Val McDermid is a No.1 bestseller, translated into more than thirty languages, with over two million copies sold in the UK and over ten million worldwide. Val has won many awards internationally, including the CWA Gold Dagger for best crime novel of the year and the the Stonewall Writer of the Year Award. In 2011, Val was the recipient of the Pioneer Award at the 23rd Annual Lambda Literary Awards. In 2010, she was awarded the prestigious CWA Cartier Diamond Dagger. This followed her induction into the Hall of Fame at the ITV3 Crime Thriller Awards in 2009, the same year in which she was elected to an Honorary Fellowship at St Hilda's College, Oxford.