Val is doing a Guardian Webchat
Post your questions for Val McDermid Now!
Scottish crime writer Val McDermid is a leading light of “tartan noir”, though she spent many years living in England and one of her best known characters – the kick-boxing private investigator Kate Brannigan – is from Manchester.
Asked what she meant by tartan noir, the Fife-born, Edinburgh based writer has described it as a tradition started by William McIlvanney’s 1977 novel Laidlaw: “[It] encompasses a wide range of work, from apparent rural douceness to raw urban savagery. But it seems to me that all of us who write from that Scottish sensibility have common underpinnings that draw us together and distinguish us from our English, Welsh and Irish colleagues.”
She is joining us to answer your questions in a live webchat at 1pm on Wednesday 25 March. Post your questions in the comments below about anything in her life or career, and she’ll try and answer as many as possible.
