Val McDermid's Blog, page 2

Broken Ground – Facebook Competition

Broken Ground

There’s now just two weeks to go until BROKEN GROUND publishes in hardback and ebook! If you haven’t already, don’t forget to pre-order your copy.

Ahead of publication, we’re giving two lucky people the chance to win a proof copy of BROKEN GROUND! To enter, all you need to do is like and comment on this post with the name of the previous novel in the Karen Pirie series . . .

 Head over to Facebook to See more

Series: Karen Pirie

UK Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group

Literary agent: Gregory & Company

Published date UK: 23 August 2018

Expected US publication:  December 2018 by Atlantic Monthly Press

 

Waterstones U-turns over unbranded bookshop in Edinburgh

Waterstones has backtracked on plans to open one of its new unbranded stores in a district of Edinburgh that is already home to an independent bookshop – following an outcry that included criticism from figures including the Scottish novelist Val McDermid.

A shop will be opened in the Stockbridge area of the city but it will be clearly branded as Waterstones, according to the company’s managing director, James Daunt, who admitted: “We messed up.”

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Morse creator Colin Dexter remembered in Oxford…

The life of Inspector Morse creator Colin Dexter has been celebrated with a cathedral service and civic reception in his hometown of Oxford.

The writer, whose 13 Morse books were set in the city, died last year age 86.

The Very Revd Professor Martyn Percy, who led the service at Christ Church Cathedral, said Colin Dexter was “an iconic figure” in Oxford.

He added it was “absolutely fitting” the cathedral opened its doors for the author’s family and friends.

Mr Dexter wrote the first Morse novel, Last Bus to Woodstock, in 1975. The fictional detective was killed off in the final book, The Remorseful Day, in 1999.

The novels were adapted for the long-running ITV Inspector Morse series and his characters also featured in spin-off shows Lewis and Endeavour.

Crime writer Val McDermid, who attended the service, tweeted that Mr Dexter was a “good friend and the most unassuming of men… and much missed by all his friends and readers”.

Actor Lawrence Fox, who played James Hathaway in Lewis, tweeted he was returning to Oxford “for the first time in a few years to remember the wonderful Colin Dexter”.

Former Oxford City Council leader Bob Price said he had “contributed enormously” to people’s understanding of Oxford and would be “deeply touched” by the service.

He described the author as “mischievous” and “very self-deprecating”.

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An entertaining, rugged read…

An entertaining, rugged read which continues to make you root for the odd, damaged and potentially psychopathic slow horses – Margaret von Klemperer reviews Mick Herron’s London Rules.

London Rules is the fifth novel in Mick Herron’s Slow Horses series of spy thrillers, and for anyone keen to read them – and they are great fun – the best place to start would be at the beginning. To be able to follow what is going on, knowledge of the back story is vital.

The slow horses are a bunch of disgraced spies who have been banished to a dismal, semi-derelict building called Slough House in a gloomy part of London. They haven’t done anything bad enough to be completely dismissed from the service, or else the service wants to keep an eye on them, not cut them loose. Their boss is the utterly repulsive and fiendishly clever Jackson Lamb, who once worked as a spy behind the Iron Curtain, and who has enough skeletons in his cupboard to furnish a catacomb.

Britain is being targeted by a series of terror attacks, vicious, not entirely competent and increasingly bizarre. It is not something the slow horses have been asked to help with, but Roddy Ho, possibly the oddest member of their odd crew, seems to be the target of another not entirely competent killer. Inevitably, there is a link.

The cover blurb, from Val McDermid, calls Herron “the John le Carre of our generation”, but he isn’t. His books aren’t driven by the moral indignation that makes Le Carre one of a kind and gives his storytelling a fundamental seriousness. Sure, Herron is scathing about contemporary politicians and politics and the spying establishment, and for anyone who follows the news, there are plenty of recognisable figures in the picture he paints, but the main thrust of Herron’s enterprise is entertainment, not outrage.

The entertainment is of a rugged kind: these books are not for the squeamish, and certainly not for those committed to political correctness, but odd, damaged, and potentially psychopathic as the slow horses are, you can’t help rooting for them. And mysterious and awful as he is, Jackson Lamb’s one redeeming feature is that he watches over his team, and can, more or less, dig them out of any trouble they get into. And trouble follows them, in spades.

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Festival tickets on sale…

TICKETS have gone on sale for this year’s Gap Festival in Goring.

The biennial arts and culture extravaganza, which was first held in 2014, will take place from Thursday to Sunday, June 14 to 17 and will include a number of additional “fringe” and pre-festival events.

The headliner will be soul singer Mica Paris, who will perform the music of Ella Fitzgerald in the festival marquee on Gardiner recreation ground on the Saturday night.

Crime fiction author Val McDermid will give a talk in the marquee during the day called “Killing people for fun and profit”.

Actor, author and former MP Gyles Brandreth, a patron of the festival, is bringing his one-man show Break A Leg! to the village hall at 4pm on the Sunday. He will discuss his new book of the same name, which tells colourful stories from his life in theatre.

Other attractions include antiques expert Eric Knowles, garden designer Joe Swift, the Goring and Streatley Concert Band, Goring rock group The Lightyears, classical quintet Chamberhouse Winds and twenties jazz band The Pasadena Roof Orchestra.

There will be dozens of exhibitions, talks and workshops showcasing music, dance, arts and crafts, photography, local history, science, drama and poetry. Performers come both from within the community and further afield.

For more information, visit:

www.thegapfestival.org

Professor Sue Black: A life in death…

World-renowned forensic anthropologist Professor Sue Black discusses her career and her new book with Caroline Lindsay, examining the many faces of death and the lessons she has learned from it.



