What We're Writing — Susan Elia MacNeal and THE QUEEN'S ACCOMPLICE

SUSAN ELIA MACNEAL: Hello Reds and lovely readers and happy holidays! So thrilled that not only has MRS. ROOSEVELT'S CONFIDANTE made the New York Times Bestseller list at #7, but also made the bestseller lists of USA Today, the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, and the San Francisco Chronicle. Out less than two months, it's already in its third printing! 

To celebrate, I'm doing a MRS. ROOSEVELT'S CONFIDANTE giveaway, to three people who leave a comment. (Kiddo will choose.)

I'm also over the moon to announce that actress Daisy Ridley, who plays Rey in Star Wars VII: The Force Awakens, has bought the film/TV rights to the series! Fingers crossed and I think Ms. Ridley would make a fabulous Maggie Hope!

I'm also delighted to let you know that not only have I turned in THE QUEEN'S ACCOMPLICE (Maggie Hope #6) into copyediting, but the kind folks at Penguin Random House tell me that the pub date will be sometime in the fall of '16.

And the Big News is — I've just signed another contract with PRH, for a three-book Maggie Hope deal. Maggie's adventures will continue! 

So, for the last year, I've been writing THE QUEEN'S ACCOMPLICE. I have to say it's the most technically difficult novel I've ever written, as well as the most fun. In it, Maggie teams up with her old friend Mark Stafford from MI-5 and also a new colleague, Detective Chief Inspector James Durgin from Scotland Yard. 

The three of them work to solve the case of a serial killer dubbed by the press as "The Blackout Beast" — based on the real-life Blitz serial killer (they called the "sequential murderers" then) known as the Blackout Ripper. 

I enjoyed (is that the right word?) learning more about forensic science for this novel, especially the history of fingerprinting. Must once again give a shout-out to the Forensics: Anatomy of Crime exhibit at the Wellcome Collection in London, as well as the accompanying book by Val McDermid.

Here are some of the things on my desk I've been using while writing THE QUEEN'S ACCOMPLICE. This is a notebook I received from Kiddo and Hubby last December, and those are the first notes I ever made on the novel.

And here's a Punch and Judy postcard I picked up in Covent Garden (the historic home of Punch and Judy) last year. The puppet show (and its inherent misogyny and violence) plays a major part in the novel.

I also used print-out of a vintage map of London, to plot the locations of the bodies found.

And here's a chart I made, to keep track of the Blackout Beast's victims. Yes, sometimes you have to get off the computer and write things out by hand. (And yes, I have terrible handwriting.)

I used a lot of books (as usual) for research. MAD BOY was something I just read for fun, but learned about a drug, "Calm Doggie," that was used to tranquilize dogs during the Blitz. According to the book, people took it as well. Just the sort of detail I love to thread in!

In THE QUEEN'S ACCOMPLICE, we also meet back up with ballerina Sarah Sanderson, now with SOE, and Hugh Thompson, Maggie's MI-5 (and romantic) partner — Hugh and Sarah are at Beaulieu, the SOE's "finishing school" in preparation for being dropped behind enemy lines in France.

And, of course — given the book's title — I did plentiful research on Queen Elizabeth, or, as we now think of her, the Queen Mum.

My publisher asked me not to blog from THE QUEEN'S ACCOMPLICE at this time, but I can't wait to share in the new year!

In the meantime, please enjoy this excerpt from MRS. ROOSEVELT'S CONFIDANTE:

The President’s private office was painted battleship gray and glossy white, softened by puddles of light from glowing green Tiffany lamps. Tall mahogany bookcases were crammed with models of ships. A massive oak desk stood in one corner, its blotter covered in stamps and collectors’ albums. Burning logs popped and crackled behind the grate of a marble fireplace, and a shabby Persian rug was spread in front. Layered on top was a lion-skin rug, head intact and fangs gleaming. “From Ethiopia’s Emperor Haile Selassie,” the First Lady explained. “We call him Leo the Lion.” 
     “The first warning shot against the Empire,” John muttered under his breath.

