Val McDermid Books in Order (Updated February 19, 2026)

Val McDermid is a Scottish crime writer with multiple long-running series that do not share one single continuity. Reading order matters inside each series because character history and consequences carry forward, but you can switch between series without spoilers.

Quick answer

• Safest starting point: The Distant Echo (Karen Pirie #1)
• Best standalone entry: A Place of Execution
• Best “new thread” series start: 1979 (Allie Burns #1)

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Step 1: Pick the vibe you want

If you want modern Scottish cold cases: go Karen Pirie.
If you want profiler-led, psychologically intense serial-killer crime: go Tony Hill & Carol Jordan.
If you want journalist-led, period-anchored crime: go Allie Burns.
If you want early-career private investigator crime: go Kate Brannigan.
If you want a pioneering journalist-amateur sleuth series: go Lindsay Gordon.
If you want one-and-done: choose a standalone.

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Karen Pirie series (read in order)

1. The Distant Echo: The case that defines Karen’s cold-case world and shows how the past can still kill in the present.
2. A Darker Domain: A historic abduction resurfaces when new evidence forces Karen to reopen a story people preferred to leave sealed.
3. The Skeleton Road: A body in Edinburgh turns into an international trail where identity and history are the real battlegrounds.
4. Out of Bounds: A modern DNA lead cracks open an older crime, and the science drags everyone back into the consequences.
5. Broken Ground: A body in remote terrain becomes a fight over inheritance, truth, and who gets to rewrite the past.
6. Still Life: Two investigations intertwine as Karen’s unit is pulled into a disappearance with long-buried institutional stakes.
7. Past Lying: A manuscript seems to map a real crime, forcing Karen to treat fiction as evidence, and suspect it as misdirection.
8. Silent Bones: A body revealed by a landslide pulls Karen into a case that intersects power, reputation, and long-managed secrets.

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Tony Hill & Carol Jordan series (read in order)

1. The Mermaids Singing: The profiler-and-cop dynamic begins with a case that sets the series’ psychological intensity from page one.
2. The Wire in the Blood: A new killer tests the team’s methods, and the personal cost of the work becomes harder to ignore.
3. The Last Temptation: A case with brutal edges pushes Tony’s insights, and Carol’s authority, into open conflict with others.
4. The Torment of Others: A spree shakes the team’s assumptions and makes prior scars feel freshly vulnerable.
5. Beneath the Bleeding: Public spectacle and private violence collide, and the investigation’s pressure hits the leads where they live.
6. Fever of the Bone: A missing-teen case becomes a nightmare of patterns, timing, and the worst uses of online access.
7. The Retribution: An accumulation of enemies and history turns the danger inward, making this a key “don’t skip ahead” entry.
8. Cross and Burn: The series widens its scope again, balancing the case with the consequences of long-running relationships.
9. Splinter the Silence: A sharp, unsettling case where what’s hidden matters as much as what’s done.
10. Insidious Intent: A more intimate kind of threat tests what the team thinks they know about motive and manipulation.
11. How the Dead Speak: A late-series case that lands hardest if you’ve followed how Tony and Carol have changed.

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Allie Burns series (read in order)

1. 1979: A young reporter hunts the kind of story that can make a career, and discovers how quickly journalism can become a target.
2. 1989: The second Allie book expands the stakes and rewards reading book one first for character context and professional fallout.

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Kate Brannigan series (read in order)

1. Dead Beat: A PI case that establishes Kate’s voice, practical, stubborn, and unwilling to be intimidated out of the truth.
2. Kick Back: A second investigation that sharpens the series’ mix of danger, grit, and Kate’s refusal to play nice.
3. Crack Down: The pressure rises as the job turns messier, and Kate’s choices start carrying more personal risk.
4. Clean Break: A case where “starting over” is part of the problem, not the solution.
5. Blue Genes: A crime story shaped by identity and what people will do to protect the version of themselves that sells.
6. Star Struck: A later Kate book that leans into visibility, obsession, and what fame does to the truth.

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Lindsay Gordon series (read in order)

1. Report for Murder: Introduces journalist Lindsay Gordon with a case that blends investigation and social friction into one engine.
2. Common Murder: A second outing that builds the series’ political bite and Lindsay’s willingness to go where others won’t.
3. Final Edition: A case that tightens around motive and narrative control, who gets believed, and why.
4. Union Jack (also published as Conferences Are Murder in the US): A death at an event becomes a sharp look at institutions and performance.
5. Booked for Murder: A later Lindsay case that plays best once you know her methods and her blind spots.
6. Hostage to Murder: The final Lindsay Gordon novel, where stakes and history converge.

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Standalone fiction (read in any order)

These are separate continuities. Choose by premise, not sequence.

• A Place of Execution: A haunting investigation framed by memory and revision, what you “knew” in the past may not survive the present.
• Killing the Shadows: A killer targets the world of crime writing itself, turning storycraft into a weapon.
• The Grave Tattoo: A modern crime with roots in older violence, where research and obsession walk too close together.
• Trick of the Dark: A stand-alone that mixes personal grief with a case that refuses to stay purely rational.
• The Vanishing Point: A tightly driven chase story where disappearance isn’t an end, it’s the start of the real threat.
• Cleanskin: A shorter, fast-moving thriller built around revenge and the danger of having too many enemies.
• Queen Macbeth: A brief, historical reimagining that stands apart from the crime series and reads like a dark legend retold.
• Northanger Abbey: A modern retelling in the Austen “remix” tradition, separate from her crime continuity.

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Short fiction, essays, and other non-series books (optional)

These don’t affect the reading order of the novels.

• Stranded: A collection-format entry best treated as an “extras” book once you already know her voice.
• Resistance: A graphic-novel project, separate continuity and format.
• Forensics – The Anatomy of Crime, Imagine a Country, My Scotland, Winter, Christmas is Murder: Non-fiction/essay/anthology-style works, read anytime.

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Recommended reading routes

Route A (most people): The Distant Echo → continue Karen Pirie in order.
Route B (darkest, most serial): The Mermaids Singing → continue Tony Hill & Carol Jordan in order.
Route C (newer, different angle): 1979 → 1989 (Allie Burns).

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Latest release status

• Most recent Karen Pirie novel: Silent Bones (Karen Pirie #8, 2025).
• Most recent Allie Burns novel: 1989 (Allie Burns #2, 2022).
• No later, reliably confirmed new series novel (Karen Pirie / Tony Hill / Allie Burns) was clearly listed beyond the items above at the time of this update.

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FAQs

Do the Karen Pirie books need to be read in order?
Yes, if you care about Karen’s career and relationships. The cases are distinct, but the personal timeline is cumulative.

Can I read Tony Hill & Carol Jordan without reading Karen Pirie?
Yes. They’re separate series with separate casts and arcs.

Is Allie Burns connected to the other series?
It’s presented as its own series line. Treat it as separate continuity unless a specific crossover is explicitly stated in a given book description.

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Conclusion

If you want the cleanest entry with the least risk of missing context, begin with Karen Pirie at The Distant Echo. If you want a more intense profiler-led series, begin with Tony Hill & Carol Jordan at The Mermaids Singing. If you want a newer “journalism meets crime” thread, begin with 1979 and read forward.