Prolific bestselling author Val McDermid comes from Fife in the coal-mining region of eastern Scotland. On her website she explains “I had always wanted to write, ever since I realised that real people actually produced all those books in the library.”
After a career in journalism she began her first crime novel in 1984. She recalls that reading a Sara Paretsky mystery a "defining moment" because it was "a mystery with an urban setting that dealt with contemporary women's lives, that didn't shy away from engaging with the politics of the society it reflected, and that was fun."
McDermid made her lesbian sleuth Lindsay Gordon a reporter because, she says, "I had no idea how police investigate a murder, but I knew how journalists do their job."
There are six mysteries in the Lindsay Gordon series, but realizing that she "was never going to make a living out of lesbian crime fiction" she introduced her second detective, heterosexual private investigator Kate Brannigan in 1992. There are six titles in that series as well.
McDermid's third series features the crime-solving team of psychologist and criminal profiler Dr. Tony Hill and police detective Carol Jordan. The Mermaids Singing, the first title of the five titles in this series to date, won the prestigious Crime Writers Association's Gold Dagger Award.
The BBC developed an enormously successful television series, The Wire in the Blood, based on these characters.
The author worked closely with the screenwriters on the adaptation and had a cameo role as a journalist, appropriately enough, in one of the episodes.
McDermid considers her work to be “Tartan Noir,” a form of hardboiled crime fiction particular to Scottish writers which has its roots in Scottish literature but borrows elements from elsewhere, including the work of American writer James Ellroy.
She will be speaking here as part of our AUTHORS@THE LIBRARY series on Monday, February 9, at noon to discuss A Darker Domain, her new stand-alone psychological thriller set in her childhood home of Fife which mixes fiction with one of the most symbolic and exceptional moments in recent history - the 1984 national miners' strike in the UK.
Books will be available for purchase and signing.
