PlayVal McDermid was born in 1955 and grew up in Kirkcaldy on the East Coast of Scotland, a small town famous for producing linoleum and one rather successful crime writer. It was at the heart of the Fife coalfield, and she spent much of her childhood with her grandparents in the mining village of East Wemyss.
She was accepted to read English at St Hilda's College, Oxford at 17, making her one of the youngest undergraduates they'd ever taken on, and the first from a Scottish state school. After graduating she spent two years training as a journalist in Devon, and would spend the next fourteen years working for national newspapers in Glasgow and Manchester, writing about high profile investigations including the Ripper and Moors murders.
Her first attempt at a novel, at the age of 21, was rejected by every publishing house in London. But an actor friend thought it would make a good play so she successfully adapted it for the Plymouth Theatre Company.
Despite this early success, her agent sacked her for not making him enough money so she decided to try her hand at crime fiction. She started writing Report for Murder in 1984, and it was published by The Women's Press in 1987 to great critical acclaim. Novel after novel followed, until she finally gave up the day job in 1991.
In 2002 her Dr Tony Hill and DI Carol Jordan novels were adapted into the hugely popular ITV series Wire in the Blood, starring Robson Green and Hermione Norris, which is currently in its fifth series.
Val has a son and three cats and divides her time between South Manchester and Northumberland.
See pics of Val and her characters
