Bestselling author Val McDermid has been named as the recipient of this year's prestigious CWA Cartier Diamond Dagger Award, which honours outstanding achievement in the field of crime writing.
The announcement has been made by the Crime Writers' Association (CWA) in recognition of Val's work over more than 20 years.
The CWA Cartier Diamond Dagger is the latest accolade in a highly successful career which last year saw Val inducted into the Hall of Fame at the ITV3 Specsavers Crime Thriller Awards, whose partners include the CWA.
She has won many awards internationally, including the CWA Gold Dagger for best crime novel of the year and the LA Times Book of the Year Award. In 2007, she won The Stonewall Writer of the Year Award.
Val is a top 10 bestseller who has been translated into 40 languages, with more than two million copies sold in the UK and 10 million worldwide. She has written 23 bestselling novels and the popular ITV series Wire in the Blood, starring Robson Green, was based on her books and ran for six series. A three-part ITV drama of Val's A Place of Execution was broadcast in the autumn of 2007.
Val is also a regular broadcaster on BBC Radio 4.
In February, the paperback of Val's bestselling hardback Fever of the Bone will be published by Little, Brown.
Val McDermid first introduced her readership to Tony Hill and Carol Jordan in 1995 with the publication of The Mermaids Singing, which went on to become an international bestseller. Fever of the Bone is the sixth novel of the series which inspired Wire in the Blood.
Val, who was born in Kirkcaldy, Scotland, and divides her time between Northumberland and Cheshire, said of the CWA Carter Diamond Dagger award: 'I'm delighted to be admitted to this very select group of crime writers. To be awarded the CWA Carter Diamond Dagger is a distinction every writer dreams of. It's been an amazing twelve months - inducted into the Hall of Fame, elected to an Honorary Fellowship at St Hilda's College, Oxford and now the Diamond Dagger. But my readers can be reassured about one thing - I'm not going to rest on my laurels. There are still plenty of mountains for me to climb.'
Margaret Murphy, chair of the CWA, said: 'The CWA Cartier Diamond Dagger award acknowledges the work of an author who has made an outstanding contribution to the genre.
'Val McDermid is a worthy winner whose work has entertained and thrilled millions of readers as well as many more who have enjoyed the TV adaptations her books have inspired.'
The prize will be presented at a ceremony yet to be confirmed.
