The Skeleton Road by Val McDermid was first published in 2014 and it’s the third book in her Karen Pirie series.
Fraser Jardine is a demolition quantity surveyor, he’s been doing it for some years now but had always managed to avoid going onto the roof of any building that he was inspecting, which is just as well as he has a terrible fear of heights. But the day comes when he’s the only person available and he has to go on to the roof of a large and very tall and crumbling Victorian Gothic building, the John Drummond in Edinburgh. Fraser is a complete wreck, but when he reaches one of the roof’s decorative pinnacles, he’s in for an even worse time. There’s a skeleton lying inside the pinnacle, and the skull has a hole in the side of the head.
This is obviously a job for Detective Chief Inspector Karen Pirie, head of Cold Cases. As all the clothes have been rotted away by the weather and time there’s really nothing to go on, it seems unlikely that the murder victim will ever be identified. But there is a tiny bit of possible evidence to be researched, and the trail leads to the time of the Balkan Wars some decades previously.
So this one was quite different from the first two books in this series, with the investigation moving to Croatia where Karen is told about some of the atrocities in that horrendous war.
The blurb says: Atmospheric, spine-chilling and brimming with intrigue and suspense , this is Val McDermid’s richest and most accomplished psychological thriller to date.
I actually found it to be a bit too dark and sad for me, but I suppose that given the fact that the very first shot of the Balkan War was fired in Kirkcaldy where McDermid grew up, then it’s fair enough that she wanted to incorporate it in one of her books.