Death becomes her  - Val McDermid
Paola Totaro in the Sydney Morning Herald
August 21, 2010

Picture: Duska Sulicich

Val McDermid strides across the hotel lobby, jeans and crisp, collared shirt framing the familiar silver boy-crop and mischievous blue eyes. ''I'm so sorry I'm late,'' she says in a deep Scottish burr. ''C'mon, let's find a quieter place.''
It's no more than five minutes after the appointed hour but her concern proves to be both portent and measure of a woman who has written two dozen books, sold 10 million copies worldwide and won just about every crime-writing prize around, but who still values old fashioned courtesy.

We are in Harrogate, Yorkshire, where she is both veteran and in-demand star of the Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival. Her new book, Trick of the Dark, is just out and she is readying for a world tour, which will include the Melbourne Writers Festival. The handsome, old stone hotel is buzzing with lively, chatty bookish types, but as 5pm is fast approaching, many are looking hopefully towards the bar.
Away from the crowd at last, I'm anxious to warn McDermid that the manuscript of her book arrived too late for me to finish: I don't know the ending and I really, really don't want her to tell.

''Death is a hollow drum whose beat has measured out my adult life,'' writes Jay Macallan Stewart, the female protagonist of Trick of the Dark.

McDermid's new book is woven around her main character's journal. Working out if misfortune and accidental death have followed the millionaire businesswoman/author - or whether she has fresh blood on her hands - is the reader's conundrum.

More at SMH.