#val mcdermid

[dk-thrive]

Winter is the time to snuggle indoors without guilt; to curl up on the sofa with a good book or a box set, a hot drink or a wee whisky to hand.

— Val McDermid, Winter: The Story of a Season (Atlantic Monthly Press, December 30, 2025)

[linnielemon]

trick of the dark gagged me. what should i reading next on my quine of crime journey

…

lindsay gordon #1 (report for murder)

allie burns #1 (1979)

Voting ended onApr 29

[underthewingsofthblackeagle]

Great start for 2025 :)

Val McDermid always guarantees great storytelling. But this book captivated me from the first to the last page. I could not put it down, and it gave me a wonderfully exciting, cosy New Year's Day 2025.

[mschocolateworld]

Jeśli się dorasta w miejscu, w którym życie jest trudne, człowiek uczy się uginać, a nie łamać.

Val McDermid - “Miejsce egzekucji”

[e-von-dahl]

I love Karen Pirie, finally Fife can be known for something other than drug addiction: unsolved murders

[mthollowell-writes]

I am a mystery reader

Or, Why I Read Forensics by Val McDermid

For the past year, I’ve been inhaling mystery novels to learn about the genre. I often engage with intense genre studies when I have an interest in writing within particular story conventions. It’s always fun and I get to learn about an amazing world of books that I don’t normally pick up.

For most of 2023, it’s been mysteries. And, I can confidently say that I’m now a big mystery reader. I’m obsessed with it. I shouldn’t have been surprised. The clues have been there since the beginning.

I’ve always loved stories with mystery elements to them. I wrote a thesis comparing and contrasting TV/movie adaptations of Sherlock Holmes and the original short stories. Most of the podcasts that I enjoy are true crime because I love learning the details of specific cases, and how certain clues or slips led to the apprehension of the perpetrator. But it wasn’t until 2023 that I would’ve classify myself as a “mystery reader.” I can be really thick-headed, if you couldn’t tell.

Horror reader, sure. Detective enthusiast, you betcha! True crime addict, guilty.

There are so many things that makes a mystery, a mystery. They include, but are not limited to:

Your killer and their motives

Your detective and their unique skill set that makes them best suited (or most motivated) to find said killer

The clues, the false leads, and the red herrings

And most importantly, that the killer is caught: unmasked by the detective. If it doesn’t have this particular element, it’s not a true mystery. (Not to discount genre blends which I adore and champion).

Forensics: What Bugs, Burns, Prints, DNA, and More Tell Us About Crime by Val McDermid goes into the more technical aspects of solving a crime. There’s an umbrella of fields under forensics from DNA to facial reconstruction to forensic psychology to entomology. All these discipline work to make the sequence of events and the truth of the crime clearer in the context of the courtroom.

I picked up this book because I wanted to learn more about all these disciplines. Its filled with countless case studies throughout the centuries, tracking the development of new techniques and their limitations. Val McDermid, who is a veteran of the genre (I’ve read the whole of her Allie Burns series this year and intend to read more), explains all this in a very approachable way with interviews from professionals in every field she covers.

This is a must read for everyone who wants a comprehensive introduction to forensics for either bulking up their knowledge for their own mystery or they just genuinely find the science fascinating (Hello! I am both).

[the-final-sentence]

'Let us hope this will be the final murder at the vicarage.'

Val McDermid, from “The Second Murder at the Vicarage”

[yes-lukewinter]

‘Hearts starve as well as bodies: Give us bread, but give us roses.’

James Oppenheim, quoted in The Power of Books - Val McDermid | The Scotsman