Friday, April 15, 2011

Val McDermid BBC World Book Club

I can't always report top news here, but I have a bit of information that may be of interest to those in the UK.  On May 4, thriller writer Val McDermid will be visiting BBC World Services World Book Club, a radio show and podcast.

The program, recorded at Bush House, home of the BBC, spotlights an author discussing, reading from and answering questions about a single book. Past guests have included James Ellroy, Carlos Ruiz Zafron, Uberto Eco and many others. I subscribed a while back and have enjoyed the installments I've listened to. They're great discussions for writers to hear.

Wires and Execution
Ms. McDermid, who also authored the books on which the Wire in the Blood series was based, will be discussing her novel A Place of Execution. It's a multi-layered mystery thriller focusing on a present day television journalist who's at work on a documentary about a 1963 murder case. Of course, all is not what it seems with the case or the hero detective who handled the investigation. Or with the heroine for that matter.

Her pursuit of the truth leads to revelations that affect her on many levels.

I recently watched the Masterpiece Contemporary/ITV adaptation of the novel, which originally aired in the U.S. in 2009. It's a great mini-series, exciting and compelling with a stellar cast including Lee Ingleby and Juliet Stevenson.

I Tweeted that I was watching, which brought a message and invite from World Book Club's Twitter account.

If I were going to be in London, I could go to the recording of the episode, but since I can't make it, I've been asked to submit a question about the novel to be posed at the session. I'm trying to come up with something meaningful now. I'm leaning toward asking a character question about the journalist, Catherine Heathcote.

That should be fun. What a wonderful new world of communication we have these days. I'll let you know what my question is when I get it formulated and how things turn out.

You can submit a question too via WBC's twitter feed, @BBCWBC or by e-mail worldbookclub(at)bbc(dot)co(dot)uk.

Further reading

Mystery Fanfare: Val McDermid Place of Execution Interview

Variety review of Place of Execution mini-series

Addendum

The program airs blog post

Listen to the BBC broadcast which includes my question. 

1 comment:

Charles Gramlich said...

That's kind of cool. I'll look forward to finding out more.

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