SEPTEMBER 14 2019 LISTENER 49
protagonist who’s got a brain and a sense
of humour and agency and doesn’t have
to call the guys in to do the heavy lifting
... It really excited me.”S
he began writing Report for Murder
(1987), the first British crime novel
with a lesbian sleuth, Lindsay
Gordon. “I thought, ‘This is the book
I want to write, the world I want to
inhabit,’” says McDermid, who’d come
out to herself while at Oxford. “I wanted
to write about being a lesbian, without
it being one of those tub-thumping
books about being a lesbian. I didn’t
want to write coming-out stories. I
wanted to write a story about a lesbian
who has a place in the world, where
her sexuality doesn’t define her. She has
friendships, a life, a career, but is still
uncompromisingly herself.”
Published by the Women’s Press to little
fanfare, it gave McDermid a foothold.
She wrote more Lindsay Gordon myster-
ies, then a series starring private-eye Kate
Brannigan. Learning by doing and scrap-
ing a living on foreign sales, McDermid
gave up her day job in 1991. “It was a
different landscape then. These days, if
you haven’t broken out big by your third
book, forget it. If I was judged on the sales
of my first three books at the time, then I
wouldn’t have a career now.”
Her breakout book was her ninth,
The Mermaids Singing (1995), the first to
feature the Hill-Jordan partnership. She’d
been reading non-fiction about the FBI’spsychological profiling, was
intrigued, but knew things
would be done differently in
the UK. Rather than training
cops to be profilers, the British
police would bring in practis-
ing clinical psychologists.
Outsiders meant immediate
tension.
A few nights later on local
TV, a clinical psychologist who
did some police profiling was
interviewed. McDermid scram-
bled for a pen and rang him
the next day. “He said, ‘How do
I know you’re not a nutter?’ I
said, ‘I can send you a couple of
my books and you can decide.’”
A couple of months later, McDermid got
a phone call, they had lunch, and the
psychologist showed her around his work-
place and took her through his method.
“That became Tony Hill’s method and
remains Tony Hill’s method. It gave methe wherewithal to write the book.”
The Mermaids Singing won the pres-
tigious Crime Writers Association Gold
Dagger, catapulting McDermid to “over-
night success” after more than a decade of
writing novels and 30 years of ambition.
It’s difficult to overestimate McDermid’s
effect on crime fiction over the past 30
years, says McIlvanney. “She broke down
a lot of doors with her lesbian protagonist,
Lindsay Gordon. She showed what could
be done with psychological profiling in
the Tony Hill and Carol Jordan books.”F
or Tokoroa-raised storyteller Stella
Duffy, McDermid’s early books were
an inspiration for her own edgy 1990s
crime series starring lesbian private-eye
Saz Martin.
“I think what’s really important about
Val and her work is her championing ofother writers,” says Duffy. “Val has always
been amazingly supportive of new writers.
She could have looked at someone like me
and said, ‘I’ve cornered this market, why is
she coming along?’ But that’s the opposite
of what happened.”
McDermid’s warmth, knowledge and
spirit will be a boon to Otago students,
says Duffy. McIlvanney agrees, noting
aspiring authors will be able to learn a
great deal from her about both technical
aspects of storytelling and the dedication
that writing demands.
This spring, in between watching alba-
trosses and helping students, McDermid
will finish rewrites on a play scheduled for
the Royal Lyceum in Edinburgh next year.
She’s recently been involved in a new crime
drama, Traces, that aims for a more realistic
portrayal of forensics. Although her book
series evolves naturally, rather than to a
master plan, she says it’s unlikely Tony and
Carol will return after How the Dead Speak.
“At least for the foreseeable future.”
If it’s to be a final bow for the duo, it’s
a fine one. After the cataclysmic ending
to Insidious Intent, both are struggling
with new realities: Tony is behind bars,
and Carol is battling post-traumatic stress
disorder. When dozens of bodies are
discovered in the grounds of an aban-
doned convent, the remnants of their
former squad have to investigate without
them. McDermid showcases Tony and
Carol’s former colleagues and gives read-
ers a greater understanding of the series’
protagonists.
Even if it’s the 11th and closing
instalment in the 24-year-old series, it’s
a gripping tale that shows its academia-
and-antipodes-bound author is far from
done.“People talk about other authors
being ‘the next Val McDermid’, and
I’m thinking, ‘There isn’t a job vacancy,
you know!’” l
HOW THE DEAD SPEAK, by Val McDermid
(Little, Brown, $29.99), is out now.Along with her visiting professorship at
the University of
Otago, McDermid
will appear at WORD
Christchurch’s Spring
Season on September
13-14; the Celtic Noir
Festival in Dunedin
on October 12-13 and
Verb Wellington on
November 8-9.It’s difficult to
overestimate McDermid’s
effect on crime fiction
over the past 30 years.Rock star: McDermid performing
with her band, the Fun Lovin’
Crime Writers and, far left, with
her wife, Jo Sharp.