Las Animas - Bent County Library District

"In the center of historic Edinburgh, builders are preparing to convert a disused Victorian Gothic building into luxury flats. They are understandably surprised to find skeletal remains hidden in a high pinnacle that hasn't been touched by maintenance for years. But 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,...

"Inspector Ian Rutledge's 22nd case revolves around two young women found dead in utterly unexpected places. Scheduled to give evidence in an ongoing investigation, Rutledge can't go to the village of Avebury--where a body has been found stabbed to death in the center of a circle of prehistoric stones--in the place of Chief Inspector Brian Leslie when Rutledge's nemesis, Chief Superintendent Markham, sends Leslie there when he'd been looking forward...

For a decade, Nina Hazlitt has been ready to hear the worst about her daughter's disappearance. But with no sightings, no body, and no suspect, the police investigation ground to a halt long ago, and Nina's pleas to the cold case department have led nowhere. Until she meets the newest member of the team: former Detective John Rebus. Rebus has never shied away from lost causes. Now he's back as a retired civilian, reviewing abandoned files. Two more...

"The UK's "Queen of Crime" Val McDermid returns to her propulsive series featuring cold case detective Karen Pirie, who finds herself investigating the shadowy world of forgery, where things are never what they seem. Still Life is intensely gripping from the first page and further proof that McDermid is writing at the top of her game. When a lobster fisherman on an early morning run pulls in his traps, he finds something he wasn't expecting to catch-a...

Rebus is back on the force, albeit with a demotion and a chip on his shoulder. News arrives that a case from 30 years ago is being reopened. Rebus's team from those days is suspected of helping a murderer escape justice to further their own ends. Malcolm Fox, in his last case as an internal affairs cop, is tasked with finding out the truth. What does Rebus have to hide? His colleagues back then called themselves "The Saints" and swore a bond on something...

"It's April 2020 and Edinburgh is in lockdown. It would seem like a strange time for a cold case to go hot-the streets all but empty, an hour's outdoor exercise the maximum allowed-but a mere pandemic doesn't mean crime takes a holiday. When a source at the National Library contacts DCI Karen Pirie's team about documents in the archive of a recently deceased crime novelist, it seems it's game on again. At the center of it, a novel: two crime novelists...

Lexy Campbell is long overdue a trip to Scotland to see her parents, and an unexpected death in the extended Last Ditch Motel family makes Christmas in a bungalow in Dundee with nine others seem almost irresistible. But when Lexy and the Last Ditch crew hop across the Atlantic, there's a change of plan and they're whisked off to Mistletoe Hall in the pretty village of Yule, where the surprises continue. The news that a man disappeared from the crumbling...

Reinstated on the force, demoted, and wearing a chip on his shoulder, Rebus is asked to solve a cold case from 30 years ago.

"Based on the novel “The Distant Echo” by renowned author Val McDermid and adapted for the screen by Emer Kenny, “Karen Pirie” is a proper crime drama set in Scotland and offers everything from suspense to charm without overdoing things. And what makes the plot effective is the length of the episodes (3 in total; each of 1 hour 30 mins. approx.) and the events that are aptly woven one after another. Great performances by the cast, especially...