     The President was already holding court, seated in a streamlined wheelchair made from a regular dining chair. He was in position behind a small brass cart, mixing drinks, Fala at his feet. Churchill, looking every inch the English bulldog, made his way around the room, hand extended, saying, “How-de-do? How-de-do?” Fala was busily inspecting the Prime Minister’s shoes and trousers, then sat back on his haunches as if to say, Yes, he passes my inspection.
     “Welcome to Children’s Hour!” the President called to Mrs. Roosevelt’s small tour group as the P.M. stooped to rub Fala’s furry head. “It’s my tradition of having cocktails at the end of the day!” he explained. “And today I daresay you all deserve one.” He looked sideways at Churchill. “Or perhaps two.” The bar cart was crowded with different colored bottles of gin and French ver- mouth, Kentucky bourbon, Tennessee whiskey, rum, tonic, and various bitters. As the President took a sip from his glass, he closed his eyes in delight. “Oh, yummy—that’s good.”
     Maggie took in the scene before her. She knew all too well that the Prime Minister’s usual drinks were sherry, whiskey, brandy, and champagne—and only rarely a Martini, but with no vermouth, only “a bow toward France.” As she saw the generous amount of vermouth Mr. Roosevelt poured into the jigger to mix with his gin and how graciously Mr. Churchill accepted the cocktail glass from the President’s hands, she realized for the first time exactly how much the Boss would sacrifice to get on with the American leader and how strong was the Franklin-Winston bonhomie.
     John nodded in approval. “An Anglo-Saxon alliance, to meet the problems of the world. Well done.”
     President Roosevelt flashed his thousand-watt toothy grin. “Forgive me if I don’t get up,” he joked, then wheeled himself over, Fala following with a wagging tail. “My adviser Harry Hopkins, you already know, of course,” he said, indicating a gaunt, chain-smoking man. “And this lovely lady is Grace Tully, my secretary—and Lorena Hickok, Eleanor’s friend. Oh, and let me introduce Frank Cole, my right-hand man.”

     Frank Cole was a thoroughly average-looking man with wide-set eyes behind heavy black-framed glasses and a rumpled suit that suggested moneyed eccentricity. Giving him a long look, Maggie realized there was something off: one of his eyes was a bright green, while the other was a true hazel. “Who’s Frank Cole?” she whispered to David when she could.
     He sipped his Martini and nearly choked. “Heavy on the vermouth and—horrors—I believe a splash of Pernod.” He shook his head. “Frank Cole is the economic specialist for the State Department who then became a rather successful journalist. Outspoken supporter of the New Deal and the Roosevelts. And, from what I hear, FDR’s odd-job man.”
    Maggie took a small sip of hers, which had two Spanish olives speared to a toothpick with tiny U.S. and U.K. flags. She peered at the fine print: made in japan. Oh, dear. “Odd-job man? What sorts of jobs?”
     David shrugged. “How should I know?”
     “But what about Mr. Hoover?” Maggie pressed as the First Lady pulled out a record and placed it on the phonograph.
     “No, Cole has nothing to do with Hoover. He answers directly to the President.”
     As the record crackled and then began, Marian Anderson’s rich contralto voice filled the room, singing Handel’s “And He Shall Feed His Flock.” More guests arrived—including General Sir Alan Brooke, Chief of the Imperial General Staff—and the President exclaimed, “Oh, how perfectly grand!” 
     As Fala shook hands with all of them on command, a waiter wheeled in a silver trolley, piled high with caviar and toast points, a carved roasted turkey, smoked clams, sliced green apples, and cheeses.

Mr. Roosevelt looked around the room and, spying empty glasses, called out, “How about a little dividend? Another sippy?” He began to make more cocktails, this time something called a Haitian Libation, made with rum, orange juice, egg whites, and brown sugar. “Ah, the sweet music of the shaker!” he called. “Who’d like to try one?”
     Despite the President’s questionable cocktails, Maggie did find herself liking him. It was impossible not to admire his unflagging energy, his irrepressible confidence, his effervescent charm. As more drinks were poured and plates were passed, she seized the chance to look around his private office. The room was large, but still warm and homey, stuffed full of clutter: shelves of gold-tooled leather-bound books, stamp collecting albums, intricate ship models, and silver-framed photographs of the children at various ages. A black-and-white Ansel Adams photograph of the Rocky Mountains hung in a place of prominence.
David and John perched next to Maggie with their cocktail glasses. David bent over to whisper, “Do you think they’re going to serve us hot dogs for dinner? I hear that’s what they offered the King and Queen when they visited.”
     “Hot dogs are a picnic food,” Maggie replied sotto voce. “Not likely to be served at the White House in December. Although we can try to get you one from a street vendor.”
     “I’d like that,” David returned courageously. “I’ve never had one, you know.”
     As Roosevelt and Churchill chatted and laughed, John murmured, “What kind of accent does the President have?”
     “Hudson Valley Lockjaw—Dutchess County via Amster- dam,” Maggie whispered back. “With just a faint tinge of Old Money.”

