A few other reasons to praise Val McDermid:
1. The descriptive writing.
Sometimes Karen's need to walk herself to sleep was thwarted by the weather. This was one of those nights. A sharp east wind drove in from the Baltic, cutting through clothes like a skinner's knife, carrying bitter gouts of rain that stung the skin like flying nettles. She could have quartered the city on the night buses, but she'd learned from experience that that didn't satisfy her need for movement. Instead, she made a cup of tea and settled down at her laptop. It was a picture of warmth and cosiness. But if she got too comfortable, a turn of her head would bring the sea into sight, white horses topping the heavy swell that hit the sea wall with jagged towers of spray. You could build walls against the wild, but you could never ignore its presence.
The "white horses," the "jagged towers of spray," "gouts of rain," "flying nettles," "skinner's knife"--all this makes me think of Ruth Rendell. Also, I like the jump from the natural world to the case Pirie is working on: "You could build walls against the wild, but you can never ignore its presence." Thinking about the waves leads Pirie to wonder why, in one corner, a woman has been raped and killed and, in another corner, a mother/son pair seems to have been murdered.
2. The complexity of the plotting. Jessi Klein says, in her early thirties, she discovered this creative itch that seemed to propel her forward. (In Klein's case, the itch involved unmasking various indignities women face, and writing as frankly as possible about certain women's issues never before addressed in print.) It seems to me that McDermid's own special purpose on Earth is to invent complexities we could never imagine on our own. So, in "Out of Bounds," a big problem is that crucial DNA comes from an adopted person. If you want to test that DNA, you have to reveal to the person that he was adopted, and this could be construed as a violation of privacy. (The murder related to the DNA actually happened twenty years ago--and McDermid derives special pleasure from talking about the undead past, as she did, also, and to greatest effect, in "A Place of Execution.") Court scene after court scene asks: "Can I violate someone's privacy if it means possibly catching a murderer? Or is the right to privacy paramount?" Then, as a "plot C," or even a "plot D," Karen Pirie, devastated by her romantic loss, wanders around Scotland at night. She comes upon some Syrian refugees, who sit around outside by a fire. They can't work until their migration is "formalized." McDermid enjoys various language barriers: "I am accountant. He is chef. He is dentist. But here, we are nothing." "It's not your blame. You people here in Scotland, you are trying to help." Which other writers are considering the plight of Syrian refugees in Scotland (as an aside)?
3. The awareness of popular culture. McDermid is the one and only high-prestige crime writer I know of who might compare a character to "the actor who plays Lestrade on SHERLOCK." She might pause to note that a police inspector is binge-watching HOMICIDE: LIFE ON THE STREETS and thanking God "we don't have it that bad." Occasional reference to the "world of twisty Scandinavian mysteries" is also made.
4. The verbal inventiveness. McDermid takes great pride in imagining shows that might actually exist. In this way, she resembles Lena Dunham (who famously invented "Full Dis:closure" and "Leave Me Alone"). McDermid has a child's TV-show host, in "Out of Bounds," who made her name on "TeaThyme" but moved on to "All Aboard!" There's a successful theater impresario, whose Broadway-ish shoes include CALL ME!, THICK AND THIN, AMAZING STRANGERS, and "last year's smash hit" STARSTRICKEN. McDermid enjoys parodying the glib style of a certain kind of media reporting: "It's a welcoming room with squashy sofas as well as an imposing walnut desk and a fine view of Soho Square. Caroline, dressed in a silk Nicole Farhi ecru sweater and black jodhpurs, revealed that she loved the theater from an early age." "Caroline looked like a lost little girl as she spoke, her professional mask slipping for a moment." (Caroline's story is more complex than the reporter realizes.) "Her body was left in an alley behind the former Bluebeard's night club off George Square in the city centre, her brand-new sequined red dress torn and bloodstained. Hundreds of witness statements were taken from clubbers and friends of the vivacious young stylist." McDermid enjoys including other forms of "text" in her stories: fictional Wikipedia entries, e-mail transcripts (in which, invariably, professionals ask for favors while vaguely half-agreeing to perform favors of their own). I don't know of many writers who are as interested as McDermid in the way people use words; that unnecessary "vivacious" quoted above is very much intentional. I especially love when McDermid describes heated office exchanges; you can see the egos on display, the fun people have when they inflate their own rhetoric. Also, McDermid is very good at helping you to navigate your own tricky work situations; her novels are like brief political primers, in disguise.
5. The suspense. I really have no idea what will happen in "Out of Bounds." I don't know where we'll go with the Syrian refugees. I don't know why Caroline, the once-grieving (now-dead) widow, now seems to be implicated in a lesbian love affair with her child's nanny; I don't know how any of this relates to Caroline's apparent murder. I'm not sure that Pirie will recover her equanimity after the death of her partner, or whether she'll continue to be a sort-of-stealthy lunatic, wandering the streets of Scotland at night. None of this is real; all of it makes me care, and care intensely. What a gift to the world!
