Author Interview: Val McDermid. with her new book Splinter The Silence due out soon we're really lucky to have her!

  I'm all of a dither here with Val McDermid, graduate from Oxford University, author of a squillion crime fiction books, a children’s book, a remake of Northanger Abbey and a Forensics book.  Not only that, she has won many awards for her writing and was the winner of celebrity Mastermind 2012.  To say nothing of the fact she’s even got a morgue named after her- beat that if you can?  her new Carol Jordan/Tony Hill book Splinter the Silence is due for release on 27th August 2015.

Liz: I was a bit stumped for questions to ask you because I wanted to seem really cool and intellectual and come up with a really deep probing question you’d never been asked before… so months of thinking, pondering and prevaricating later and here it is:  If there weren’t all those damn trams along Prince’s Street would you take me in a wee burl in your lovely red sports car?

Val: Sorry to disappoint you but the sports car is black…

Liz: Ach- slight disappointment there- red’s my colour.  Seriously though, I listed a whole list of your achievements at the beginning (probably missed a whole load out too) and I wondered which of them makes you the proudest?

Val: What makes me most proud isn’t an award as such – it’s my Honorary Fellowship of St Hilda’s College, Oxford, where I was an undergraduate. I was so touched to be given that honour – it was a recognition of the quality of my work as well as its value to readers.

Liz: And that indeed is an honour!  Is there anything that you’d like to do that you haven’t done already?  – maybe a cameo role in Downton Abbey or a go at representing Scotland In Eurovision perhaps?

Val: For a while now, I’ve been planning a CD – Songs of Love and Murder – with a record producer friend. If I ever get the time to make that a reality, it would be the achievement of my longest-standing ambition!

Liz: i think that CD would become required listening material

for all crime novelists.  David Mark, Reader In Residence for Theakston’s Old Peculier Crime Festival, reckons that Place of Execution ‘may well be your masterpiece’ saying that ‘This novel grabbed me like a wrestler.’  Which novel to date do you consider to be your best?

Val: That’s a question I can’t really answer – different books matter to me for different reasons. But The Mermaids Singing was probably the most significant for me professionally. It was so different from

anything I’d done before, its success gave me the confidence to believe that whatever story I came up with, I’d find the voice to tell it. It’s been twenty years since that first outing for Tony and Carol, and it’s still my touchstone when I sit down to start a new book.

Liz: From your early career with the Kate Brannigan and Lindsay Gordon books, until now with your stand alone and Carol Jordan / Tony Hill books you’ve had a fair few female heroes.  Which of your female characters do you like best and why?

Val: I have a soft spot for Carol Jordan, and not just because she’s a blonde. I admire her tenacity, her adamantine

Hermione Norris as Carol Jordan

passion for justice and the way she has never given up or given in.

Liz:  yes, Carol's a curious mix of strength and vulnerability.  Which do you like least and why?

Val: I don’t dislike any of them. Even the hellcat of Halifax, Vanessa Hill. They’ve all got some aspect of their character that intrigues me and keeps me on side.

Liz: Crime writers get a lot of stick for ‘glorifying’ crime and also for using real life events in their writing.  What’s your view on that?  Are there some places writers should just not go or is everything fair game?

Val: I’m not comfortable riffing on real cases because I know from my years as a journalist how the grief persists for the family and friends of the victims of sudden violent death. I don’t want inadvertently to add to that. But that’s my decision for me. I don’t like laying down the law about what anyone should or shouldn’t write. If I find it offensive or distasteful, I don’t have to read it. And sometimes it’s good for us to be confronted by things outside our comfort zone.

Liz: I read a lot of crime fiction (surprise, surprise) because I find it enjoyable, informative, intellectually stimulating,

sometimes really funny and usually really accessible. I’ve read some beautiful crime fiction books that to me could fit equally into the literary fiction genre- your own Place of Execution, and Corban Addison’s Garden of Burning Sand.  How do you view the whole Literary V Genre fiction thing?

VAL:  It’s become an increasingly pointless distinction. People who are sniffy about genre are generally speaking from a position of ignorance, so their views mean little to me. There’s a lot of not very good crime fiction out there, but there’s also a lot of not very good literary fiction too. As a reader, I’m looking for the good stuff, regardless of the label, and there’s plenty of that in crime fiction. Just read the likes of Denise Mina, Louise Welsh or Kate Atkinson, for starters.

Michael Robotham

Liz: As well as being one of the country’s top crime writer’s you’ve also interviewed a fair few famous people – JK Rowling, Ian Rankin, SJ Watson and some infamous characters like Jimmy Saville. Who did you most enjoy interviewing and who would you most like to interview?

Stephen King

Val: I always enjoy interviewing Michael Robotham because he’s a really good mate, a terrific writer and has a really interesting take on the genre and lots of other things. We never run out of things to say and it’s always a great encounter.

I’d love to interview Stephen King at Harrogate. He’s had such a remarkable

career; his imagination is extraordinary; and he wrote one of the best books about writing. I’m sure he’d be fascinating.

Liz: Stephen King at Harrogate would be amazing.  I’m only asking this because I asked your ‘Million for a morgue’ arch enemy Stuart MacBride the same thing.  Imagine you’re on a John Lennon and Yoko Ono type love in  for peace and you have to bring one of your characters with you, - who would it be and why?

Val: Kate Brannigan’s boyfriend Richard. We could chill out with a spliff then he’d send out for Chinese. That feels in tune with the John and Yoko vibe.

Liz: Finally, you’ve been a busy little beaver recently with another stand alone ‘Skeleton Road’ and your forensics book ‘ Forensics: An anatomy of Crime’ both being published and now Splinter the Silence -  what’s next in the pipeline?

Val: Next year’s book will see the return of cold case detective Karen Pirie. But I’m also adapting John Wyndham’s The Kraken Wakes for radio. And there are a couple of other interesting projects in the pipeline… You can sleep when you’re dead.

Liz: And ending on what could be an excellent title for a crime book all that’s left is to thank Val and head out for that wee burl in her disappointingly black sports car.

Check out Val's Amazon page http://www.amazon.co.uk/Val-McDermid/e/B000APA8RK/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1440068503&sr=8-2-ent