Val McDermid

Val McDermid (born 1955 in Kirkcaldy, Scotland) is a British author of thrillers and crime novels. She studied English literature at Oxford, then worked as a lecturer and as a journalist for British newspapers. Her best-known series include the novels featuring profiler Tony Hill and DCI Carol Jordan, as well as the Karen Pirie series. Her books have been translated into more than 40 languages and adapted for television and radio. McDermid received the Crime Writers’ Association’s Diamond Dagger for lifetime achievement in 2010 and the Radio Bremen Crime Fiction Prize in 2024. She served, among other roles, as a judge for the 2018 Man Booker Prize and as chair of the 2017 Wellcome Book Prize. The daughter of a mining family, she was the first in her family to attend university.