Val McDermid

Valarie McDermid (born 4 June 1955) is a Scottish crime writer, best known for a series of novels featuring clinical psychologist Dr. Tony Hill and his collaborators in the police department. Her work is considered to be part of a sub-genre known as Tartan Noir. This series was adapted for television, running from 2002 to 2008, and known as Wire in the Blood. The television series Karen Pirie (2022–present), was adapted from her books featuring the character of the same name.

Life and career

McDermid comes from a working-class family in Fife. She studied English at St Hilda's College, Oxford,<ref name=StHildas>Template:Cite web</ref> where she was the first student to be admitted from a Scottish state school.<ref name=Wroe>Template:Cite news</ref>

After graduation, she became a journalist and began her literary career as a dramatist. Her first success as a novelist, Report for Murder: The First Lindsay Gordon Mystery, was published in 1987.<ref name=":0">Template:Cite news</ref>

McDermid was inducted into the prestigious Detection Club in 2000. In 2010 she won the CWA Diamond Dagger for her lifetime contribution to crime writing in the English language. She was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Sunderland in 2011.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

She is co-founder of the Harrogate Crime Writing Festival and the Theakston's Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award, part of the Harrogate International Festivals. In 2016 she captained a team of St Hilda's alumnæ to win the Christmas University Challenge.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

In 2017, McDermid was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh,<ref>Template:Cite press release</ref> as well as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

In 2025, McDermid was awarded an honorary degree from University of Edinburgh.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Raith Rovers

Stark's Park in Kirkcaldy, the home ground of Raith Rovers football club. The McDermid Stand is visible to the left.

McDermid was a lifelong fan of Raith Rovers football club, her father having worked as a scout for the club.<ref name="Bio">Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="sponsorship">Template:Cite news</ref> In 2010, she sponsored the McDermid Stand at Stark's Park, the club's ground in Kirkcaldy, in honour of her father.<ref name="sponsorship"/>

A year after sponsoring the stand, she became a board member of the club, and starting in 2014 her website became Raith's shirt sponsor.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

In February 2022, McDermid said she would be withdrawing her support and sponsorship from Raith Rovers after the club signed striker David Goodwillie, who had been ruled to have raped a woman and made to pay damages in a civil case in 2017.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Following the signing of Goodwillie, Raith Rovers women's team severed ties with the main club and renamed themselves McDermid Ladies, after the writer. McDermid moved her sponsorship to the new ladies' team.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Ink attack

On 6 December 2012 a woman poured ink over McDermid during a book signing event at the University of Sunderland.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref name=Ford>Template:Cite news</ref> Sandra Botham, a 64-year-old woman from Sunderland was convicted of common assault, received a 12-month community order with supervision and was made to pay £50 compensation and a £60 victim surcharge.<ref name=Ford/><ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Personal life

McDermid lives in Fife and Edinburgh.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In 2010, she was living between Northumberland and Manchester with publisher Kelly Smith,<ref name=kelly>Template:Cite news</ref> with whom she had entered into a civil partnership in 2006.<ref name=Wroe/>

On 23 October 2016 McDermid married her partner of two years, Jo Sharp, at the time a Professor of Geography at the University of Glasgow.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Sharp has been Geographer Royal for Scotland since 2022.<ref name=":0" />

McDermid is a radical feminist and socialist.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="no mystery">Template:Cite news</ref> She has incorporated feminism into some of her novels.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

In 2016, McDermid captained a team of crime writer challengers on the TV quiz Eggheads, beating the Eggheads and winning £14,000.

Bibliography

McDermid's works fall into five series:Template:Citation needed

• Lindsay Gordon (journalist)
• Kate Brannigan (private investigator)
• Tony Hill (clinical psychologist) and DCI Carol Jordan
• DCI Karen Pirie
• Allie Burns (investigative reporter)

The Mermaids Singing, the first book in the Hill/Jordan series by Val McDermid, won the Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger for Best Crime Novel of the Year. The Hill/Jordan series has been adapted for television under the name Wire in the Blood, starring Robson Green and running from 2002 to 2008. Another series adapted from McDermid's books is the eponymous Karen Pirie.

