Silent Bones

McDermid is at the top of her game in the masterful latest installment of her DCI Karen Pirie series (after Past Lying). When human remains are discovered in a collapsed section of Scotland’s M73 highway, Karen calls on detective sergeants Daisy Mortimer and Jason “The Mint” Murray to investigate. Meanwhile, in a separate case, Daisy interviews Drew Jamieson, who’s gathered evidence that his brother Tom’s fatal fall on Edinburgh’s Scotsman Steps several years earlier may have been murder, despite police insistence that it was an accident. Staff at the nearby Scott Monument Hotel recall a disagreement between Tom and the hotel’s sommelier, Bob Watson, because Watson quit the pair’s football club to join a mysterious book group called the Justified Sinners. When the M73 remains are identified as those of investigative journalist Sam Nimmo, who disappeared from the scene of his girlfriend’s murder a decade ago, Pirie pinpoints a connection between Sam’s death, Tom’s death, and the Justified Sinners, and sends her team barreling after the shadowy organization. McDermid’s procedural instincts are as sharp as ever, and she balances them with wrenching developments in Karen’s personal life, including her fraught relationship with Syrian activist Rafiq Yasin. Readers will rest easy knowing they’re in the hands of a seasoned storyteller. (Dec.)