    “Old . . . by American standards.” John took a sip of his Martini and nearly choked.
     “There, there.” Maggie patted his back. “I know it’s a lot to get used to—landing in a foreign country.” John was silent. “Well, isn’t it?” Maggie wasn’t about to give up.
     “Rather heavy on the vermouth” was all he would say.
     “So, Mr. Cole,” said the Prime Minister, standing nearby. “What is it exactly that you do for the President?”
     “This and that,” Cole replied. “I’m a newspaper columnist by trade, but I do enjoy being Man Friday.”
     Churchill studied him. Then he raised his glass. “If that’s your story, Mr. Cole, then stick to it.” 

Please leave a message in the comments to be considered for the MRS. ROOSEVELT'S CONFIDANTE giveaway!

"Forensics: the Anatomy of Crime"

SUSAN ELIA MACNEAL: 'Forensics: the Anatomy of Crime,’an exhibit at the Wellcome Collection in Euston, London, explores the history, science and art of forensic medicine. It runs through the 21st of June, so if you're able to go — hurry! 


I was lucky enough to be able to go on my recent research trip to London — and it was fascinating. The exhibit's mix of history, science, and art make it both informative and also (dare I say?) entertaining, going from a blood-splattered floor to a ceramic morgue table to a Victorian death mask. (Oh, and then there's the videos of how flies infest corpses — definitely worth watching, but my advice is to do so on an empty stomach....)

Here's the official description of the exhibit:

'Forensics: the anatomy of crime’ explores the history, science and art of forensic medicine. It travels from crime scene to courtroom, across centuries and continents, exploring the specialisms of those involved in the delicate processes of collecting, analysing and presenting medical evidence. It draws out the stories of victims, suspects and investigators of violent crimes, and our enduring cultural fascination with death and detection.

The exhibition contains original evidence, archival material, photographic documentation, film footage, forensic instruments and specimens, and is rich with artworks offering both unsettling and intimate responses to traumatic events. Challenging familiar views of forensic medicine shaped by fictions that came out of the sensational reporting of late Victorian murder cases and popular crime dramas, ‘Forensics’ highlights the complex entwining of law and medicine, and the scientific methods it calls upon and creates.

The exhibit starts with "Forensic Etymology: the Crime Scene," 

moves on to "Examining the Body and Post-Mortum: the Morgue," 

then goes on to "Analyzing Forensic Evidence: the Laboratory," 

to "Human Identification: the Search," 

to "Forensic Evidence and Expertise in Court: the Courtroom." 

All aspects of the exhibit were excellent, but —perhaps not surprisingly — I was most interested in forensic science used in the 1930s and 1940s. The objects and photographs I spent the most time with were Frances Glessner Lee's "Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death" — which looked to me at first like dollhouses gone terribly, terribly wrong. (Also, who's heard of Frances Gleaner Lee? What a remarkable woman!)

But, in actuality, Lee's creations are a series of one-inch to one-foot scale models of crime scenes that were created in the 1940s as training aids for the Chicago Police. Truly, they are works of macabre beauty, which isn't undercut at all by their practical application.

And then there's also the accompanying book by crime writer Val McDermid. Here's the description:

The dead talk. To the right listener, they tell us all about themselves: where they came from, how they lived, how they died - and who killed them. Forensic scientists can unlock the mysteries of the past and help justice to be done using the messages left by a corpse, a crime scene or the faintest of human traces. Forensics uncovers the secrets of forensic medicine, drawing on interviews with top-level professionals, ground-breaking research and Val McDermid's own experience to lay bare the secrets of this fascinating science. And, along the way, she wonders at how maggots collected from a corpse can help determine time of death, how a DNA trace a millionth the size of a 

Val McDermid

grain of salt can be used to convict a killer and how a team of young Argentine scientists led by a maverick American anthropologist uncovered the victims of a genocide. 