Three human skulls sit on Professor Sue Black’s office shelves, two in profile and one looking directly into the room. While some people might prefer a nice paperweight or other cosy knick-knacks, Sue is entirely at home with the skulls – after all, they represent what she does and who she is.

One of the world’s leading anatomists and forensic anthropologists, Sue has led the award-winning Centre for Anatomy and Human Identification (CAHID) at Dundee University for the last 15 years. Focusing on mortal remains in her lab, at burial sites and scenes of violence and murder, her work has been crucial to many high-profile criminal cases.

In 1999 she was lead anthropologist for the British Forensic Team’s work in the war crimes investigation in Kosovo, and was one of the first forensic scientists to travel to Thailand following the Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004 to provide assistance in identifying the dead.

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Preview – Have I Got News for You…

BY IAN WOLF13 APRIL 2018

Last week’s episode seemed unfazed by the recent comments by Hislop and Merton about women appearing on the programme. This may change tonight as there’s a woman hosting.

It seems to be a bit of a quiz theme in tonight’s choice of guests. Victoria Coren Mitchell is hosting tonight, with one of the contestants being Richard Osman. The other guest is the crime novelist Val McDermid, who is no stranger to quizzes herself as she is a regular on Radio 4 cryptic Round Britain Quiz.

 

Have I Got News for You is on BBC One at 21.30

Theatre Review: Margaret Saves Scotland by Val McDermid, Oran Mor, Glasgow…

A MORE than crowded house at Oran Mor for this new play by Val McDermid – and for those unaware of publicity details, maybe an expectation of the violent crime stories that McDermid is known for.

Is the eponymous Margaret going to save Scotland by engineering the demise of political figures in Westminster? Not a bit of it. This Margaret – inspired by a now deceased friend of McDermid’s – is a wee girl who lives in Yorkshire but who, after a family holiday, returns to Keighley with Scotland evermore written on her heart.

What follows is a tale where truth eclipses fiction, although McDermid – with director Marilyn Imrie onside – has tweaked aspects of what actually happened for comic, poignant and certainly sentimental effect. The nine-year old Margaret decides that Scotland should regain its freedom, makes it her mission to rouse that nation to rise up … and runs away from home to kickstart a campaign for independence. The year, by the way, is 1958.

Politics aside, you’ll find it hard not to be inveigled into the little girl’s enthusiasms. Tori Burgess’s Margaret – very much a 50s schoolgirl in neat uniform, short socks and sensible shoes – is a mettlesome wee besom who, even if her historical sources get criss-crossed with the romance and derring-do of films like Casablanca, is determined to keep faith with her dreams.

Upbeat, thoroughly engaging performances, too, from Clare Waugh and Simon Donaldson as her well-meaning parents, switching bits of costume and accents to play the other characters along Margaret’s way. They play a variety of musical instruments too, for this is a one-act where songs – Over the Sea to Skye, among them – are a vibrant part of McDermid’s tender, whimsical tribute to her friend Margaret.

Presented in association with Aberdeen Performing Arts and Traverse Theatre.

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From Dawn Till Dusk with Val McDermid…

CRIME writer and Raith Rovers sponsor Val McDermid is also the writer of Margaret Saves Scotland, her first play. Directed by Marilyn Imrie and featuring Tori Burgess, Simon Donaldson and Clare Waugh, it premiers in Glasgow before touring to Edinburgh and Aberdeen.

IT doesn’t matter what time the alarm goes off, I resent it. I’m not good with mornings. I weigh myself, shower, dress and head for my Aeropress. Then a process that requires a series of automatic actions and no thought. Grind beans, boil kettle, put filter paper in Aeropress, add coffee, place on mug, pour water and push the piston down.

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Crime writer McDermid turns away from torture…

SHOCK news; Val McDermid has come up with a tale that doesn’t involve dismembered body parts, sexual abuse and acts of violence so heinous readers in bed are compelled to pull duvets over heads.

McDermid’s new story is in fact a play, Margaret Saves Scotland, and will be performed at Glasgow’s Oran Mor theatre where duvets are indeed thin on the ground. It’s a huge shift in writing platform for the crime writer who can claim to have had over 10m books published in 30 languages.

So what has prompted the Fife-born writer to turn her imagination to a fairly small stage in a basement theatre in Glasgow’s West End? Why is McDermid suddenly challenged by the need to compete with the pie and pint that comes with the entrance ticket?

The former journalist explains her story idea has been fermenting for some time. “The jumping off point for the play was the death of my friend Margaret Myles a couple of years ago,” she explains. “Margaret (who grew up in the north of England) had told me when she was a little girl she fell in love with Scotland. And this little girl determined that if Scotland were to become a great nation again all it needed was a great leader.

“So when she was nine she ran away from her home in Yorkshire to go and save Scotland.”

Margaret didn’t make it, perhaps not surprisingly. McDermid smiles in recall; “She said later her great mistake was in taking Brenda with her. It transpired that her pal Brenda was a bit of a wimp and when she lost her shoe in the river that was it and they headed for home.”

McDermid loved the anecdote, and knew she had to develop it. “The play is a tribute to Margaret’s memory, but it’s also an exercise in ‘what if?’ possibility. What if Margaret had made it to Scotland?’

The play feeds into the confusion Scotland suffers from at the moment; where are we going? What will happen to us post Brexit? Who will save us from ourselves?

“I hope it does feed into the national conversation, either overtly or subconsciously,” says the writer. “And like everyone in Scotland we’re wondering where we’re going and what’s going to happen. But this is not a political piece.”

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