Search for actress to play Fife detective

Crime writer Val Mcdermid has insisted the actress who wins the part of one of her most famous characters must look and feel right – and she must be able to master an authentic Fife accent.

The “Queen of Crime”, 65, revealed the search is on for an actress to play Detective Chief Inspector Karen Pirie in an ITV adaptation of her bestselling novel The Distant Echo.

Mcdermid, who grew up in Kirkcaldy, said discussions about the lead role have already taken place with TV executives for the series, which she said could start filming next year.

However, speaking in an online event at the Edinburgh International Book Festival, she said capturing DCI Pirie’s Fife accent is a must.

She said: “She’s not slight, she’s a woman of substance and she’s from Fife, which means that whoever plays her has to be able to manage an east coast accent.

“I think to most people in England, they don’t really differentiate much with Scottish accents but to us, we know precisely the difference between somebody fae Fife ken, and somebody from Glasgow. It has to feel authentic on the ear.”

The Distant Echo, published in 2003, was the first in Mcdermid’s Karen Pirie series of novels, and is set around the detective’s cold case investigation 25 years after the murder of a young barmaid in St Andrews.

Pirie is just the latest of Mcdermid’s hit characters to be adapted for television, after her series of novels featuring clinical psychologist Dr Tony Hill and DCI Carol Jordan was adapted into the award-winning ITV crime drama series Wire In The Blood, starring English actors Robson Green and Hermione Norris.

During the Edinburgh International Book Festival online event, in conversation with the TV presenter Dame Joan Bakewell, Mcdermid launched her sixth Karen Pirie novel, Still Life.

Val Mcdermid is one of the UK’S top crime writers.