McDermid has said that her character of Jacko Vance, a TV celebrity with a secret lust for torture, murder and under-age girls, who she featured in Wire in the Blood and two later books, is based on her direct personal experience of interviewing Jimmy Savile.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

In addition to writing novels, McDermid contributes to several British newspapers and often broadcasts on BBC Radio 4 and BBC Radio Scotland.<ref name="Bio" /> Her novels, in particular the Tony Hill series, are known for their graphic depictions of violence and torture.

In 2010, McDermid received the Cartier Diamond Dagger from the Crime Writers' Association for "outstanding achievement in the field of crime writing".<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

McDermid considers her work to be part of the "Tartan Noir" Scottish crime fiction genre.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

In August 2022 McDermid reported that the estate of Agatha Christie had threatened her publishers with legal action if they referred to McDermid as "the Queen of Crime". They said that the term was copyrighted by the Christie estate.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Lindsay Gordon series

• Report for Murder (1987)<ref name=brit />
• Common Murder (1989)<ref name=brit />
• Final Edition (1991)<ref name=brit /> US Titles: Open and Shut, Deadline for Murder
• Union Jack (1993),<ref name=brit /> US Title: Conferences Are Murder
• Booked for Murder (1996)<ref name=brit />
• Hostage to Murder (2003)<ref name=brit />

Kate Brannigan series

• Dead Beat (1992)<ref name=oxford>Template:Cite web</ref>
• Kick Back (1993)<ref name=oxford />
• Crack Down (1994)<ref name=oxford />
• Clean Break (1995)<ref name=oxford />
• Blue Genes (1996)<ref name=oxford />
• Star Struck (1998) (awarded Grand Prix des Romans d’Aventure in 1998)<ref name=brit>Template:Cite web</ref>

Tony Hill and Carol Jordan series

• The Mermaids Singing (1995) (Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger for Best Crime Novel of the Year in 1995)<ref name=StHildas/>
• The Wire in the Blood (1997)
• The Last Temptation (2002)
• The Torment of Others (2004)
• Beneath the Bleeding (2007)<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• Fever of the Bone (2009)
• The Retribution (2011)
• Cross and Burn (2013)<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• Splinter the Silence (2015)
• Insidious Intent (2017)<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• How the Dead Speak (2019)<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Inspector Karen Pirie series

• The Distant Echo (2003)
• A Darker Domain (2008)
• The Skeleton Road (2014)
• Out of Bounds (2016)
• Broken Ground (2018)
• Still Life (2020)
• Past Lying (2023)
• Silent Bones (2025)

Allie Burns series

• 1979 (2021)<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• 1989 (2022)
• 1999 (TBC)
• 2009 (TBC)
• 2019 (TBC)

The Austen Project

• Northanger Abbey (2014)<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Other books

• The Writing on the Wall (1997);<ref name=brit /> short stories, limited edition of 200 copies
• A Place of Execution (1999)
• Killing the Shadows (2000)
• Stranded (2005); short stories<ref name=brit />
• Cleanskin (2006)
• The Grave Tattoo (2006)
• Trick of the Dark (2010) dedicated to Mary Bennett (1913–2003) & Kathy Vaughan Wilkes (1946–2003)
• The Vanishing Point (2012)
• Resistance: A Graphic Novel (2021), illustrated by Kathryn Briggs (Profile Books/Wellcome Collection, London, Template:ISBN)
• The Second Murder at the Vicarage in Marple, Twelve New Mysteries (2022) p. 33-52, (HarperCollins, New York, Template:ISBN)

Children's books

• My Granny is a Pirate (2012)<ref>Orchard Books. Template:ISBN.</ref>
• The High Heid Yin's New Claes, published in The Itchy Coo Book o Hans Christian Andersen Fairy Tales in Scots (2020)

Non-fiction

• A Suitable Job for a Woman (HarperCollins, 1994)
• Forensics – The Anatomy of Crime (Profile Books & Wellcome Collection, 2014)<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

• Published in the United States under the title Forensics: What Bugs, Burns, Prints, DNA, and More Tell Us About Crime (Black Cat, 2015)

• My Scotland (Little, Brown, 2019)
• Imagine a Country (Little, Brown, 2020)

External links

• Template:Official website
• Template:British council
• Val McDermid talks about the novels that have influenced her in the Guardian bookshop challenge, 7 June 2010.
• Jane Graham, Val McDermid: "There were no lesbians in Fife in the 1960s", The Big Issue, 7 February 2018.