a bit more than I like – but some of the digression was needed to introduce a new member of the Historic Cases Unit, Detective Sergeant Daisy Mortimer, a lively young officer who will balance Pirie's bagman DetectiveConstable Jason Murray who is a bit tentative.The story is convoluted and sad and the writing is very satisfying.I received a review copy of "Still Life: Karen Pirie 6 " by Val McDermid from Grove Atlantic through NetGalley.com.

[jetangen4571 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

law-enforcement, Scotland, murder, murder-investigation, missing-persons, international-crime-and-mystery, art-fraud, identity-theft*****The due diligence on these cases reminds me of the tangles that yarn sometimes becomes. Police Scotland DCI Pirie works the Historic Crimes Unit AKA Cold Cases becomes involved in a mess of interconnected cases, one of which is current and one is skeletal. Add in a couple of missing persons both reported and not, her own personal life, interpolicing politics, a trip to Paris and the mire that international crime begets and you have a truly riveting police procedural that makes the brain work just as hard as those interesting characters who must solve the mess. A wonderful book!I requested and received a free ebook copy from Grove Atlantic/Atlantic Monthly Press via NetGalley. Thank you!

[brangwinn · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Hurray for DCI Karen Pirie! She is back in a book that takes place just before the COVID19 lockdown in Scotland. She continues to be plagued by her supervisor, “The Dog Biscuit”. Her sidekick, “The Mint” continues to develop character. Her romance with Hamish continues to grow and she is struggling to solve two different murders. McDermid can combine all these elements into a very readable story. When I read a Karen Pirie book, I cannot decide if these police procedural books are more plot driven than character driven. She excels at both and there’s always food involved which makes me happy.

[eyejaybee · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Val McDermid must be one of our most prolific crime novelists, but although she regularly produces a new book every year, she never seems either to let the quality of her work waver, or to give the impression that her books are generated to a formula. She has also created some great recurring characters. I first became acquainted with her book through reading the exploits of Lindsey Gordon, a journalist with an unfortunate penchant for finding herself caught up in murders. After those books I moved on to her stories about Kate Brannigan, a resourceful private detective based in Manchester. McDermid may, however, be best known for the novels featuring DI Carol Jordan and Dr Tony Hill (I think that series must extend to nine or ten instalments by now) which also spawned the Wire in the Blood television series (named from the second novel in the sequence). In addition to her various standalone novels, she has a fourth series, recounting the cases investigated by Chief Inspector Karen Pirie, who leads the cold case team in Edinburgh. I think the novels in this series might almost be my favourites, although I have yet to read anything by her that I haven’t enjoyed.In this latest book featuring Karen Pirie, she is faced with a desiccated corpse in a camper van that had been parked in the garage owned by a woman who had herself been killed in a car crash. The body had been discovered when the brother of the woman killed in the accident was going through her property, trying to sort out her estate.Meanwhile, there is a current murder investigation in progress after fishermen pull a body from the sea. Identification is initially problematic, but the victim is eventually confirmed as the brother of a prominent civil servant from the Scotland Office whop had gone missing several years ago. At the time of his disappearance, the brother had been considered as prime suspect for having killed him, after witness accounts emerged of a fight between them on the last night that the civil servant had been seen.McDermid weaves these two, seemingly unconnected, storylines together seamlessly, but never crosses into implausibility. Karen Pirie is a highly believable character: considerate, empathetic and ready to acknowledge her colleagues’ contribution to her investigation, she is also assertive and prepared to stand up to unreasonable and bullying bosses, and she knows how to navigate the slippery and treacherous slopes of internal politics within the police hierarchy.I suspect that Val McDermid’s secret goes back to her former career as a crime reporter, relying upon clear writing and a strong grasp of the storyline.

[atticusfinch1048 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Still Life – Another McDermid MasterclassStill Life is another Val McDermid masterclass of crime writing. Currently there is no better crime fiction writer than McDermid, and she never rests on her laurels, always looking to improve. There are those literary snobs that look down on Val McDermid, they are only jealous because the pap they put out is overrated trash and does not connect with the reader.DCI Karen Pirie has been sent to a cold case out in Fife which does not seem to hard to solve at first look, a skeleton in the back of a VW campervan. Little does she realise that in the process of solving this crime her able assistant Jason will be injured in Stockport of all places in pursuit of the truth.When the Assistant Chief Constable summons Karen to headquarters and tells her, she is to take over a live murder case that is linked to a cold case, little does she realise where this will take her. One thing she does know that ACC ‘dog biscuit’ will love it if she fails to close the case.Karen uncovers a case about murder, missing people, stolen art, and plenty of the case has taken place outside of Police Scotland’s jurisdiction. Investigating this crime leads Karen and her team to Paris and Caen, with stop offs in Glasgow and London, before heading to the Republic of Ireland. Before calling on the Police Service of Northern Ireland, who are generous with their help.Once again before putting words on paper, Val McDermid does the research, as well as a bit of literary licence, to create believable plots and a story that grips you. I like reading Val McDermid thrillers as they draw you in, and before you realise you need to eat and drink you are well into the book and it feels like a crime to put it down.Val McDermid has delivered a masterclass of crime writing proving why she is an award winner.

[pomo58 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Still Life (Inspector Karen Pirie, #6) is yet another wonderful novel from Val McDermid. Great plot, wonderful characters, and propulsive prose. What more can you ask for?While this is part of a series (a very good series!) I think it can be read as a standalone without too much problem. You may not fully grasp some of the back and forth but any important things from the past will be discussed in a way that offers a new reader enough information to keep up. That said, I would recommend reading the entire series because, well, it is just that good.The cases here are concurrent yet we aren't sure whether they are connected. Each case is twisty and where it seems like there might crossover we are kept wondering. The plot is as tight as any she has written, and that is saying a lot. Yet even with great stories I find myself returning to McDermid's books because of the characters. They are flawed in very real ways that we can usually relate to, whether from personal experience or through a friend. If you read a book in any of her series' you'll find yourself invested in them and want to not only see how the case resolves but also how each person's life evolves.Ever since I read McDermid's nonfiction book Forensics I find myself thinking back to it when anything in a novel was covered in the book. This is especially true when reading one of her books. Her knowledge of forensic science helps to make her stories that much more believable and realistic.I highly recommend this to readers of police procedurals as well as mysteries. Also, whether you tend toward liking tight plots or well-developed characters, this will satisfy your preference.Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.

[pgchuis · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I received a copy of this novel from the publisher via NetGalley.Well, that was topical - it ends with the characters going into Covid 19 lockdown... But, before that, the cold case unit investigates the discovery of skeletonised remains in a camper van in the garage of a woman who has just died in a road traffic accident. A separate team investigates the death of a man with two names, and this turns out to be linked to a 10-year old disappearance and so Karen takes over that case too. There is an awful lot of travel in this novel, with characters commenting on how Brexit will make all this sort of thing more difficult.This was excellent: Daisy, who comes into the cold case unit via the second case, is a promising new character, and Jason continues to delight. I was glad the author saw no need to have the two cases miraculously turn out to be connected - they were both plenty twisty and complicated enough. I had a frustrating few chapters where no one was able to work out the meaning of the notes on the back of the photo hidden in the book (you'll know when you get to that bit), since I had recognized them immediately. Thank goodness for Hamish!