Val McDermid's Blog, page 9
June 20, 2017
McDermid and Rankin compete with debuts on Scottish Crime Book of the Year longlist…
Published June 20, 2017 by Katherine Cowdrey
From The Bookseller
Bloody Scotland today (20th June) revealed the longlist for the McIlvanney Prize Scottish Crime Book of the Year Award 2017, which will see crime-fiction heavyweights, Ian Rankin and Val McDermid, competing with debuts writers, Helen Fields, Claire MacLeary and Owen Mullen.
Queen of Crime McDermid is longlisted for her 30th novel
The longlist for the award, recognising excellence in Scottish crime writing, was chosen by an independent panel of readers and features six male and six female writers, from both small Scottish publishers and large London houses. The winner will receive £1,000 and nationwide promotion in Waterstones.
Queen of Crime McDermid is longlisted for her 30th novel, suspenseful thriller Out of Bounds (Little, Brown) and Chris Brookmyre is also in the running for his psychological thriller Want You Gone (Little, Brown).
Macmillan also has two authors longlisted – Ann Cleeves’ murder mystery Cold Earth featuring Shetland detective Jimmy Perez and Lin Anderson who is recognised for her 11th book in the Rhona MacLeod series, None But the Dead.
Rankin, who will be celebrating the 30th anniversary of his first John Rebus novel at RebusFest in Edinburgh, is longlisted for Rather Be the Devil (Orion).
Several new voices are also celebrated on this year’s longlist.
Helen Fields is down for Perfect Remains, the first in a new crime series set in Edinburgh, following French lead character Detective Inspector Luc Callanach, a former Interpol officer. Claire MacLeary meanwhile is longlisted for Cross Purpose (Contraband), a debut “combining police corruption, gangs and murder with a paean to friendship, loyalty and how women of a certain age can beat the odds”, and Owen Mullen for Games People Play (Bloodhound).
Former journalist Craig Robertson is in the running for Murderabilia (Simon and Schuster), Denise Mina for her CWA Endeavour Historical Dagger-longlisted book The Long Drop (Random House), and Craig Russell for his detective noir, set in 1950s Glasgow, The Quiet Death of Thomas Quaid (Quercus).
Rounding off the set is Jay Stringer with How To Kill Friends And Implicate People (Thomas & Mercer), in which one of the main characters is a hitman looking for love.
Bob McDevitt, director of Bloody Scotland, said: “In what is shaping up to be a record-breaking year at Bloody Scotland (we sold twice as many tickets on our first day as last year), I’m pleased to see so many of the highlights of the 2017 programme featured on this longlist. It’s also brilliant to see a few debut novels on there slugging it out with the more established names. I certainly don’t envy our judges the task of picking a winner from this excellent crop of crime novels.”
The winner will be announced at the opening reception at Stirling Castle on 8th September, followed by a torchlight procession – open to the public – led by longlisted author Rankin.
Last year the Scottish Crime Book of the Year Award was renamed the McIlvanney Prize in memory of William McIlvanney who, says Bloody Scotland, established the tradition of Scottish detective fiction.
June 10, 2017
Val McDermid: why Westminster should copy the Scottish electoral system…
The election of Donald Trump last November had an unexpected result in my household. My 16-year-old son developed a fascination with systems of governance. The disparity between the popular vote – won by Hillary Clinton – and the electoral college that propelled Trump into office offended his sense of justice.
It’s been a recurring topic of conversation ever since. We discussed monarchy versus republicanism over pizza. It took several breakfasts to cover communism satisfactorily. I hadn’t even had my second cup of coffee the morning we moved on to Julius Nyerere’s dream of pan-African socialism.
forced me to re-examine tenets I’ve tended to take for granted. Sure, I’ve grumbled about disproportional representation, raged over democratic deficits and moaned when the verdict of the people didn’t coincide with mine. But it took those conversations with a 16-year-old to remind me of the idealist I used to be, and to consider what true reformation might mean.
Read the full article on The Guardian website…
June 8, 2017
Rankin, McDermid and Levy named new RSL fellows
Authors Ian Rankin, Val McDermid and Deborah Levy are among a roster of starry names made new Royal Society of Literature fellows for 2017, while Waterstones m.d. James Daunt, publisher Margaret Busby and Bloomsbury’s Alexandra Pringle are among those to be honoured with honorary fellowships.
The newly-elected fellows will be introduced at the Society’s Summer Party on Monday 19th June. While the RSL chair Lisa Appignanesi reads a citation for each fellow, they will be invited to sign their names in the roll book which dates back to the Society’s founding in 1820. New Fellows sign the RSL roll book using either T S Eliot’s fountain pen or Byron’s pen.
Outgoing RSL president Colin Thubron is due to speak on an aspect of literary life and incoming president Marina Warner will give her inaugural address.
Joining Rankin, McDermid and Levy as the new RSL Fellows for 2017 are Simon Schama, Artemis Cooper, Meera Syal, Satnam Sanghera, Patience Agbabi, Tahmima Anam, Kwame Anthony Appiah, Terence Blacker, Howard Brenton, Helen Castor, Richard Cohen, Rebecca Lenkiewicz and Daljit Nagra.
