Whenever I am asked which mystery authors I recommend – and that happens a lot – there’s a mental list I automatically draw from.

Near the head of that list is Val McDermid.

This Scottish author has never disappointed me in with her stories. Her A Place of Execution is a classic, I believe, and it’s one I recommend to readers year in and year out.

 So it’s with much pleasure to learn that Val McDermid has been named as the recipient of this year’s prestigious CWA Cartier Diamond Dagger Award. This award honors outstanding achievement in the field of crime writing. The announcement has been made by the Crime Writers’ Association in recognition of McDermid’s work over more than 20 years.

  This isn’t McDermid’s first award. Last year in Britain, she was inducted into the Hall of Fame at the ITV3 Specsavers Crime Thriller Awards, whose partners include the CWA.

In 1995 she won the CWA Gold Dagger for best crime novel of the year for The Mermaids Singing, which first introduced her characters Tony Hill and Carol Jordan, and went on to become an international bestseller.

Fever of the Bone is the sixth novel of this series, which inspired the BBC series Wire in the Blood. She also has won the L.A. Times Book of the Year Award. In 2007, she won The Stonewall Writer of the Year Award.

   McDermid’s work has written 23 bestselling novels that have been translated into 40 languages.

Her work also has translated well to the screen. In addition to the Wire in the Blood, the drama based on A Place of Execution was terrific.

The prize will be presented at a ceremony yet to be confirmed.

Previous winners include Andrew Taylor, Sue Grafton, John Harvey, Elmore Leonard, Ian Rankin, Lawrence Block, Sara Paretsky, Colin Dexter, Ed McBain, Reginald Hill, Ellis Peters, Leslie Charteris, Ruth Rendell, Dick Francis, John Le Carré and P.D. James.

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