Val McDermid

Author Information
Val McDermid's Latest Book

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  • Bibliography:
    49 Books (5 Series)
  • First Book:
    January 1987
  • Latest Book:
    September 2024
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About the Author

Val Mcdermid was born in Kirkcaldy, Fife, Scotland on 4th june 1955 and she is a crime fiction writer. After graduating from St Hilda's College Oxford she became a journalist, and worked briefly as a dramatist. Her first success as a novelist did not appear until 1987. Her novels, in particular the Tony Hill series, are known for their graphic depictions of violence and torture.

Full Series List in Order

Allie Burns

1 - 1979 (Oct-2021)
2 - 1989 (Oct-2022)

Karen Pirie

1 - The Distant Echo (Oct-2003)
2 - A Darker Domain (Feb-2009)
3 - The Skeleton Road (Dec-2014)
4 - Out of Bounds (Dec-2016)
5 - Broken Ground (Dec-2018)
6 - Still Life (Oct-2020)
7 - Past Lying (Nov-2023)

A Kate Brannigan Mystery

1 - Dead Beat (Apr-1993)
2 - Kick Back (Sep-1993)
3 - Crack Down (Nov-1994)
4 - Clean Break (Oct-1995)
5 - Blue Genes (1996)
6 - Star Struck (1998)

A Lindsay Gordon Mystery

1 - Report for Murder (1987)
2 - Common Murder (1989)
3 - Open and Shut // Final Edition (Apr-1991)
4 - Conferences Are Murder // Union Jack (1993)
5 - Booked for Murder (1996)
6 - Hostage to Murder (Nov-2003)
7 - Deadline for Murder (Sep-2005)

Tony Hill & Carol Jordan

1 - The Mermaids Singing (1995)
2 - The Wire in the Blood (Sep-1998)
3 - The Last Temptation (Sep-2002)
4 - The Torment of Others (Jun-2004)
5 - Beneath the Bleeding (Mar-2008)
6 - Fever of the Bone (Sep-2010)
7 - The Retribution (Jan-2012)
8 - Cross and Burn (Oct-2013)
9 - Splinter the Silence (Dec-2015)
10 - Insidious Intent (Dec-2017)
11 - How The Dead Speak (Dec-2019)

Multi-Author Series List

Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey

Northanger Abbey (Apr-2014)

Book List in Order: 49 titles

  • Report for Murder

    • / Amateur Sleuth
    • Buy Buy
    A Lindsay Gordon Mystery - 1

    In one volume, the first two mysteries featuring a journalist who investigates murder, from the Diamond Dagger winner known as “Britain’s Queen of Crime” (The Times).   From the Edgar Award-nominated author of the DCI Karen Pirie series, t...

  • Common Murder

    • / Amateur Sleuth
    • Buy Buy
    A Lindsay Gordon Mystery - 2

    Lindsay Gordon, Scottish journalist and amateur sleuth, was the first creation of international bestseller Val McDermid. Report for Murder introduced the United Kingdom’s first lesbian detective, and the series has been perennially popular ever ...

  • Open and Shut // Final Edition

    A Lindsay Gordon Mystery - 3

    Two mysteries in one volume featuring the investigating journalist, from the Diamond Dagger Award-winning author.Final Edition When Alison Maxwell, a well-known Glaswegian journalist with an irresistible sexual attraction to both sexes, is found murd...

  • Conferences Are Murder // Union Jack

    • / Amateur Sleuth
    • Buy Buy
    A Lindsay Gordon Mystery - 4

    Lindsay Gordon, Scottish journalist and amateur sleuth, was the first creation of international bestseller Val McDermid. Report for Murder introduced the United Kingdom’s first lesbian detective, and the series has been perennially popular ever ...

  • Dead Beat

    A Kate Brannigan Mystery - 1

    Dead Beat introduces Kate Brannigan, a female private detective set to do for Manchester what V. I. Warshawski has done for Chicago. As a favour, Kate agrees to track down a missing song writer Moira Pollock, a search that takes her into some of the ...

