Valarie McDermid, (born 4 June 1955) is a Scottish crime writer, best known for a series of novels featuring clinical psychologist Dr. Tony Hill and his collaborators in the police department.

She studied English at St Hilda's College, Oxford,[1] where she was the first student to be admitted from a Scottish state school.

McDermid has said that her character of Jacko Vance, a TV celebrity with a secret lust for torture, murder and under-age girls, who she featured in Wire in the Blood and two later books, is based on her direct personal experience of interviewing Jimmy Savile.

[15] In February 2022, McDermid said she would be withdrawing her support and sponsorship from Raith Rovers after the club signed striker David Goodwillie, who had been ruled to have raped a woman and made to pay damages in a civil case in 2017.

[16][17] Following the signing of Goodwillie, Raith Rovers women's team severed ties with the main club and renamed themselves McDermid Ladies, after the writer.

[20] McDermid was signing books, and a woman asked her to autograph a Top of the Pops annual which contained a picture of the disgraced late TV presenter Jimmy Savile.

[22][23] Northumbria Police arrested Sandra Botham, a 64-year-old woman from the Hendon area of Sunderland, on suspicion of assault.

[23][24] Botham was convicted of common assault on 10 July 2013,[25] received a 12-month community order with supervision and was made to pay £50 compensation and a £60 victim surcharge.

[2] On 23 October 2016 McDermid married her partner of two years, Jo Sharp, a Professor of Geography at the University of Glasgow.