This episode focusses on Josephine Tey's classic mystery Miss Pym Disposes (1946), recorded as part of Aberdeen's Granite Noir festival on February 19th 2021. Joining John and Andy to explore the life and career of Josephine Tey AKA Gordon Daviot AKA Elizabeth MacKintosh (her real name) is Val McDermid, bestselling author and Tey's fellow Queen of Crime.

Val has sold over 17 million books, is translated into more than 40 languages and had her work made into a string of hit TV series. She’s won the CWA Gold Dagger, the CWA Cartier Diamond Dagger, the Grand Prix des Romans D’Aventure, the Lambda Literary Foundation Pioneer Award, the Stonewall Writer of the Year, the Los Angeles Times Book of the Year Award and – uniquely – has been shortlisted in four different categories in the Mystery Writers of America Edgar Awards. In 2016 she received the Outstanding Contribution to Crime Fiction award at the Theakston’s Old Peculiar Harrogate Crime Festival and in 2017 she was elected a Fellow of both the Royal Society of Literature and the Royal Society of Edinburgh.

Her best-known crime novels are the Wire in the Blood series, featuring clinical psychologist Dr Tony Hill and DCI Carol Jordan, but Val has also created three other series including one featuring cold case detective Karen Pirie.  Her latest Karen Pirie novel Still Life was published in paperback by Sphere in February 2021 and there’s new hardback novel, due in August, which will launch a brand-new series. 

Her online video series, Cooking The Books: Recipes from the Fiction Kitchen has been a lockdown hit; she’s a lifelong Raith Rovers Football Club supporter; and – last but not least – Val McDermid is the lead singer in a band – the Fun Lovin’ Crime Writers, possibly the only band made up of crime writers ever to play at Glastonbury.

Tey was the author of a series of highly successful novels, and film and TV adaptations, including Brat Farrar, The Franchise Affair and The Daughter of Time, yet she remains something of an enigma. As you'll hear, we thoroughly enjoyed immersing ourselves in her work and learning more about her from Val. Please note: this audio version of the podcast is longer and contains more material than the Granite Noir video webcast. If you would like to watch the original, it's currently available via the Granite Noir website.

Books mentioned

Josephine Tey - Miss Pym Disposes; Brat Farrar; The Daughter of Time; The Franchise Affair; To Love & Be Wise; The Singing Sands
Jennifer Morag Henderson - A Life of Josephine Tey
Val McDermid - Still Life; Resistance (graphic novel); Resistance (audiobook)
Ali Smith - Summer
Mick Heron - The Slough House; Down Cemetery Road
Mavis Doriel - Death on the Cherwell
Dorothey L. Sayers - Gaudy Night
Gladys Mitchell - Laurels are Poison
P.D. James - Shroud for a Nightingale

Other links:

This episode on video at Granite Noir
Granite Noir website
Republic of Consciousness Prize
Val McDermid’s Cooking the Books on YouTube
Pathe News - Now For A Couple of Minutes in Inverness (1935)
Paranoiac trailer (Hammer Films, 1962)
The Franchise Affair, BBC1 serial, 1988