  • Kick Back

    A Kate Brannigan Mystery - 2

    Fresh from her dazzling debut in Dead Beat, Manchester P.I. Kate Brannigan finds herself in search of some concrete evidence on a couple of dirty developers. The savvy and down-to-earth detective is reluctant to take on her secretary's new heartthrob...

  • Crack Down

    A Kate Brannigan Mystery - 3

    Kate Brannigan has seen her share of foul play on the job, even though her Manchester investigation firm handles mostly white collar crime. But when she and her boyfriend Richard, a rock music critic, go undercover to get the goods on a car dealershi...

  • The Mermaids Singing

    • / Police Procedural
    • Buy Buy
    Tony Hill & Carol Jordan - 1

    THE PERFECT CRIMINAL Another body has been found. The fourth. Now even the most reluctant members of the Bradfield police department have to admit they have a serial killer on their hands. A sicko. All the victims have been young men, their naked ...

  • Clean Break

    A Kate Brannigan Mystery - 4

    TRACKING A MASTERPIECE, TRAPPING A KILLER When a precious Monet painting is nicked from a posh British estate where Kate Brannigan arranged the security, the tough-talking PI is right on the job to get it back. For Kate, whose sources extend from Ma...



  • Blue Genes

    • / Private Investigator
    • Buy Buy
    A Kate Brannigan Mystery - 5


    “A fast-paced joyride that swoops and curves past (or right over) the villains with barely a pause . . . readers will happily keep up, even if it leaves them a little breathless.” -- Publishers Weekly


    Kate Brannigan is having a b...

  • Booked for Murder

    • / Amateur Sleuth
    • Buy Buy
    A Lindsay Gordon Mystery - 5

    The fifth and sixth novels starring the self-proclaimed “cynical socialist lesbian feminist journalist” from the internationally bestselling crime writer.   “The macho world of the whodunit has never seen a sleuth like Lindsay Gordon” a...

  • The Writing On The Wall

    in 3rd Culprit (Worldwide)

    Crime in all its devious incarnations is presented in this treat of murderous morsels dished out by old ppros and promising newcomers. Artfully crafted and impossible to put down, each story bountifully demooonstrates why these authors are la creme d...

  • Star Struck

    • / Private Investigator
    • Buy Buy
    A Kate Brannigan Mystery - 6


    “There is no one in contemporary crime fiction who has managed to combine the visceral and the humane as well as Val McDermid. . . . She’s the best.” -- The New York Times Book Review


    “McDermid has a sharp ear for the dialo...

  • The Wire in the Blood

    Tony Hill & Carol Jordan - 2

    COMMITTING MURDER IS LIKE MAGIC. THE SLEIGHT OF HAND...THE DECEPTION OF THE EYE. Across the country, dozens of teenage girls have vanished. Authorities are convinced they're runaways with just the bad luck of the draw to connect them. It's the job o...

  • A Place of Execution

    A Greek tragedy in modern England, Val McDermid's A Place of Execution is a taut psychological thriller that explores, exposes, and explodes the border between reality and illusion in a multi-layered narrative that turns expectation on its head and r...

  • Killing the Shadows

    A CUNNING KILLER A killer is on the loose, blurring the line between fact and fiction. His prey--writers of bestselling crime novels--are unaware that they have scripted their own murders, for this diabolical killer reenacts the most chilling scenes...

  • The Last Temptation

    Tony Hill & Carol Jordan - 3

    Coming to terms over her breakup with criminal profiler Dr. Tony Hill, Chief Inspector Carol Jordan plunges into a risky undercover sting: track down a European drug trafficker and gain his confidence. But she's being tracked as well-by a serial kill...

  • The Consolation Blonde

    in Mysterious Pleasures

    'Show me a man or woman who cannot stand mysteries and I will show you a fool. A clever fool -- perhaps -- but a fool just the same' RAYMOND CHANDLER Ever since its creation in 1953, the Crime Writers' Association has celebrated and champione...

  • The Distant Echo

    Karen Pirie - 1

    It was a winter morning in 1978, that the body of a young barmaid was discovered in the snow banks of a Scottish cemetery. The only suspects in her brutal murder were the four young men who found her: Alex Gilbey and his three best friends. With no e...



