The plan is to head to the Outpost, stopping at the roadside attractions Dirk and his Dad mapped out before the zombie apocalypse. And therein lay the problem because I didn't find it convincing that this person could have pulled off the types of violent attack described in the prologue. Perhaps one of McDermid's most powerful novels to date, the reader can be pulled into the narrative while discovering much from recent Balkan history.

BUT I found the plot itself very slow and whilst the latter half of the book held more interest for me I was very disappointed with the ending, I felt it was unfinished and rather abrupt. Om de hade varit mer seriösa och inte så fjantiga kanske de hade varit mycket mer intressant att läsa om. McDermid continues to impress with another novel, adding an historic twist to keep readers enthralled.Set in Edinburgh, Oxford and Croatia, the plot deals with two investigations: one conducted by Scottish police into the murder of a man whose skeletonised remains are found on the roof of a condemned building and the other conducted by two hapless International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) lawyers, who are given the job of who's responsible for a security leak that has led to the execution-style murders of a number of war criminals. While Pirie contemplates this, she must also handle an accident that leaves her lover and former colleague, Phil Parhatka, clinging to life. Just as things seem to be clearing up for Karen and the Mint, they’re getting even muddier for Alan Macanespie and Theo Proctor, two underachieving drones at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, whose activist new boss, Wilson Cagney, is determined to get them to pull their weight for a change by investigating a yearslong rash of assassinations of ICTFY targets just before they were to be arrested. The Skeleton Road , now available in paperback, is a gripping standalone novel about a cold case that links back to the Balkan Wars of the 1990s.

I also found the resolution rather ridiculous, especially the late-on insistence that a key character's nearest and dearest (trying to avoid spoilers) should be forcibly removed. Val McDermid hit the big time some years ago but if she hadn’t, this book would have done the trick. I correctly assumed that McDermid wasn't going to cheat by making the murderer someone who's only introduced in the last five pages, so the possible suspect list was very short indeed.Personligen hade jag gärna sluppit sidospåret med de två advokaterna från Internationella krigsförbrytartribunalen. Their organisation is shortly going to be wound up, but a new boss wants a solution to the violent deaths which have been meted out to several war criminals before they could be brought to trial, indicating that there is an intelligence leak in their organisation. But it is a wild world out there, and Thrull's influence is making it even more sinister by the second. Working at ironic cross-purposes, the two investigative teams unwittingly duplicate, complicate and contradict each other’s discoveries as they leapfrog over repeated flashbacks to the hellish Dubrovnik landscape to come up, in miraculous synchronicity, with the real killer.

Atmospheric, spine-chilling and brimming with intrigue and suspense, this is Val McDermid's richest and most accomplished psychological thriller to date. By using the Web site, you confirm that you have read, understood, and agreed to be bound by the Terms and Conditions. Production of blood cells – certain bones in the skeleton contain red bone marrow and the bone marrow produces red blood cells, white blood cells and platelets. The Skeleton Road does an excellent job of wrangling with these big ideas inside a tightly paced mystery.I can understand how some readers might despair of keeping the many characters and plot clear in their minds. McDermid aficionados will hardly be surprised to hear that that is precisely what she pulls off in The Skeleton Road.