Jonathan Coe talks to Val McDermid

Award-winning novelist Jonathan Coe discusses his latest novel, The Proof of my Innocence, a blisteringly funny political critique wrapped up in a murder mystery, and the art of crime writing with one of the UK’s best known crime writers Val McDermid.

Chris is investigating a sinister think tank founded in Cambridge in the 1980s that is now scheming to send the UK in a more extreme direction. Britain has a new prime minister who will only last seven weeks. Chris takes his investigation to a conference in the Cotswolds where events take a sinister turn and a murder enquiry is soon in progress.

Coe is the bestselling author of 15 novels including The Accidental Woman, What a Carve Up!, winner of the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize and the Prix du Meilleur Livre Étranger in France, and The House of Sleep, winner of the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain Best Novel award and the French Prix Médicis. A film of Mr Wilder & Me is in development. Coe’s work been translated into 22 languages.

McDermid has sold more than 19 million books to date across the globe and has been translated into more than 40 languages.  Her multi-award-winning series and standalone novels have been adapted for television and radio, most recently with ITV’s adaptation of the Karen Pirie series, featuring a Scottish cold case detective.  Among her many awards are the Crime Writers’ Association Diamond Dagger recognising lifetime achievement and the Theakstons Old Peculier award for Outstanding Contribution to Crime Writing.  Her new Karen Pirie novel, Silent Bones, publishes in October 2025.

Part of the festival’s crime fiction programme.