In her crime novels, Val McDermid has been solving complex crimes and confronting unimaginable evil for years. Now, she's looking at the people who do it for real, and real crime scenes. It's a journey that will take her to war zones, fire scenes and autopsy suites, and bring her into contact with extraordinary bravery and wickedness, as she traces the history of forensics from its earliest beginnings to the cutting-edge science of the modern day. Published in partnership with the Wellcome Collection, a free visitor destination that explores the connections between medicine, life and art.

Reds and lovely readers, when you read mysteries and thrillers, are you more interested in the forensics or the characters? Or both equally? And if forensics, why? Historic or cutting-edge?

And if you could curate a mystery-related exhibit at a museum, what would it be and why? Please tell us in the comments!

Marcia Talley--St. Hilda's Crime and Mystery Weekend

DEBORAH CROMBIE: St. Hilda's Crime and Mystery Weekend is the hidden gem of mystery conferences. If Marcia Talley weren't my friend, I'd be very tempted to commit some heinous crime born of jealousy, because she got to attend this year, and I, having been in England in May, couldn't manage another trip as soon as August. To make it up to me, Marcia is going to give us some highlights along with photos from this year and previous conferences.

(I am so cross. I found a fabulous photo the other day when was straightening my office. St. Hilda's, 1996, with Kate Charles and Marcia Talley being punted on the Cherwell by Laurie King. I meant to put it in this post but now can't find it. Apologies!!! But Marcia has plenty to share.)

MARCIA TALLEY: In the late summer of 1994, a new mystery conference made its quiet debut at St Hilda's College in Oxford, England. The brainchild of mystery author Kate Charles and the college's alumni officer, Eileen Roberts, the St. Hilda's Crime and Mystery Weekend has for over twenty years, drawn mystery lovers from all over the world to the tranquil banks of the River Cherwell.

The inaugural conference, “Queens of Crime,” focused on women mystery authors with Oxford connections, Dorothy L Sayers, Margery Allingham and Agatha Christie, an entirely appropriate topic for St. Hilda's which was, until recently, the only remaining all women's college in England. Indeed, Val McDermid is an “old girl” of the college and Margaret York was its librarian and a speaker at first conference. At the end of that first weekend, response was so overwhelming that Charles and Roberts decided to continue the conference the following year with “The Golden Age, Then and Now.” Topics in subsequent years have included “Murder in Academia,” “Men and Women in Blue,” “Partners in Crime,” “ Scene of the Crime,” and “Mind Games, Psychology, Crime and Mystery,” to name but a few.  This year, as England commemorates the centennial of the beginning of World War I, St Hilda’s remembered, too, with “Crimes of the Past: War and Other Evils.”

It is this themed approach which sets St. Hilda's apart from other mystery conferences. There's none of the usual panels of writers sitting around making thinly disguised sales pitches for their books. Speakers come by invitation only and deliver thought-provoking papers on aspects of the mystery genre relevant to the topic that year. It is the skilled moderator/chair (Edward Marsden, Andrew Taylor, the late Robert Barnard and Natasha Cooper have been tapped for this several times) who ties the papers together and ably guides the question and answer session.

Papers are delivered in the acoustically perfect surroundings of the Jacqueline duPre Music Building, and there's no overlap between sessions so no one has to miss anything. It's this aspect of learning, I think, that keeps bringing people back to St. Hilda's: We hear Julia Wallace Martin talk about the relationship between manic depression and the creative process; Val McDermid's historical overview of gays and lesbians in crime fiction; or Alan Bradley’s poignant tale about the day his father ran away from home – for good. And who could resist a talk entitled “Lord Roberts Has a Full Crate of Whisky: Stories of the Anglo-Boer War” with which Frances Brody closed out this year’s session.

It's a tribute to the quality of the conference that authors who have attended St. Hilda's as participants continue to do so even if they haven't been invited to give a paper.

The conference opens Friday night with a champagne party on the college lawn which slopes gently down to the river. Just beyond are the playing fields of Magdalen College and beyond that, the towering spires of Oxford. Andrew Taylor marvels that there is no distinction between authors and non-authors at St. Hilda’s, none of the 'them and us' quality that distinguishes many conferences—fans on one side, and performing authors on the other. Perhaps because of its size—roughly 125 attendees —newcomers are made to feel welcome and find it a good place for conversation. Nowhere is this more evident than on Saturday night when attendees gather after dinner for a wine party in the Senior Common Room. Some have been known to stay up until the wee hours, chatting away about crime fiction or anything else that strikes their fancy.

