Big Interview with Steph McGovern on her debut crime novel
Award-winning journalist and broadcaster Steph McGovern has been a familiar presence on our TV screens for several years whether as the business reporter for BBC Breakfast, the host of her own C4 show Steph’s Packed Lunch, which ran from 2020 to 2023, or as a panellist, and sometimes host, on the long-running current affairs comedy quiz show Have I Got News for You?
Now McGovern is adding another string to her bow. Her debut novel Deadline was published this month and next weekend she will be appearing in Harrogate at Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival in conversation with the Queen of Crime herself, Val McDermid. Deadline is a pacy thriller set in the world of television. It opens as TV reporter Rose Steedman is about to do one of the biggest interviews of her career with one of the most powerful men in the country, live on national television. While on air, partway through the interview, Rose hears an unfamiliar voice come through her earpiece telling her that her wife and child have been kidnapped and in order to protect them, Rose has to do exactly what the hijacker says. It’s the high-stakes starting point for a propulsive multi-layered page-turner full of twists, lots of behind-the-scenes insight into the world of television, nicely humorous workplace banter and plenty of food for thought.
It is an extremely accomplished first novel that has deservedly received positive reviews so far, including from big hitters in the genre such as Ann Cleeves, creator of the Vera Stanhope and Shetland series of books, both adapted for television, who described it as “a pacy, witty, engaging thriller, entertaining and delightfully authentic, but hard-hitting and thought-provoking too”. Cleeves was one of the early readers of the manuscript and was very encouraging. “I am lucky enough to be good mates with Val McDermid and Ann Cleeves,” says McGovern. “And they have both been so helpful.”
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McGovern may be a new voice in the genre but she is no stranger to crime fiction – or to the Crime Writing Festival where she has been involved as a judge many times. “I’m a massive crime fiction fan; I read a lot of it and I go to the festival every year – it’s a highlight for me, but I have never had the confidence to write,” she says. “I think that’s partly because I read a lot, I know how good everyone else is.” The premise for the novel emerged from a ‘what if’ scenario that McGovern had found herself pondering. “I used to wonder what I would do if a broadcast got hijacked. People assume that TV is really secure but often you are in a field on your own with a camera operator. I used to say to my team ‘what would you do if…’ I just found it interesting. Then I just started to write stuff down, not with any idea of it becoming anything but just for my own interest.”
Then during the Covid lockdown in 2020, she found she had some time and space to develop the idea. “I had a new TV show and a new born baby, so I was quite busy but when I wasn’t working, I thought I could go into this fictional land,” she says. She sent the first 10,000 words to Ann Cleeves and after receiving supportive feedback from her, decided to continue. “I took a long time in writing it – it has taken about five years. Val said to me that all writers put quite a lot of autobiography into their first novel – it’s been a good way for me to talk about the things I care about.” The protagonist is loosely based on herself. “There are similarities between me and Rose but I didn’t think of me as I was writing her. A lot of what I drew on are things I have seen or done myself – I have observed that divide between those inside the media-political bubble and everyone outside it. I wanted the book to also be about how power and wealth can lead to corruption.”
McGovern was born in North Shields and raised in Middlesbrough and is proud of her roots. Having lived in Harrogate for a few years, she is now back in the North East having moved to Tynemouth to be nearer to family. She grew up in a creative household. “My dad was an artist and I was surrounded by his work. He painted beautiful landscapes and made interesting sculptures. Our house was like a museum of curiosities for the kids in our area. There were times when I wanted to be like everyone else and I would play it down, but I have totally come to love it. My mum was a radiographer for 40 years and she is much more scientific; I sit somewhere in the middle.”
As a business reporter McGovern is incisive and knowledgeable, a clear communicator who knows her subject well and makes it very engaging, a skill which is evident in the podcast series The Rest Is Money that she co-hosts with ITV political editor and old friend Robert Peston. “I love explaining economics,” she says. “Everybody could understand it if it was explained to them in a way that was more relatable to their lives.” Her introduction to business came through her school and set her on a path which eventually led to her media career.
“My school was a technical college supported by industry, it was run a bit like a business and it offered a tangible introduction to the world of work,” she says. “I was growing up in an area of heavy industry and deprivation and I wanted a job that would be secure and pay well. I loved engineering and I started as an apprentice, then the media came to me.” She was brought to their attention through her success as a young engineer. “I won some awards and I was interviewed on radio and TV and I realized I absolutely loved it,” she says. “At that time there was no obvious way for someone with my background to get into television.” But she was determined and she approached people in the industry she had met while doing media interviews. She got some work experience on Tomorrow’s World, answered the phone on Moneybox and eventually secured work as a current affairs researcher, before moving in front of the camera. “I knew I was different for being Northern and that became my USP,” she says. “That was 20 years ago, so it was quite unusual for someone with a regional accent to be presenting.”
In addition to her successful, high-profile media career, McGovern will be continuing to write and has already started work on her next book. “It’s so much fun, I love it,” she says. “And I’m looking forward to being back in Harrogate for the festival – it’s such a lovely atmosphere. They get the best crime writers from around the world and they are all wandering around and chatting to people who love their books. We actually had a family holiday booked and we rescheduled it so we could go to the festival.”
Steph McGovern appears at Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival, Harrogate on July 20. The festival runs July 17-20. Deadline by Steph McGovern is published by Macmillan, hardback £20.