  • Hostage to Murder

    A Lindsay Gordon Mystery - 6

    Jobless in Glasgow, Lindsay Gordon makes friends with a young freelance journalist Rory McLaren. But when a local car-dealer's stepson is kidnapped, Lindsay and Rory are invited to trade journalism for detection. The trail leads them to St Petersburg...

  • The Torment of Others

    Tony Hill & Carol Jordan - 4

    Dr. Tony Hill and Detective Chief Inspector Carol Jordan return in the award-winning series that is the basis for the hit show on BBC America. In a small grim room, the body of a woman is discovered, panic and pain etched in her face. The scene ma...

  • Deadline for Murder

    A Lindsay Gordon Mystery - 7

    Lindsay Gordon, Scottish journalist and amateur sleuth, was the first creation of international bestseller Val McDermid. Report for Murder introduced the United Kingdom’s first lesbian detective, and the series has been perennially popular ever ...

  • Stranded

    A must-read collection of stories by Scottish crime writer Val McDermid, “one of the bright lights of the mystery field” (The Washington Post).   Val McDermid’s novels have won the Los Angeles Times Book of the Year Award and the Crime Wri...

  • The Grave Tattoo

    From bestselling author Val McDermid comes a modern thriller about an ancient murder set on the high seas... After summer rains uncover a corpse bearing tattoos like those of eighteenth- century seafarers, many residents of the English Lake Distri...

  • Beneath the Bleeding

    Tony Hill & Carol Jordan - 5

    A bedridden criminal profiler helps investigate an athlete’s murder in this explosive crime thriller by the author of The Mermaids Singing.The residents of Bradfield are devastated when their star midfielder dies, the victim of a bizarre, seemingly...

  • Cleanskin

  • A Darker Domain

    Karen Pirie - 2

    Past and present intertwine in this rare stand-alone novel of taut psychological drama--a brilliant exploration of loyalty and greed from the bestselling mistress of suspense. Fife, Scotland, 1985. Heiress Catriona Maclennan Grant and her baby so...

  • Fever of the Bone

    Tony Hill & Carol Jordan - 6

    He is psychologist and criminal profiler Dr. Tony Hill's worst nightmare -- a killer driven by the most perverted hungers and unmoved by youth and innocence, a killer with a long shopping list of victims who leaves no trail. The murder-mutilation of ...

  • Trick of the Dark

    "Val McDermid is one of the bright lights of the mystery field." -- The Washington Post

    "She's the best we've got." -- The New York Times Book Review

    Barred from practice, disgraced psychiatrist Charlie Flint receives a mysterious su...



  • The Retribution

    Tony Hill & Carol Jordan - 7

    Tony Hill has had a good run. He and detective Carol Jordan have put away scores of dangerous criminals at a rate that colleagues envy. But there is one serial killer who has shaped and defined their careers, and whose evil surpasses all others: Jack...

  • My Granny Is a Pirate

    My granny is a pirate!
    She's sailed the seven seas.
    She captured many pirate ships
    But was always home for tea.
    When a family secret about Granny is revealed, we discover all about her fiercesome pirate reputation and her swashbuckling...

  • The Vanishing Point

    One of the finest crime writers we have, Val McDermid’s heart-stopping thrillers have won her international renown and a devoted following of readers worldwide. In The Vanishing Point, she kicks off a terrifying thriller with a nightmare scenario: ...

  • Cross and Burn

    Tony Hill & Carol Jordan - 8

    Val McDermid’s Tony Hill and Carol Jordan novels are thrillers at their best--unbearably suspenseful, psychologically complex, expertly plotted and impossible to predict--and they have riveted millions worldwide. As Cross and Burn opens, Tony and C...

  • Northanger Abbey

    Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey

    Internationally best-selling crime writer Val McDermid has riveted millions of readers worldwide with her acutely suspenseful, psychologically complex, seamlessly plotted thrillers. In Northanger Abbey, she delivers her own, witty, updated take on Au...

  • The Skeleton Road

    Karen Pirie - 3

    The Skeleton Road is a gripping standalone novel about a cold case that links back to the Balkan Wars of the 1990s. In the center of historic Edinburgh, builders are preparing to demolish a disused Victorian Gothic building. They are understandably s...

