A Darker Domain by Val McDermid

Concerned mother Misha Gibson reports her father, Mick Prentice, missing. The problem for DI Karen Pirie and her partner, DS Phil Parhatka, is that Mick was last seen in 1984. Misha needs to find Mick because her young son needs a bone marrow transplant. Everyone in the community assumed that Mick went off scabbing to Nottingham during the miners' strike in the mid 1980's. As head of the cold case team in Fife, Misha's request falls under Karen's jurisdiction. As Karen starts investigating, new evidence for a very high profile cold case is discovered in Italy. While on vacation, journalist Bel Richmond has found a ransom poster for Catriona Maclennan Grant in an abandoned Italian farmhouse. Seizing the opportunity, Bel goes to Catriona's powerful, unscrupulous father Sir Broderick to convince him to share information with her about Catriona's kidnapping in 1985. He agrees because he's desperate to find Catriona's young son (now an adult himself), who disappeared during the ransom handoff at which Catriona was killed. He also consents to fund her search in exchange for being kept abreast of the details. Bel knows finding Sir Broderick's grandson is a career maker. Karen, meanwhile, tries to work on both cases, spending most of her time on Mick's disappearance while the Italian police keep her updated on the case there. Will the women be able to find out what really happened more than twenty years ago? A Darker Domain is a stand-alone mystery novel in the tradition of McDermid's A Place of Execution (one of the best mysteries I've ever read).