RSGS Inspiring People Talk: Jo Sharp & Val McDermid: Darien: This Door of the Seas

Professor Jo Sharp and Val McDermid discuss their novel This Door of the Seas about the Darien Scheme, in conversation with Allan Little.

This Royal Scottish Geographical Society Inspiring People Talk focuses on This Door of the Seas, the 2026 novelisation co-written by Geographer Royal for Scotland Professor Jo Sharp and bestselling author Val McDermid. The novel retells the story of the 1698 Darien Scheme, in which more than 2,500 Scots sailed to the Isthmus of Panama attempting to trade between the world's two great oceans, told through letters from Dr James Wallace to his wife and Sir Robert Sibbald. Jo Sharp and Val McDermid will be in conversation with BBC Special Correspondent Allan Little, who visited Darien in 2014.