  • Splinter the Silence

    Tony Hill & Carol Jordan - 9

    Psychologist Tony Hill and former police detective Carol Jordan are back in SPLINTER THE SILENCE -- a masterful, compulsive read centered on the mysterious deaths of several women who were the victims of vicious cyberbullying. Is it violence if it’...

  • Out of Bounds

    Karen Pirie - 4

    A riveting cold case novel featuring detective Karen Pirie When a teenage joyrider crashes a stolen car and ends up in a coma, a routine DNA test reveals a connection to an unsolved murder from twenty-two years before. Finding the answer to the co...

  • Insidious Intent

    Tony Hill & Carol Jordan - 10

    In the north of England, single women are beginning to disappear from weddings. A wedding crasher is luring the women away―only to torch the victims’ bodies in their own cars in remote locations, leaving behind no personal clues or forensic trace...

  • Broken Ground

    Karen Pirie - 5

    Internationally bestselling author Val McDermid is one of our finest crime writers, and her gripping, masterfully plotted novels have garnered millions of readers from around the globe. In BROKEN GROUND, cold case detective Karen Pirie faces her hard...



  • Footloose

    He was a clinical psychologist who specialized in unraveling the motivations of the twisted killers who wanted to express themselves again and again. She was the kind of detective for whom justice matters more than any other consideration… In th...

  • How The Dead Speak

    Tony Hill & Carol Jordan - 11

    The latest in internationally bestselling crime writer Val McDermid’s beloved series, How The Dead Speak reunites Tony Hill and Carol Jordan after a mysterious skeleton turns up on the grounds of an old orphanage Val McDermid is an award-winning, ...

  • Still Life

    Karen Pirie - 6

    Val McDermid is the award-winning, international bestselling author of more than thirty novels and has been hailed as Britain’s Queen of Crime. In Still Life, McDermid returns to her propulsive series featuring DCI Karen Pirie, who finds herself in...

  • Christmas is Murder

  • Resistance

    A mysterious illness appears in Scotland while a reporter searches for the truth in this graphic novel by the bestselling author of the Karen Pirie series. The first graphic novel from Britain’s “Queen of Crime” (Scotsman) and gorgeously illust...

  • 1979

    Allie Burns - 1

    A Scottish journalist is drawn into a world of corruption, terror, and murder in the new novel by “one of crime fiction’s most eminent writers” (Entertainment Weekly).   The year started badly and only got worse -- blizzards, strikes, powe...

  • All the Way Home

  • 1989

    Allie Burns - 2

    In the new installment to her historical crime series that began with 1979, internationally bestselling author Val McDermid delivers a propulsive new thriller that finds journalist Allie Burns has become an editor, and as the Cold War and AIDS crisis...

  • Past Lying

    Karen Pirie - 7

    In this superb new addition to Val McDermid’s masterful crime series, DCI Karen Pirie returns in a propulsive thriller of deceit and vengeance, set against the disquiet of a global pandemicBritain’s reigning “Queen of Crime” (The Scotsman), V...

  • Queen Macbeth

    Shakespeare created the myth of the Macbeths as indefensible murderous conspirators. But now internationally bestselling author Val McDermid drags the truth out of the shadows, exposing the patriarchal prejudices of historyBritain’s reigning “Que...



Award-Winning Books by Val McDermid

A Darker Domain
2009 RT Reviewers Choice Award -- P.I./Procedural Novel
Fever of the Bone
2010 Lambda Literary Award -- Lesbian Mystery
2011 Lambda Literary Award -- Lesbian Mystery
A Place of Execution
2001 Anthony Award -- Novel
2001 Dilys Award -- Mystery Novel
2001 Macavity Award -- Mystery Novel


Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Val McDermid has published 49 books.

Val McDermid does not have a new book coming out soon. The latest book, Queen Macbeth, was published in September 2024.

The first book by Val McDermid, Report for Murder, was published in January 1987.

Yes. Val McDermid has 5 series.
Author Series
Multi-Author Series
Top Authors in Police Procedural
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