Scottish Thrillers

Glasgow is hosting the international climate conference, COP26. Police resources are stretched to their limit. When a delegate is found murdered in his hotel room in a bizarrely staged tableau, DCI Dani Bevan and her team must lead a discreet investigation that won't de-rail the conference but prevents a dangerous killer from striking once again... Bevan has been granted greater resources than for any previous investigation, as the top politicians in the land want the case solved ASAP. But Dani’s murder team are taken far-afield in their search for evidence and the answers they uncover ...

'I was so hooked I didn't want this to end!' - Amazon reviewer Demanding lawyer Jolene Cavendish is not exactly popular with her workmates, so when a witch's hat and broomstick are left on her desk, she laughs it off as a stupid prank. But then the campaign of harassment starts to escalate and lives are threatened. Can barrister-turned-private-eye Maggie Bainbridge and her handsome ex-army assistant Jimmy Stewart find out who's behind it all before someone gets really hurt? A QUESTION OF HONOUR Reconstructive surgeon James Parrish has become a media darling after rebuilding the face of a ...

Abi Logan and her partner, Grant MacEwan, are looking forward to a romantic weekend on a remote island off the coast of Scotland until the ghost of a 15th-century monk appears on the scene, leaving a trail of victims in his wake. The Scottish call this kind of apparition eldritch–weird, ghostly, and sinister. Abi couldn’t agree more, though, unlike the locals, she’s sure this is no spirit of the dead, but a real live person who seems to have a very earthly grudge against Abi, Grant, and their whisky-making host, Neil.

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.

The cold touch of winter has hit Haven Hollow… Something naughty is plaguing the mundanes of Haven Hollow lately. ‘Naughty’ as in dancing curses that leave the victim exhausted and even injured, every milk product in town souring for no apparent reason, and elf-knots that are nearly impossible to brush out of your hair… After deciding these curses are fae created, we call in Prince Reynard, the Prince of the Autumn Court, otherwise known as Fox Aspen. The only problem? Fox is currently waging his own war with our Chief of Police, Taliyah, who is meant to be Fox’s intended but ...

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.

When Edwin, Delaney's boss at the Cracked Spine bookstore, leaves town on secret business, Delaney is called upon to guide his yearly literary tour around Edinburgh. But on the first night of the tour, at the inn where the tour group is staying, the inn manager falls—or is pushed—off the roof of the inn, and killed. Then, one of the tour members disappears, leaving a trail of puzzles in his wake. In a race against the clock, Delaney sets out on the expedition of her life, following clues around Edinburgh to get to the bottom of this mystery.

DI Rob Marshall is stuck in Gartcosh, leading the new Behavioural Sciences Unit – a staff of one and a third – where he’s executing a fruitless hunt, profiling every single murder in Scotland just in case they’re serial cases. But when a young Peebles woman’s body is discovered in Neidpath Tunnel, disused since the sixties, Marshall is called in to consult on a case on his old home turf. Paired up with his replacement, a cop who’s disinterested in the work, Marshall must tread a line between helping and not jumping to conclusions.

Professor Delaney McPhearson's life is turned upside down when her best friend, archaeologist Drew Masters, is found dead. Before she can deal with the heartbreaking loss, she is viciously attacked in her home by a man with inhuman fighting abilities. Former Navy SEAL and head of security for a global think tank, Jake Rogan drops everything when he hears his foster brother, Tom Jeffries, has gone missing. There seem to be no clues, no information about his whereabouts. He has just vanished. But Jake won't rest until he finds him.

Everything’s just going to pieces… I got me a real important job. Important because I need to make my boss, Mr. Howard, happy with me like yesterday. It’s no secret that Mr. Howard has never liked me, but if he fires me? Well, I’m sure that will mean the end of Cain Morgan’s ghost taking up residency inside my head. See, Cain shares my body all because he’s supposed to be helping Taliyah settle into her job as the new Chief of Police. And though Taliyah’s pretty well settled by now (by my way of thinking), no one’s said anything about moving Cain on to the other side. And I ...

