Still Life: The heart-pounding number one bestseller from the Queen of Crime

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Ferguson, Brian (29 August 2022). "Val McDermid reveals 'Queen of Crime' legal threat from Agatha Christie estate". Edinburgh Evening News . Retrieved 29 September 2022. McDermid was inducted into the prestigious Detection Club in 2000, and won the CWA Diamond Dagger for her lifetime contribution to crime writing in the English language in 2010. She was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Sunderland in 2011. [4] She is co-founder of the Harrogate Crime Writing Festival and the Theakston's Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award, part of the Harrogate International Festivals. In 2016 she captained a team of St Hilda's alumnæ to win the Christmas University Challenge. [5] In 2017, McDermid was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, [6] as well as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. [7] Work [ edit ] This is the atmospheric, heart-pounding first novel in a gripping new series by the Queen of Crime Val McDermid… Still Life is the sixth book in the mesmerising DCI Karen Pirie series, set in Edinburgh. Unlike her Tony Hill/Carol Jordan series, these are not gory, dark or violent - nothing wrong with that when you’re in the mood for it, but these are absorbing character driven cold-case mysteries and it often surprises me that they’re by the same author - which goes to show how talented she is. Minor criticisms aside, I can thoroughly recommend Still Life, and have no hesitation in hailing it as one of Val McDermid’s best yet. I suspect that Karen Pirie may well become one of her most important creations.

Edinburgh, haunted by the ghosts of its many writers, is also the cold case beat of DCI Karen Pirie. So she shouldn’t be surprised when an author’s manuscript appears to be a blueprint for an actual crime. Val McDermid is a very consistent writer. She provides much detail of the legal and police procedures that are important in her series and stand alone novels. Here, in “Still Life,” we find Karen Pirie again in her historical crimes unit. This time she is involved after the discovery of skeletonized remains in an old camper van in the garage of a woman who recently died in an accident. Strange case demanding a multi-pronged approach. Here is the combination of modern policing with old fashioned leg work. A wonderful and gripping mystery with character development and wonderful dialogue. I love Val McDermid's quality writing that demands my full attention and doesn't let go until the very end!

There are few other crime writers in the same league as Val McDermid. Her stories are ingeniously plotted, moody . . . Absorbing . . . It’s Karen’s character that’s the enduring draw of this series . . . Out of Bounds is another terrific and intricate suspense novel by a writer who has given us 30 of them. As I said, there are few other crime writers in the same league as Val McDermid.”— Maureen Corrigan, Washington Post on Out of Bounds Thanks to Netgalley, the author (Val McDermid), and the publisher (Atlantic Monthly Press) for a copy of the book. The previous books in the series were mainly supported by the main character, Karen Pirie, a grieving widow using her work to get past the hurt of losing her partner. But she has changed in such a way that it is very difficult to feel any sympathy for her anymore.

Ruth Lawson (13 December 2012). "Ink thrown at author Val McDermid during Sunderland book signing". Journal Live. Archived from the original on 8 April 2013 . Retrieved 26 December 2012. From the ashes: defiant McDermid Ladies stand firm in the spotlight | Soccer | The Guardian". amp.theguardian.com . Retrieved 28 June 2022.Val McDermid talks about the novels that have influenced her in the Guardian bookshop challenge, 7 June 2010. One case is the murder of a woman whose skeleton was found in Perth, on the property of a road accident victim named Susan Leitch. Susan's sister was cleaning out her deceased sibling's garage when she discovered the bones in an old camper van. McDermid's works fall into five series: Lindsay Gordon, Kate Brannigan, Tony Hill and Carol Jordan, Inspector Karen Pirie, and Allie Burns. Her characters include a journalist, Lindsay Gordon; a private investigator, Kate Brannigan; a clinical psychologist, Tony Hill; DCI Karen Pirie working out of Fife, Scotland; and Allie Burns, an investigative reporter whose stories start in 1979 with a planned set of sequels a decade apart. The Mermaids Singing, the first book in the Hill/Jordan series, won the Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger for Best Crime Novel of the Year. The Hill/Jordan series has been adapted for television under the name Wire in the Blood, starring Robson Green. The second case involves a skeleton found in a small camper in a dead woman's garage. Pirie must find out who the skeleton is and what happened. This turns out to be an interesting search that leads her staff into danger. The story that unfolds is so interesting that it's hard to put the book down.