1. The descriptive writing.
Sometimes Karen's need to walk herself to sleep was thwarted by the weather. This was one of those nights. A sharp east wind drove in from the Baltic, cutting through clothes like a skinner's knife, carrying bitter gouts of rain that stung the skin like flying nettles. She could have quartered the city on the night buses, but she'd learned from experience that that didn't satisfy her need for movement. Instead, she made a cup of tea and settled down at her laptop. It was a picture of warmth and cosiness. But if she got too comfortable, a turn of her head would bring the sea into sight, white horses topping the heavy swell that hit the sea wall with jagged towers of spray. You could build walls against the wild, but you could never ignore its presence.
The "white horses," the "jagged towers of spray," "gouts of rain," "flying nettles," "skinner's knife"--all this makes me think of Ruth Rendell. Also, I like the jump from the natural world to the case Pirie is working on: "You could build walls against the wild, but you can never ignore its presence." Thinking about the waves leads Pirie to wonder why, in one corner, a woman has been raped and killed and, in another corner, a mother/son pair seems to have been murdered.
2. The complexity of the plotting. Jessi Klein says, in her early thirties, she discovered this creative itch that seemed to propel her forward. (In Klein's case, the itch involved unmasking various indignities women face, and writing as frankly as possible about certain women's issues never before addressed in print.) It seems to me that McDermid's own special purpose on Earth is to invent complexities we could never imagine on our own. So, in "Out of Bounds," a big problem is that crucial DNA comes from an adopted person. If you want to test that DNA, you have to reveal to the person that he was adopted, and this could be construed as a violation of privacy. (The murder related to the DNA actually happened twenty years ago--and McDermid derives special pleasure from talking about the undead past, as she did, also, and to greatest effect, in "A Place of Execution.") Court scene after court scene asks: "Can I violate someone's privacy if it means possibly catching a murderer? Or is the right to privacy paramount?" Then, as a "plot C," or even a "plot D," Karen Pirie, devastated by her romantic loss, wanders around Scotland at night. She comes upon some Syrian refugees, who sit around outside by a fire. They can't work until their migration is "formalized." McDermid enjoys various language barriers: "I am accountant. He is chef. He is dentist. But here, we are nothing." "It's not your blame. You people here in Scotland, you are trying to help." Which other writers are considering the plight of Syrian refugees in Scotland (as an aside)?
3. The awareness of popular culture. McDermid is the one and only high-prestige crime writer I know of who might compare a character to "the actor who plays Lestrade on SHERLOCK." She might pause to note that a police inspector is binge-watching HOMICIDE: LIFE ON THE STREETS and thanking God "we don't have it that bad." Occasional reference to the "world of twisty Scandinavian mysteries" is also made.
4. The verbal inventiveness. McDermid takes great pride in imagining shows that might actually exist. In this way, she resembles Lena Dunham (who famously invented "Full Dis:closure" and "Leave Me Alone"). McDermid has a child's TV-show host, in "Out of Bounds," who made her name on "TeaThyme" but moved on to "All Aboard!" There's a successful theater impresario, whose Broadway-ish shoes include CALL ME!, THICK AND THIN, AMAZING STRANGERS, and "last year's smash hit" STARSTRICKEN. McDermid enjoys parodying the glib style of a certain kind of media reporting: "It's a welcoming room with squashy sofas as well as an imposing walnut desk and a fine view of Soho Square. Caroline, dressed in a silk Nicole Farhi ecru sweater and black jodhpurs, revealed that she loved the theater from an early age." "Caroline looked like a lost little girl as she spoke, her professional mask slipping for a moment." (Caroline's story is more complex than the reporter realizes.) "Her body was left in an alley behind the former Bluebeard's night club off George Square in the city centre, her brand-new sequined red dress torn and bloodstained. Hundreds of witness statements were taken from clubbers and friends of the vivacious young stylist." McDermid enjoys including other forms of "text" in her stories: fictional Wikipedia entries, e-mail transcripts (in which, invariably, professionals ask for favors while vaguely half-agreeing to perform favors of their own). I don't know of many writers who are as interested as McDermid in the way people use words; that unnecessary "vivacious" quoted above is very much intentional. I especially love when McDermid describes heated office exchanges; you can see the egos on display, the fun people have when they inflate their own rhetoric. Also, McDermid is very good at helping you to navigate your own tricky work situations; her novels are like brief political primers, in disguise.
5. The suspense. I really have no idea what will happen in "Out of Bounds." I don't know where we'll go with the Syrian refugees. I don't know why Caroline, the once-grieving (now-dead) widow, now seems to be implicated in a lesbian love affair with her child's nanny; I don't know how any of this relates to Caroline's apparent murder. I'm not sure that Pirie will recover her equanimity after the death of her partner, or whether she'll continue to be a sort-of-stealthy lunatic, wandering the streets of Scotland at night. None of this is real; all of it makes me care, and care intensely. What a gift to the world!
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