When DCI Duncan Bone is contacted by a terminally-ill psychiatric patient and given clues linking a forty-year-old unsolved murder to high-profile public figures, he finds himself locked into a conspiracy at the very heart of the Scottish criminal and political establishment. With his bosses stonewalling the investigation, lives under threat, and his career on the line, Bone faces a race against time to hunt down a group of men who will stop at nothing to cover their murderous crime.

From the dramatic Highlands to bustling cities, the unique landscapes and locales of Scotland have enthralled and shaped generations of mystery writers. This new collection presents 17 classic stories, spanning a period from the 1880s to the 1970s, by a host of Scottish authors alongside writers from south of the border inspired by the history and majesty of the storied country.

Accustomed to the bustle of London, DI Rob Marshall finds himself confronted with the unforgiving Scottish winters he had long left behind. A gruesome discovery off the high road between Stow and Lauder sends shivers down his spine–a man and a woman, both frozen to death with their wrists and ankles bound.

Spring is here, and romance author Eden Elliott has settled into her new life in the picturesque village of Glenkillen. Love is all around her, but Eden is still searching for her own real-life romance. When Eden is invited to a supper in honor of one of Scotland’s most celebrated literary giants, a guest is murdered, and she puts aside her personal issues to dig into deeply buried secrets. But she better find the killer soon if she wants to be alive to overcome that writer’s block - and write another happy ending.

A wicked Scottish winter has just begun when pioneering female physician Sophia Jex-Blake calls on Detective Inspector Ian Hamilton to investigate the suspicious death of one of her patients - a railroad lineman who she believes succumbed to the horrific effects of arsenic poisoning. The most provocative aspect of the case doesn’t escape Hamilton: the married victim’s numerous sexual transgressions. Now, for the first time since the unexplained fire that killed his parents, Hamilton enters the Royal Infirmary to gain the insights of brilliant medical student Arthur Conan Doyle.

A mutilated body is found dumped at Cowane's Hospital in the heart of historic Stirling. For DCI Malcolm Ford it's like nothing he's ever seen before, the savagery of the crime making him want to catch the murderer before he strikes again. For reporter Donna Blake it's a shot at the big time, a chance to get her career back on track and prove all the doubters wrong. But for close protection specialist Connor Fraser it's merely a grisly distraction from the day job.

The disappearance of a three-year-old girl from her isolated Highland home one summer shook the nation. A massive police search involving divers in the loch and dogs combing the moorland and mountains had failed to find Lily Masterton. Three years later, the world may have forgotten the blond-haired girl with the big blue eyes, but her grief-stricken parents hire Private Investigator Teàrlach Paterson—an expert in finding missing children—to bring their precious Lily home. But this is no ordinary family struck by tragedy.

Something is up with Lorcan. And I’m fairly sure I’m not just imagining things—he’s been distracted, working later than usual, appears exhausted, and was that vanilla perfume I smelled on him? Regardless of what’s going on with the undead nuisance, I’ve got my own problems to deal with. Namely, I’ve been pinpointed as the main suspect in a murder! I know—as if I have the time or the interest to kill someone. Ridiculous. Anyway, before this situation gets any worse, I need to prove my innocence, stat. Just how am I going to do that? Stick around and find out…

In Clan MacKenzie, we fight for each other. We die for each other. And when I fell for Chevelle, those same rules applied to her. She loves me, but hates the family business. So, I hid the villain in me until today. Today, I need to do what must be done and that requires the help of the same people she would rather us keep our distance from.

In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity… Or, at least, that’s what Albert Einstein said. But I’m not sure I believe it because it seems everything in my life has gone to heck, but I have yet to find an opportunity in any of it. Things are going so bad, in fact, that I’m wondering if I’ve been cursed. Of course, I don’t really have any enemies, so who in the world would want to curse me? Not only that, but Wanda insists I’m not cursed so maybe this bad luck is just exactly that… bad luck? Well, one thing I do know is that life would be a whole heck of a lot easier if I ...