Dead Beat introduces Kate Brannigan, a female private detective set to do for Manchester what V.I. Warshawski has done for Chicago.
As a favour to her rock journalist boyfriend, Kate agrees to track down a missing song-writer Moira Pollock, a search that takes her into some of the seediest parts of Leeds and Bradford. But little does she realise that finding Moira is only a prelude to murder. Juggling her other cases, including a search to uncover the source of counterfeit luxury goods, Brannigan finds herself for the first time on the trail of a killer.
Publication date UK: 07 May 1992 (Gollancz)
Current UK publisher: (HarperCollins)
Publication date US: 17 July 2018 (Grove Atlantic)
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Series: Kate Brannigan Series – Book 1
Kate Brannigan is a sparky, funny and much-to-be-welcomed entrant into the still-tiny profession of the female private eye… [Dead Beat is] tough, exciting, moody and unpredictable. — The Times
The story and characters are convincing and Kate is an attractively persistent sleuth whom I hope to see again. — Sunday Telegraph
You’d have to go far to meet a tougher girl gumshoe. — Daily Telegraph, Mike Ripley
Fresh and funny, with a spanking sense of time and place. — Literary Review
McDermid’s snappy, often comic prose keeps the story humming as Kate is drawn deeper and deeper into the twisted plot of her murder investigation. — Publishers Weekly
Kate Brannigan is a sparky, funny and much-to-be-welcomed entrant into the still-tiny profession of the female private eye. — The Times Saturday Review
