Scottish Crime Fiction

It's early September in Glenkillen, Scotland, when American expat (and romance novelist) Eden Elliott is recruited by the local inspector to act as a special constable. Fortunately it's in name only, since not much happens in Glenkillen. For now Eden has her hands full with other things: preparing for the sheepdog trial on the MacBride farm, a fundraiser for the hospice, and helping her friend Vicki with her first yarn club skein-of-the-month deliveries. Everything seems to be going well until the head of the welcoming committee is found strangled to death with a club member's yarn.

Delaney Nichols is delighted with her life in Edinburgh, working at The Cracked Spine - a shop that specializes in hard-to-find books and artifacts. Outside the church where Delaney is searching for a reverend for her upcoming wedding, she stumbles across Norval Fraser: an elderly man obsessed with the Loch Ness monster. Always attracted to the interesting and unusual, Delaney befriends Norval. But when his nephew is found dead, the police decide Norval's obsession has moved from monsters to murder.

When a small bone at the centre of a famous sculpture is revealed to be human, three people become intimately connected by the secrets and lies that put it there. Set on a Scottish tidal island connected to the mainland for just a few hours each day, and home to only one inhabitant, The Blue Hour asks questions of ambition, power, art and perception.

When silence falls, who will hear their cries? The body of a young girl is found dumped on the roadside on the outskirts of Edinburgh. When pathologists examine the remains, they make a gruesome discovery: the outline of a doll carved into the victim’s skin. DCI Ava Turner and DI Luc Callanach are struggling to find leads in the case until a doll made of skin is found nestled beside an abandoned baby. After another young woman is found butchered, Luc and Ava realise the babydoll killer is playing a horrifying game. And it’s only a matter of time before he strikes again.

Legal investigator Maggie is in Scotland, attending her first-ever music festival at the age of forty-four - and it's not raining! But this is work, not pleasure, as she tries to negotiate a divorce settlement for her client, the wife of Scotland's biggest rock star. Meanwhile DCI Frank Stewart has landed another cold case, as startling new evidence sheds light on a historic allegation of sexual assault. All roads lead to the beautiful Highlands, where the majestic but dangerous River Spey is in full spate, a willing but unknowing accomplice to murder. If you love LJ Ross, Joy Ellis and ...

One winter's night, bookseller Delaney Nichols and her coworker Hamlet are invited to a Burns Night dinner, a traditional Scottish celebration of the poet Robert Burns. She's perplexed by the invitation, but intrigued. The dinner takes place at Burns House itself, a tiny cottage not far from the Cracked Spine bookshop but well hidden. There, it becomes clear that Delaney and Hamlet were summoned in an attempt to make amends between Edwin, Delaney's boss, and one of the other invitees, who suspected Edwin for burning down his own bookshop.

It's the run-up to Christmas, 1998. On the Isle of Mull, Sergeant Ivor Punch is losing himself in his vinyl collection, a tragic anniversary and too much single malt whisky. But news of a missing child soon brings him back to his senses. And as word spreads of more strange disappearances, an aircraft vanishing from the sky and a famous classical musician gone with it, it seems a sinister plot holds the island in its grip. Punch thought he knew the secrets of this place, its people and stories.

A lawyer is found dead at sunrise on a lonely clifftop at Dunnet Head on the northernmost tip of Scotland. It was supposed to be his honeymoon, but now his wife will never see him again. The case is linked to several mysterious deaths, including the murder of the lawyer’s last client—Scotland’s most notorious criminal...who had just walked free. DS Max Craigie knows this can only mean one thing: they have a vigilante serial killer on their hands.

Scotland has a dead body problem. Another one. And in the wake of a similar spate of tribute killings, Special Agents Luke Kendrick and Carly MacDonald know they have their work cut out for them. Working alongside a new team of agents, the partners have more questions than answers when the crime scenes yield little evidence. In the style of infamous killers Burke and Hare, it appears victims are being moved to a secondary location, where they’re dissected and sold for spare parts.

After a young man's body is discovered by a newlywed couple inside an abandoned caravan, the police initially speculate whether his death was accidental. However, the investigation takes a dramatic turn when they uncover the victim's true identity. The deceased has a deadly past, and barely paid the price for the heinous crime he committed. DCI Harry McNeil is assigned the task of identifying the victim’s killer, but the case soon becomes shrouded in secrecy. The man's past is far more complex than anyone had anticipated.

