The Courier & Advertiser (Angus and Dundee)
Mcdermid finds novel way to beat lockdown limitations
Legendary Scots crime writer Val Mcdermid is using lockdown to go back to the future as she works on a brand new series of novels.
With all the uncertainty surrounding life in the time of coronavirus, Val, who will be one of the main attractions at next month’s Granite Noir crime-writing festival, feels she can’t use her usual, contemporary voice in her writing. So instead she’s using the past as a starting point.
“All my books are clearly set in place and time, so it’s impossible for me to see how I can write a book about the present day at the moment. There’s nowhere to stand that isn’t shifting sands.
“So I’ve embarked on a quintet of novels set at 10year intervals, so 1979, 1989, 1999, 2009 and 2019, with the same protagonist, though not necessarily doing the same job.
“It’s kind of like a sequence of five crime novels that will hopefully say a bit about the journey we’ve all come on in the past 40 years. I am writing 1979 at the moment, which is great as I know exactly what happened in 1979. There are no surprises!”
Val introduces a new female character, journalist Allie Burns: “That’s scary, because it’s been a while since I’ve done that.”
The Kirkcaldy-born writer has first-hand experience of coronavirus. She and partner, Jo, both contracted Covid in March.
“We were both ill for about a week then a couple of weeks after that we had the brain fog and complete exhaustion. But thankfully, compared to how a lot of people have had it, we’ve been very lucky.”
Val is taking part in virtual crime writing festival Granite Noir, collaborating with Backlisted Podcast, which has racked up more than two million downloads as they revisit and discuss books that have been out for many years.
She’s also about to see the publication of a graphic novel she’s crafted with artist Kathyrn Briggs. Resistance, drawn from a radio series Val penned about four years ago, following a pandemic.
Some of her works have jumped from the printed page to the television screen, most notably Wire In The Blood, which starred Robson Green. Filming is about to start in April on a TV series about Karen Pirie, set in St Andrews. The Lindsay Gordon novels are also in development.
Val has few qualms about her characters making the transition to the screen. She sees it as a perfect introduction to her books.
She says: “It’s a different beast, television, and tells stories in a different way. My sole desire in all of this is that it brings people to the books.”
While she can’t say who has been cast to play Karen Pirie in the new show – from the same producers as Line Of Duty and Bodyguard – Val did confirm she was “very happy”.
Also on TV, the BBC recently screened Traces, the Dundee-set forensics thriller starring Molly Windsor and Martin Compston, based on an idea by Val.
“When I pitched it I said it would be good to do something set in Scotland that wasn’t in Edinburgh or Glasgow,’’ she said.
“All our forensic consultants are based in Dundee, so it made life easier if the series was set there as well. People have been really enthusiastic, binge-watching it and demanding to know when series two is coming out.
‘‘It is due to start filming at the beginning of March. I’ve seen the scripts and it looks absolutely electrifying.”
Val’s global book sales have smashed through the 17 million mark and she has been translated into 40 languages.
She still remembers the moment she wanted to become a writer… when she was a wee girl.
She said: “I formed the notion of being a writer very early on because I was a voracious reader. In one novel I was reading one of the characters had grown up and become a writer of girls’ schools stories. She got a letter from a publisher with a cheque in it. That was the moment I realised being a writer was a job you got paid money for. I thought ‘I can do that, I can make stuff up’.”
For all her global success, she has never forgotten her roots. She’s a devoted fan of Raith Rovers, where her dad was a scout – as well as a brief stint with Aberdeen FC. There is a Mcdermid Stand at Stark’s Park.
She believes her Fife upbringing played a role in her success. “Everything you live with shapes you as a writer and informs the way you see the world.
“What I did learn was
“I learned I had the right to my voice. I could be what I wanted to be
that I had the right to my voice. My dad was a great Burns man and I was brought up on A Man’s A Man For A’ That.
‘‘I was led to believe I could be what I wanted to be and I had a right to be what I wanted to be. That has always been at the back of my mind.”
For full details about Granite Noir, which is produced by Aberdeen Performing Arts, visit www. granite.noir.com