Val Says: ‘I’m working on the new Tony & Carol book, Cross and Burn — the title comes from the saying, ‘the problem with bridges is knowing which ones to cross and which ones to burn.’ A killer is on the loose, a killer who threatens both Tony and Carol but in very different ways.’
‘…I’m also doing some preliminary work on my contemporary reworking of Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey.’ more info
The Vanishing Point out in paperback – 31 January 2013!It is every parent’s worst nightmare. Stephanie Harker is travelling through the security gates at O’Hare airport when she is taken into a perspex box having set off the metal detectors. Made to wait outside, five-year-old Jimmy is led away, by hand, by a uniformed officer. Stephanie’s panic and shouts lead security to believe she is a threat, and she is tasered brutally to the ground amidst her screams of protest while Jimmy disappears into the distance unnoticed by anyone but her.
However, when Stephanie has a chance to tell her story to the FBI, it becomes clear that everything is not as it seems. Unanswered questions surround Jimmy’s background and why someone would want to abduct him. But it is Stephanie’s close friendship with reality TV star Scarlett Higgins that appears to lie at the bottom of a tale of death, deception and the extraordinary lengths to which a parent will go to protect their child.
More Info: The Vanishing Point
Available in ebook for the first time ever, this duo of classic Christmas crime short stories by Sunday Times number one bestseller, Val McDermid
‘It’s Christmas, so treat yourself to a blast from my writing past. A Wife in a Million was the first short story I ever had published. I wrote it in response to a request from my editor, who was compiling an anthology of women’s crime writing called Reader, I Murdered Him. As with much of my work, it was inspired by what I saw in the world around me. The story was written in the wake of the terrible economic circumstances of the Thatcher years, when the North suffered catastrophic decline. People were angry and desperate, and I wanted to capture the sense of frustration felt by so many. But as always, it was focusing on the characters, their lives and their relationships that made the story come alive for me. A few years later, the same editor decided to put together a sequel – Reader, I Murdered Him Too – and that seemed like a good excuse to revisit my original detective, Maggie Staniforth. The trigger for this story was a Native American proverb – but I can’t say more, because I don’t want to give any secrets away. Like a Christmas present, you’ll just have to unwrap it yourself! Season’s greetings to you all.’
More Info: www.thecrimevault.com