'A fantastic writer.' Donald Ray Pollock 'Nigel Bird is fast becoming one of the top writers in his genre.' Luca Veste DIRTY OLD TOWN is the debut collection from the prize-winning writer Nigel Bird. His brilliantly observed slices of life allow us to visit places we may not normally choose to enter and to walk a few miles in the shoes of others. Though his tales have darkness at their core, they are also full of a heart and spirit that one rarely finds in the world or ‘noir’ or ‘crime-writing’. There are 9 stories here: Drinking Wine (Spo-Dee-Oh-Dee); Dirty Old Town; Sea Minor; ...

The head of Scotland’s most powerful crime family is brutally murdered, his body dumped inside an ancient grave in a remote cemetery. DS Max Craigie and DC Janie Calder arrive at the scene, a small town where everyone has secrets to hide. They soon realise this murder is part of a blood feud between two Scottish families that stretches back to the 1800s. One thing’s for certain: it might be the latest killing, but it won’t be the last.

“Sean Miller - a rogue of the first water; a former Army sniper, he seems unable to stay out of a fight.” Sean Miller’s fighting a guerrilla war in Spain when he’s called back to Britain. His task? To seek out an assassin as dangerous as himself. A sniper whose deadly aim could plunge the world into war. As the shadow of the Nazis falls across Europe, a sinister conspiracy plots a secret war closer to home. Miller’s pursuit leads from the menacing alleys of London’s East End to the lonely mountains of Scotland. A duel to the death where there can be only one victor in the ...

On New Year’s Day, Shetland lies buried beneath a deep layer of snow. Trudging home, Fran Hunter's eye is drawn to a vivid splash of colour on the white ground, ravens circling above. It is the strangled body of her teenage neighbour. As Fran opens her mouth to scream, the ravens continue their deadly dance. The body is found close to the home of a lonely outcast and local suspicion falls firmly on him. But when Inspector Jimmy Perez insists on broadening the search for suspects, a veil of distrust and fear is thrown over the entire community.

His Majesty’s Prison BlackRock is where Evil is sent to die. None of the killers imprisoned on the island prison, 30 miles off the coast of Scotland, will ever leave. When Scottish billionaire, social philanthropist, and prison reformer, Ethan Mackay, is murdered during a VIP visit to the island, it becomes dangerously clear that not all the murderers are behind bars. Cut off from the mainland during a ferocious winter storm, the rest of the VIP tour take refuge in the Governor’s residence and patiently wait for the storm to pass. But what secrets lurk beneath the surface? What ...

Jennifer MacKenzie being hit by a car was a tragic accident. Or so it seemed. Until Connor is summoned to a meeting with his girlfriend's dad, Duncan McKenzie. MacKenzie claims that Jen's accident was actually a message intended for him - and a way to force him to kill his trusted Lieutenant Paulie King, who has now mysteriously disappeared. His request to Connor is simple. Find Paulie and the men who hurt his daughter. Do whatever it takes.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Brilliant! ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ I love this series! ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Three books in one! ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Hooked from the first chapter. The past never truly leaves us. We can turn our backs, bury it deep, but eventually, it will find its way to the surface. D.S. John Anderson is tasked with exposing a major organised crime syndicate when he stumbles upon a miner’s lamp, engraved with mysterious initials. This unexpected find pulls him back to the Midlothian pit village he once called home. The case takes a sinister turn with the discovery of a group of trafficked children, ...

A wildlife photographer plummets to his death above Fingal's Cave. A young fisherman vanishes without trace. The body of a marine scientist is pulled from the sea, his last recording a haunting piece of evidence. Three seemingly unconnected events on the Isle of Mull draw Private Investigator Teàrlach Paterson back to his childhood home. Hired by the photographer's widow to investigate her husband's death, Teàrlach quickly unravels a tangled web of family feuds, forbidden love and deep betrayals.

In Scotland, the Gandiegow quilters are in an uproar when their favorite fictional quilters - the Buttermilk Guild - are killed off by a best-selling mystery author. Diana McKellen is called in by the publisher to fix this PR nightmare. It's said, there's no such thing as bad publicity, but Diana questions this long-standing notion when an editor is murdered at a book signing.

How long would you wait to take revenge? 'Now,’ Granny said quietly. ‘We shall hold hands in the dark. Then we will know we aren’t on our own.’ When Sergeant Sam Sharpe of the Virginia P.D. contacts Dani Bevan about the murder of one of his officers, the Glasgow DCI doesn’t see how she can help. But as Sam explains further, Dani finds herself entangled in a case which transports her team back to the murky world of the industrial conflicts of the 1970s. Hold Hands in the Dark is the seventh novel in the DCI Dani Bevan series of police procedurals.