Bestselling author Val McDermid was awarded the prestigious CWA Cartier Diamond Dagger Award on Thursday May 6.

The award from the Crime Writers’ Association (CWA), which is sponsored by Cartier, honours outstanding achievement in the field of crime writing.

Author photo by Tim Griffiths for Cartier.

The announcement was made by the CWA in recognition of Val’s work over more than 20 years.
Val received the award, the 25th Cartier Diamond Dagger, at a ceremony held in  London. It was presented by Cartier's Managing Director Arnaud Bamberger (pictured with Val).
The Cartier Diamond Dagger is the latest accolade in a highly successful career which last year saw Val inducted into the Hall of Fame at the ITV3 Specsavers Crime Thriller Awards, whose partners include the CWA.

She has won many awards internationally, including the CWA Gold Dagger for best crime novel of the year and the LA Times Book of the Year Award. In 2007, she won The Stonewall Writer of the Year Award.
Val is a top 10 bestseller who has been translated into 40 languages, with more than two million copies sold in the UK and 10 million worldwide. She has written 23 bestselling novels and the popular ITV series Wire in the Blood, starring Robson Green, was based on her books and ran for six series. A three-part ITV drama of Val’s A Place of Execution was broadcast in the autumn of 2007.

In 2009, she was elected to an Honorary Fellowship at St Hilda's College, Oxford
In February, the paperback of Val’s bestselling hardback Fever of the Bone was published by Little, Brown.
Val, who was born in Kirkcaldy , Scotland , and divides her time between Northumberland and Cheshire , said: “To be awarded the CWA Carter Diamond Dagger is a distinction every writer dreams of.”
Margaret Murphy, outgoing chair of the CWA, said: “Val McDermid is a worthy winner whose work has entertained and thrilled millions of readers as well as many more who have enjoyed the TV adaptations her books have inspired.”