THE CANTERVILLE GHOST. Although Oscar Wilde wrote the original short story, this updated and VERY reinvented movie version (made in 1944) and starring Robert Young, was my favorite movie as a kid. I felt SO BAD for the cowardly ghost played by Charles Laughton, and...
THE DEVIL WINS is the second installment since Reed Coleman took over writing the Jesse Stone series. This story involves Paradise Police Chief Jesse Stone having to solve both a cold case and a fresh case. Three corpses are discovered, a man wrapped in a tarp along...
The Lewis Trilogy had seen me returning to my Scottish roots after writing a series of thrillers set in China, and the Enzo Files investigations set in my adopted home of France. The trilogy set in the Outer Hebrides had been hugely successful, winning awards and...
It’s been a tough year for cops in the public relations department. From small town Missouri to New York City, from South Carolina to McKenna, Texas, cops have been taking some serious media hits. As a twenty-five year police veteran, I realize much of the bad press...
Val McDermid recently appeared on BBC Breakfast to talk about SPLINTER THE SILENCE, her latest novel. STS is the ninth novel to feature Tony Hill and Carol Jordan. Is it violence if its virtual? The outspoken women targeted by the increasingly cruel internet trolls...
My desk is my world most of the time, so I go to great lengths to cultivate that world in the most inspiring way. My brain responds well to constant stimuli and I try to feed it like an unruly bear that may decide to maul me if faced with an empty picnic basket....