Programs are punctuated by breaks for tea, coffee and cookies, and a civilized sherry hour invariably precedes the Saturday night dinner which has featured speakers like P.D. James, Colin Dexter, and Val McDermid. I'm still laughing over the evening Simon Brett performed all twelve roles for the world premier of Lines of Enquiry, a radio play “starring Osbert Mint, Betti Morns and Bren O'Smitt.” (You work it out!) I should mention that the food is excellent, served in the elegant, wood-paneled dining room and, as a vegetarian, I appreciate the tasty vegetarian options.

Everyone lodges at the college in clean comfortable rooms where “scouts” make up your bed each morning and electric kettles and the wherewithal for making tea sit on your desk.

The return rate is high. Anne Perry said it best: “The atmosphere is civilized, physically beautiful … a gathering of old friends to discuss the things we are all interested in. It is effortlessly 'academic', one leaves feeling entertained, enriched, educated, and renewed to begin again on the art and the career we all love.”

DEBS: Here are some of Marcia's photos, captioned as best I can (while I take a break to dig through more boxes looking for my own...)

The beautiful view of the River Cherwell from the college lawns.

Marcia, Alan Bradley, and Kate Charles, 2014

Kate Charles presides over dinner at the college high table, 2011

PD James chats with an attendee as a former college principle looks on, 2011

Kate Charles and Keith Miles, 2011

Val McDermid and Ayo Onatade share a joke, 2011

 Sigh. As you can see, the weather, the setting, the company, and the crime are divine. I'm setting my sights on next year.

One more snippet--Marcia has failed to mention that she has a brand new Hannah Ives novel, TOMORROW'S VENGANCE, so I'm going to do it for her.  I got to read it early, when I was in London, and it's wonderful.

Hannah Ives is introduced to Calvert Colony, a continuing care retirement community in Maryland, by her friend, Naddie Gray, and soon meets a colourful cast of characters: Colonel Greene, the spritely war veteran, Safa Abaza, an over-zealous religious convert, Ysabelle Milanesi, who fled the Nazis when she was a girl, handsome chef Raniero and his sister, Filomena.

When Hannah signs on as a volunteer in the Memory Unit, she becomes more even more involved in the lives of the Calvert Colony residents. But events take a dark turn when one of them is found murdered. Hannah is drawn into the investigation, and soon finds herself uncovering old crimes and reigniting quarrels that know no boundaries of place or time.

Publisher's Weekly says, "Talley deals sensitively with such aging issues as consensual sex among residents, vulnerability to scam artists, declining cognitive abilities, autocratic relatives, and the importance of touch and music in providing comfort."

Reading a Hannah novel is, as always, like spending time with one of your best friends, and getting a cracking good mystery to boot.

So who's up for Oxford and St. Hilda's next year?  I'm sure Marcia will be there.

Immortal Memory: a Burns Night guest blog by Val McDermid

Val McDermid needs no introduction. Creator of the Lindsay Gordan, Kate Brannigan and Tony Hill series. Winner of the CWA Cartier Diamond Dagger, Theakston’s Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award, Crime Writers’ Association Gold Dagger for Best Crime Novel of the Year, Pioneer Award (Lambda Literary Awards,) Los Angeles Times Book Prize, New York Times Notable Book of the Year, the Anthony Award, Macavity Award, and Dilys Award.  

The Robert Burns Night Supper may need a bit more introduction. Luckily, we have an expert. Let's begin the customary way:

Some hae meat and canna eat,

And some wad eat that want it;

But we hae meat, and we can eat,

And sae let the Lord be thankit.

And now, our speaker:

All over the world today, my compatriots are sitting down to a feast of minced sheep’s offal mixed with oatmeal, onions and a liberal amount of black pepper, all cooked inside a sheep’s large intestine, accompanied by mashed potatoes and swede (a kind of orange turnip). This meal will be washed down with large quantities of whisky.

This is not a punishment.

It’s a celebration. A celebration with a reach far beyond a small nation that occupies the top half of a larger country sandwiched between the Atlantic Ocean and the North Sea. It’s a celebration with global reach. From Vladivostok to Valparaiso, from Anchorage to Adelaide, we’ll be toasting the same great man. Not a politician or a revolutionary leader or a messiah, but a writer.

That’s right, a writer. A man of humble origins, like so many writers. A man who was driven by his dream to overcome poverty, illness and woman trouble in his journey to become one of the world’s great writers, a man spoken of in the same breath as Shakespeare and Cervantes, Homer and Goethe.

