Wonderful holiday...now for perfect murder
CRIME writer Val McDermid has confessed that she can’t stop thinking of ways to kill people.
Ms McDermid, known to her fans as the Queen of Crime, has bumped off hundreds of characters in more than 30 years as a novelist.
Speaking to the BBC Scotland series The Big Scottish Book Club, to be aired tonight at 10pm, she said: ‘My mind always goes there. It’s faintly embarrassing because I seldom switch off from the idea that this is a lovely place to kill somebody.
‘My partner and I were having a very romantic holiday in France, on a barge on the River Saone.
‘In France you’re allowed to tie up anywhere and to facilitate this they give you five sharpened metal stakes and a mallet. I mean, come on. We’re coasting through wooded banks and lots of forests where there are no roads – the perfect place for someone walking their dog to come across a body six months later. Why would you not start thinking about that?’
Recalling a visit to whisky makers on the Hebridean island of Jura, she added: ‘I thought of lots of different ways to kill somebody in a distillery.’
Ms McDermid, 66, grew up in Kirkcaldy, Fife, and has sold more than 17 million books, translated into more than 40 languages.
Her latest novel, 1979, introduced Allie Burns, a young female reporter for a fictional Glasgow tabloid newspaper. The book is the first in a series of five set at ten-year intervals.
Ms McDermid added: ‘I’ve got five novels planned with the same protagonist and there will be a [music] playlist at the end of each one. I’m working on 1989 now.’