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Val McDermid is a top ten bestseller, translated into more than thirty languages, with over two million copies sold in the UK and over ten million worldwide.

She 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.

Also by Val McDermid

 

A Place of Execution 

Killing the Shadows 

The Distant Echo 

The Grave Tattoo 

A Darker Domain 

Trick of the Dark 

The Vanishing Point 

 

TONY HILL NOVELS

The Mermaids Singing 

The Wire in the Blood 

The Last Temptation 

The Torment of Others 

Beneath the Bleeding 

Fever of the Bone 

The Retribution 

 

KATE BRANNIGAN NOVELS

Dead Beat 

Kick Back 

Crack Down 

Clean Break 

Blue Genes 

Star Struck 

 

LINDSAY GORDON NOVELS

Report for Murder 

Common Murder 

Final Edition 

Union Jack 

Booked for Murder 

Hostage to Murder 

 

SHORT STORY COLLECTIONS

The Writing on the Wall 

Stranded 

Christmas is Murder 

 

NON-FICTION

A Suitable Job for a Woman 

COPYRIGHT

 

Published by Little, Brown

 

978-1-4055-2312-7

 

All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

 

Copyright © Val McDermid 2013

 

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

 

Lines from ‘Hammersmith Winter’ from the collection The Wrecking Point (Picador) reproduced with kind permission of Robin Robertson.

 

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.

 

The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.

 

LITTLE, BROWN

Little, Brown Book Group

100 Victoria Embankment

London, EC4Y 0DY

 

CROSS AND BURN

Table of Contents

 

About the Author

 

Also by Val McDermid

 

COPYRIGHT

 

Dedication

 

Acknowledgements

 

Epigraph

 

1:  Day one

 

2:  Day twenty-four

 

3 

 

4 

 

5 

 

6 

 

7 

 

8 

 

9 

 

10 

 

11 

 

12 

 

13 

 

14 

 

15 

 

16 

 

17 

 

18 

 

19 

 

20 

 

21 

 

22:  Day twenty-five

 

23 

 

24 

 

25 

 

26 

 

27 

 

28 

 

29 

 

30 

 

31 

 

32:  Day twenty-six

 

33 

 

34 

 

35 

 

36 

 

37 

 

38 

 

39 

 

40 

 

41 

 

42 

 

43 

 

44 

 

45 

 

46 

 

47 

 

48 

 

49 

 

50 

 

51 

 

52 

 

53 

 

54 

 

55 

 

56 

 

57:  Day twenty-seven

 

58 

 

59 

 

60 

 

61 

 

62 

 

63 

 

64 

 

65:  Day twenty-eight

 

66 

 

67:  Day twenty-nine

 

For my friends by the sea – thank you for taking me in and bringing me home.

Acknowledgements

 

Somewhere in my youth or childhood, I must have done something good. I can’t think of any other reason why I am so lucky in the support systems that enable me to put this book in your hands. Some of them are experts who give up their time and expertise; some of them are my own backroom team; others go above and beyond the call of professional duty.