McDermid is best known for a series of novels featuring clinical psychologistDr. Tony Hill and his collaborators in the police department. This series was adapted for television, running from 2002 to 2008, and known asWire in the Blood. The television seriesKaren Pirie (2022–present), was also adapted from her books featuring the character of the same name.
McDermid comes from a working-class family inFife.[1][2] She studied English atSt Hilda's College, Oxford,[3] where she was the first student to be admitted from a Scottish state school.[4]
After graduation, she became ajournalist and began her literary career as adramatist. Her first success as anovelist,Report for Murder: The First Lindsay Gordon Mystery, was published in 1987.[5]
McDermid was inducted into the prestigiousDetection Club in 2000. In 2010 she won theCWA Diamond Dagger for her lifetime contribution to crime writing in the English language. She was awarded an honorary doctorate by theUniversity of Sunderland in 2011.[6]
McDermid was a lifelong fan ofRaith Rovers football club, her father having worked as ascout for the club.[11][12][13] In 2010, she sponsored the McDermid Stand atStark's Park, the club's ground in Kirkcaldy, in honour of her father.[13]
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.[14]
In February 2022, McDermid said she would be withdrawing her support and sponsorship from Raith Rovers after the club signed strikerDavid Goodwillie, who had been ruled to have raped a woman and made to pay damages in a civil case in 2017.[15][16] 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.[17][18]
On 6 December 2012 a woman poured ink over McDermid during a book signing event at theUniversity of Sunderland.[19][20][21][22] 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 £60victim surcharge.[22][23][24][25][26][27]
McDermid lives in Fife and Edinburgh.[28] In 2010, she was living between Northumberland and Manchester with publisher Kelly Smith,[29] with whom she had entered into a civil partnership in 2006.[4]
On 23 October 2016 McDermid married her partner of two years,Jo Sharp, at the time a Professor of Geography at theUniversity of Glasgow.[30][31] Sharp has been Geographer Royal for Scotland since 2022.[5]
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 theCrime Writers' AssociationGold Dagger for Best Crime Novel of the Year. The Hill/Jordan series has been adapted for television under the nameWire in the Blood, starringRobson Green and running from 2002 to 2008. Another series adapted from McDermid's books is the eponymousKaren 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 inWire in the Blood and two later books, is based on her direct personal experience of interviewingJimmy Savile.[35]
In addition to writing novels, McDermid contributes to several British newspapers and often broadcasts onBBC Radio 4 andBBC Radio Scotland.[11] Her novels, in particular the Tony Hill series, are known for their graphic depictions of violence andtorture.
In 2010, McDermid received theCartier Diamond Dagger from the Crime Writers' Association for "outstanding achievement in the field of crime writing".[36]
McDermid considers her work to be part of the "Tartan Noir" Scottish crime fiction genre.[37]
In August 2022 McDermid reported that theestate ofAgatha 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.[38]
