THE “Queen of crime”, Val McDermid is to be honoured for her outstanding contribution to fiction, it has been announced.
The former journalist, whose works have sold 10 million copies in 30 languages and been adapted for television, will receive the award at an annual Theakstons Old Peculiar Crime Writing Festival in Harrogate this summer. The gong has previously been given to authors including Ruth Rendell, PD James and Inspector Morse creator Colin Dexter.
Announcing the news, judge Simon Theakston said: “As a writer, she is rightfully known as the Queen of Crime. Val is very deserving of this accolade in the pantheon of legendary crime authors.”
Originally from Kirkcaldy in Fife, McDermid was the first Scottish state school pupil to win a place at St Hilda’s College, Oxford, where she read English.
Entering the world of news journalism, she quit to become a full-time author in 1991 and has since penned more than 30 titles, including best-seller The Wire in the Blood and a modern reinterpretation of Austen’s Northanger Abbey.
Other titles include Forensics, which explains the role of science in solving crimes, and the children’s picture book My Granny is a Pirate.
More than 16,000 people registered to undertake a free online forensic science course offered by Dundee University last year after McDermid supplied the plot, which revolved around a body discovered on local landmark the Law.
Filming for the course materials sparked an alert after members of the public believed the police tape and people in uniform meant a genuine incident had occurred.
Her latest book, Splinter the Silence, was released last August as her popular psychological profiler Dr Tony Hill took on yet another case.
Preparing to receive the July 21 award yesterday, McDermid said: “They are always meaningful because writers exist in a vacuum of self-doubt.
“It doesn’t matter how many books you compose, you see it as a misshapen thing with warts, so when you get that recognition it’s reassuring you’re not wasting your time.”
McDermid also told reporters of the importance of the European Union to her work and said she would not follow Leave campaigners like Boris Johnson “out of a burning building”.
Speaking in Edinburgh, she said: “For practical reasons, as a writer the EU makes it easier to protect your rights and revenues and intellectual properties in the complexities of the digital world and those copyright issues. I also think culturally we have a close connection to Europe, it enhances our culture and makes it deeper and wider. The last thing we should do is look inward.
However, she added: “If we vote to leave, that creates issues for Scotland. It would be possible to argue we should have a second referendum.
“It hasn’t been straightforward to move on from the last one and people who voted to stay might be less inclined to stay if we aren’t part of Europe. As for the Leave campaign, like Nigel Farage, Boris Johnson and Michael Gove, I wouldn’t follow them out of a burning building.”
Meanwhile, JK Rowling is also in the running for crime novel of the year for Career of Evil, written under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith.
Previous recipients include Scotland’s Denise Mina. The public can vote for their favourite from July 1 at theakstons.co.uk.
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