One of the best things about Karen Pirie is its heroine. Straight-talking, uncompromising and no-nonsense, Lauren Lyle burst out of the gates in season one as the rule-bending police detective, helping to propel its first season to ratings (and awards) success.
And then... a three year wait for a follow-up. In a market that’s saturated with crime dramas, does Karen Pirie still stick out? Fortunately, the answer is: mostly. Finally on screens and adapted straight from Val McDermid’s book A Darker Domain, the show has lost none of its bite, serving up more mystery, whip-smart dialogue and a refreshingly female-centric cast.
After the trials of the season one finale, Karen has been promoted to Detective Inspector. She’s leading a team of her own, and she’s also attracting a fair amount of media interest as the person to crack the cold case of missing and murdered barmaid Rosie Duff.
She’s terrible at doing interviews, but that’s okay, because soon there’s another case knocking at her door. People dredging up a lake during a historic drought find a long-dead body, and interestingly enough, it points to another cold case – that of Scottish heiress Catriona Grant (Julia Brown), who was kidnapped at gunpoint along with her infant son.
The pair of them were never seen again, so soon enough, Karen’s put on the case. Though soon enough, she’s also contending with heavy pressure from her boss DCS Lees (Steve John Shepherd), as well as a spy in the form of DC Isla Stark (Saskia Ashdown), who has been assigned to the team to sniff out any rule-bending tendencies on Karen’s part.
What unfolds is a puzzle-box of a plot from writer Emer Kenny (who also makes a cameo in the series as Karen’s colleague River Wilde). It’s rare for a show to delve so deeply into Scottish history – we touch on the miner’s strikes, poverty, even wealth inequality courtesy of Catriona’s incredibly rich family and rather obnoxious father, Sir Broderick Grant (James Cosmo).
It all feels authentic and lived-in, if exceptionally bleak (another incredibly Scottish trait), while the show’s tendency of skipping the extremely rote interrogation sequences in favour of lush, vivid flashback sequences give the whole thing some much-needed flavour.
Intertwined with the unfolding mystery is the messy matter of Karen’s personal life. She’s in a relationship with her colleague Phil Parhatka (Zach Wyatt), which the station doesn’t know about; her attempts to keep him on her team, and his attempts to rein her in, causes friction that both Lyle and Wyatt sell utterly.
Plus, there’s also the little matter of the rampant misogyny she faces – “I put him on the case!” she splutters, when one of her male officers is praised for supposedly making a breakthrough. Given how many detectives are old, jaded and male, it’s a refreshing change.
As Karen works her way ever closer to the truth, Kenny unearths each nugget of plot with the care of an archaeologist. And if the show is lacking in tension – despite an early break-in to Karen’s apartment, I’m never quite sold on the fact that she’s in danger – it makes up for that in the cool, considered and careful way it unfolds. More Karen Pirie please; it would be criminal not to.
Karen Pirie Season 2 is streaming now on ITV