Tonight, there will be thousands of Burns Suppers held in honour of Robert Burns, commemorating a writer whose life and work have inspired people for two hundred and fifty years. Usually I would be on my feet at one of those dinners, giving the speech known as the Immortal Memory, a toast to our national bard. This year I will be at the Santa Cruz Bookstore, where I suspect the best I can hope for is a decent drop of whisky. (Please don’t bring haggis – I once ate American haggis and it was without doubt one of the five worst things I have ever put in my mouth!)

A lot of people who do the rounds giving the Immortal Memory have one finely honed schtick. It’s all they need because they are somewhere different every year. I have no such luck. When I’m not in Santa Cruz, I deliver the Immortal Memory at my village Burns Supper. So just as I have to come up with an idea for a book a year, so I have to find an annual variant on the life and work of Robert Burns. I’ve done Burns the lover, Burns the revolutionary, Burns the stand-up comic, Burns the activist, Burns the drinker, Burns the social chameleon... You get the picture? Believe me, there’s plenty of variety in his life and work to keep me going for a few years more.

This obligation means that I’ve spent quite a lot of time over the years pondering where Robert Burns would choose to place himself in the literary canon if he was around today. In the 18^th century when he was writing, there weren’t so many options for a part-time jobbing writer who lived out in the sticks. It was basically poetry or poetry. But now, he’d have choices.

You know what’s coming, don’t you? 

 

Yes, I think if Robert Burns had been born in 1959 instead of 1759, he’d have been a crime writer. Just think about it for a minute. His poetry reveals a man who was passionate about injustice, who believed in the ideals of liberty, fraternity and equality. He loved his country but was alive to its faults. He pointed the finger at hypocrisy, he took on the establishment and he questioned the world he lived in. He was observant, compassionate, fascinated by women and sex, and had the typically mordant black humour of the Lowland Scot. All the qualities, in short, that embody the genre of Tartan Noir.

That on its own should be enough to convince the sceptics. But there is a clincher. What sets crime writers apart from other cadres of wordsmiths? Ladies and gentlemen, I give you conviviality. Crime writers are the party animals of the literary circuit. Three crime writers in a bar is a party. Three crime writers in the green room can turn the stuffiest literary festival into a shindig. We enjoy each other’s company because we enjoy and respect each other’s work without feeling threatened by the success of our peers. In my experience, this is unique to our genre.

Robert Burns was a man who loved a good night out. If you doubt me, just read the opening section of Tam O’Shanter. There’s our hero, in the pub with his pals after market day, getting loaded when he should be loading up his horse and heading home.

Yes, Burns would have found his natural home with us, not the whingeing poets. After all, we’re the only genre who boast an organisation -- the Detection Club in the UK -- whose primary qualification for nomination for membership is that one should be clubbable.

But here’s where I stumble. That word, ‘clubbable’. I can never see it without smiling at the thought of the inimitable Reginald Hill’s debut Dalziel and Pascoe novel, A Clubbable Woman. Reg was one of the first crime writers I met socially and he became a good friend. We walked in the Dales together, we ate and drank together, we had book event adventures together. He was erudite, generous, witty, the best of company and one of the finest crime writers the UK has ever produced. Robert Burns would have loved him.

I know I did. He was part of the rich tapestry of my writing life. And shortly before I left on this US trip, Reg died. The weight of that sadness has taken the lightness out of my days. But sitting alongside that sadness is the knowledge that our crime writing community will come together to celebrate Reg’s achievement. He’ll be spoken of with affection for years to come, he’ll be missed and like Robert Burns, that crime writer manqué, his work will be enjoyed. Even by people who don’t know how to enjoy a wee dram.

If you’re anywhere near Santa Cruz tonight, come along and celebrate writing and writers. I’ll be the one in the Robert Burns football shirt.

Ladies and Gentlemen, please be upstanding, raise your glasses, and join the Reds in toasting the immortal memory of Robert Burns and his fellow scribe, Reginald Hill.

You can find more about Val McDermid at her website, friend her on Facebook, and chat with her on Twitter (@valmcdermid). Her 25th novel, The Retribution, brings back Dr. Tony Hill, DCI Carol Jordan and "her most thrillingly murderous creation, Jacko Vance." (Daily Mirror)