Honorary Fellowships are awarded to publishers, agents, booksellers and producers. New RSL Honorary Fellows for 2017 are Allison & Busby co-founder Margaret Busby, Waterstones m.d. and founder of Daunt Books James Daunt; writer and BBC radio producer Tim Dee; group editor-in-chief at Bloomsbury Alexandra Pringle; and editor of the London Review of Books, Mary-Kay Wilmers.
This year’s Benson Medallists for exceptional contribution to literature are Busby, Wilmers and Carmen Callil.
Following the presentations and president’s address there will be a celebration of literary anniversaries – including those of Jane Austen, Gwendolyn Brooks, Robert Lowell, A A Milne, Harry Potter, Jonathan Swift and Edward Thomas – read by students and alumni of the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama.
The RSL will be hosting the evening on Monday 19th June at the Bloomsbury Hotel 16-22 Great Russell Street, London WC1B 3NN at 6pm.
From
June 7, 2017
McDermid and MacBride feature in Bloody Scotland’s first ‘chilling’ fiction…
Val McDermid, Christopher Brookmyre, Denise Mina and Stuart MacBride will feature in crime festival Bloody Scotland’s first ever book of fiction, which will be launched at Stirling Castle on the opening night of the International Crime Writing Festival (8th September).
Published in partnership with Historic Environment Scotland, Bloody Scotland will see a selection of Scotland’s crime writers use the “sinister side” of the country’s heritage in a series of “gripping, chilling and redemptive” stories. Contributors include Val McDermid, Christopher Brookmyre, Denise Mina, Ann Cleeves, Louise Welsh, Lin Anderson, Gordon Brown, Doug Johnstone, Craig Robertson, E S Thomson, Sara Sheridan and Stuart MacBride. They each explore the “thrilling potential” of Scotland’s “iconic” sites and structures, uncovering “intimate and deadly” connections between people and places.
… a series of “gripping, chilling and redemptive” stories
The stories include a murder in an ancient broch, a macabre tale of revenge among the clamour of an eighteenth century mill, a dark psychological thriller set within the tourist throng of Edinburgh Castle and an ‘urbex’ rivalry turning fatal in the concrete galleries of an abandoned modernist ruin.
James Crawford, publisher of Historic Environment Scotland, said that the book will bring together two of Scotland’s “greatest assets” – its heritage and its crime writing. “So much of our special storytelling culture has come from authors taking inspiration from our unique buildings and landscapes”, he said. “We wanted to explore this head on, challenging 12 of our top crime writers to set their stories in and around Scotland’s most iconic sites and structures. The results are sensational, and are already creating a buzz internationally ahead of publication.”
June 3, 2017
Thirty years of Inspector Rebus and McDermid to be celebrated at Bloody Scotland book festival
A torchlight procession is to open this year’s Scottish festival of crime writing, Bloody Scotland.
The procession for the annual festival will lead down from Stirling Castle to the nearby Albert Halls venue, where the author Ian Rankin will talk about 30 years of his most famous character, Inspector Rebus.
Another 30 year anniversary will also be celebrated at the festival, it has announced, with the event marking three decades of crime novels by Val McDermid.
The festival will once again also stage the McIlvanney Prize for the Scottish Crime book of the Year, which will also be announced at Stirling Castle, and will run from September 8 to 10.
May 27, 2017
Out of Bounds shortlisted for the Theakston’s Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award!
A huge congratulations to Val – Out of Bounds has been shortlisted for the Theakston’s Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award!
The winner will be announced at an award ceremony hosted by broadcaster Mark Lawson on 20th July on the opening night of the 15th Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival, Harrogate.
Big hitters including Lee Child, Ian Rankin and Val McDermid, feature on the longlist for the most prestigious crime writing prize in the country.
Now in its 13th year, the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award was created to celebrate the very best in crime fiction and is open to UK and Irish crime authors whose novels were published in paperback from 1 May 2016 to 30 April 2017.
May 3, 2017
NOMINEES FOR 2016 STRAND CRITICS AWARDS AND CLIVE CUSSLER RECEIVES THE LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD…
Michael Connelly, Tana French, and Fiona Barton headline the nominees for the Strand Critics Awards and Clive Cussler receives the Lifetime Achievement Award.
Recognizing excellence in the field of mystery fiction, the Critics Awards were judged by a select group of book critics and journalists from news venues such as The Associated Press, NPR, TIME, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and several other daily papers.
This will mark the fifth best-novel nomination for Tana French (The Trespasser) and the fourth nomination for Michael Connelly (The Wrong Side of Goodbye).
Best Novel
• You Will Know Me by Megan Abbott (Little, Brown and Company)
• The Wrong Side of Goodbye by Michael Connelly (Little, Brown and Company)
• The Trespasser by Tana French (Viking)
• What Remains of Me by Alison Gaylin (William Morrow)
• Out of Bounds by Val McDermid (Atlantic Monthly Press)
• The Woman in Cabin 10 by Ruth Ware (Gallery)
Best Debut Novel:
• The Widow by Fiona Barton (NAL)
• IQ by Joe Ide (Mulholland)
• The Madwoman Upstairs by Catherine Lowell (Touchstone)
• A Deadly Affection by Cuyler Overholt (Sourcebooks Landmark)
• The Homeplace by Kevin Wolf (Minotaur)
• The Lost Girls by Heather Young (William Morrow)
“It’s nice to see some new faces in our best-novel list, such as Val, Alison, and Ruth,” said Andrew F. Gulli, the managing editor of The Strand. “And, 2016 also was the year where several debuts really hit it out of the park.”
Past recipients of the Critics Awards include Michael Connelly, Laura Lippman, Richard Price, Megan Abbott, George Pelecanos, Joseph Finder, Lauren Beukes, and William Landay.
Nine out of twelve nominees were female authors. “We’re happy that women have dominated the list of nominees this year and we hope that that trend will continue for a very long time,” said Gulli.
Clive Cussler was honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award. In a career spanning forty-two years and over sixty novels, Cussler has a firm reputation among hundreds of millions of fans as the grandmaster of the adventure thriller. Not only are his works a constant presence on the New York Times Best Sellers list, but they have earned him comparisons to Alistair MacLean and Ian Fleming.
The awards will be presented at an invitation-only cocktail party in New York City, hosted by The Strand on July 12, 2017.
Read this at The Strand Magazine…
April 30, 2017
Author Val McDermid intent on tackling 13-mile MoonWalk…
One of Scotland’s top crime writers is set to take on a 13-mile walk for charity in a bid to raise awareness of breast cancer. Val McDermid, who has sold more than 15 million books to date, will join the ranks of the pink-bra brigade as she rises to the MoonWalk challenge this summer.
The 61-year-old, from Kirkcaldy, is battling Type 2 diabetes and sees the opportunity to “roll back” her condition while raising funds for a great cause.
McDermid, who will be taking part in the “Half Moon” walk with her partner Jo Sharp, is aiming to raise about £5,000 as she joins thousands of other women and men in Edinburgh for the event on 10 June.
Read more at: Scotsman.com
April 26, 2017
Into the Water by Paula Hawkins review – how to follow Girl on the Train?
Her debut thriller was a phenomenon, but here an embarrassment of narrators and the clunky withholding of information is death to suspense
More accidents happen in the home than anywhere else, a fact to lend some much-needed plausibility to the overworked genre of domestic suspense, or grip-lit as it’s sometimes known. About 60 debut novels cross my desk every year (I chair the New Blood panel at the Theakston Old Peculier crime writing festival), and for the last three or four years, the proportion of this subgenre has been rising.
The author has to hold back information, hinting at its existence, obliquely suggesting where there might be secrets
Not a problem in itself: if the books were original, well written or thought-provoking, nobody would be happier than I. But sadly that’s not generally been the case. There have been notable exceptions, of course: clever, suspenseful reads such as Renée Knight’s Disclaimer or Ben McPherson’s A Line of Blood. Then there are the mega-sellers such as Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl, SJ Watson’s Before I Go to Sleep and Paula Hawkins’s The Girl on the Train, which all gave us interesting twists on the idea of the unreliable narrator.
These books need to deliver at least one shocking moment when the reader realises that they have been looking at the picture the wrong way up. There must be a sudden twist in the direction of travel, taking us to an entirely unexpected destination. We readers journey hopefully, willing that moment to arrive.
Read the full article on The Guardian website…
March 22, 2017
Inspector Morse creator Colin Dexter dead at 86…
Val McDermid, Lee Child and other crime writers pay tribute to Dexter, who died at his Oxford home on Tuesday.
Colin Dexter, the author behind detective Inspector Morse and his adventures solving mysteries in Oxfordshire, has died at the age of 86, with the top names in crime writing lining up to pay tribute to a “a kind, generous man”.
Colin Dexter: ‘His was the sharpest mind and the biggest heart.’ Photograph: Eamonn McCabe for the Guardian
Dexter’s death at his home in Oxford was announced by his publisher Macmillan on Tuesday. Val McDermid, who was a good friend of Dexter, described him as “a lovely, lovely man” and not as grumpy as his creation – “though he did share Morse’s love of music”.
“Early on in my career I told him I was nervous about how to write police procedurals and he said, ‘Well, my dear, I had written five Morse novels before I had even set foot in a police station.’ He had great sense of humour,” McDermid told the Guardian.
Author Lee Child described Dexter as “revolutionary”. “He wrote a character without any concessions at all to likely popularity – Morse was bad tempered, cantankerous, esoteric and abstruse – and thereby showed us that integrity and authenticity work best,” Child said. “His literary descendants are everywhere. When our genre’s family tree is drawn, he’s the root of a huge portion of it.”
Author Peter James said “all of us who love crime fiction owe Colin Dexter a very great debt”.
Read the full article on The Guardian website…
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