Edinburgh (Scotland) book series in reading order

by Alanna Knight

by Alexander McCall Smith

by Quintin Jardine

by Helen Fields

Ian Rankin

74 books• 13 series

Sir Ian Rankin is a Scottish crime writer and philanthropist, born in Fife on 28 April 1960, and the creator of the Inspector Rebus novels. Rankin was the first member of the family to go to university and held several jobs before turning to writing. The Rebus novels belong to the tartan noir genre, have won domestic and international awards and have sold more than 35 million copies. Knots and Crosses (1987), the first Rebus book, placed eighth in a 2016 poll of the best Scottish novels. The catalogue holds 74 Rankin books, from The Flood (1986) to The Heights (2026), including the Malcolm Fox series and Edinburgh-set police procedurals.

Alexander McCall Smith

165 books• 25 series

Sir Alexander McCall Smith, born 24 August 1948, is a Scottish legal scholar and novelist who created The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series. Born and raised in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), McCall Smith was Professor of Medical Law at the University of Edinburgh and worked on medical law and bioethics committees. English-language sales passed 40 million by 2010, with translations into 46 languages. The catalogue lists 165 books from White Hippo (1980) to 2026, including 44 Scotland Street, Isabel Dalhousie, Detective Varg and children's titles.

Alanna Knight was a British writer based in Edinburgh, born Gladys Allan Cleet, who lived from 1923 to 2020 and held an MBE. Knight wrote over sixty novels across romance, crime, historical and time travel fiction, along with plays, biographies and histories, and sometimes published as Margaret Hope. The Inspector Faro mysteries, set around the Edinburgh police, are her best known series, with Rose McQuinn, Tam Eildor and Annie Kelty beside them. The catalogue records 72 Knight titles between 1970 and 2021.

James Oswald

25 books• 5 series

James Oswald is a Scottish writer and farmer. Two sequences define the catalogue: the Inspector McLean crime novels, set in Edinburgh, and the Ballad of Sir Benfro fantasy series, published under the name J. D. Oswald. Oswald self-published at first, moved to Penguin Books, and from 2018 has been published by Wildfire, where the Inspector McLean run continued and DC Constance Fairchild arrived as a new lead. 25 books are catalogued, from Dreamwalker (2012) to The Violent Hour (2026). Dragons, magic, murder and investigation carry the subject tags.

Quintin Jardine, born in 1945, is a Scottish crime novelist with three series to his name. Bob Skinner, a police officer in Edinburgh, heads the longest of them, from Skinner's Rules (1993) through Skinner's Festival, Skinner's Trail, Murmuring the Judges and Skinner's Ghosts. Oz Blackstone and Primavera Blackstone carry the other two, starting with Blackstone's Pursuits (1996). Sixty-two books are catalogued through 2026, each around 400 pages, and Scotland supplies the setting throughout.

Irvine Welsh

24 books• 9 series

Irvine Welsh, born 27 September 1958, is a Scottish novelist, short story writer, screenwriter and filmmaker. The fiction is nearly always set in Scotland and portrays working-class life, including drug addiction, social alienation, lack of opportunity and boredom. Trainspotting (1993), the debut novel, was adapted into a film of the same name. The catalogue counts 24 books, among them The Acid House (1994), Filth (1998), Glue (2001) and Porno (2005), through Men In Love (2025). Trainspotting / Mark Renton and Terry Lawson are series.

Edinburgh police procedurals are Helen Fields's main line, with D.I. Callanach as the recurring detective. The Perfect titles sit in the middle of the listing: Perfect Remains and Perfect Prey (2017), Perfect Death and Perfect Silence (2018), Perfect Crime (2019) and Perfect Kill (2020). Fifteen entries run from The Immolation of Eve (2011) to Watching You (2025), with Eve MacKenzie's Demons as a second series.

Tony Black is a Scottish crime writer working largely in tartan noir. Gus Dury, DI Bob Valentine, DI Rob Brennan and Doug Michie head the series, and Edinburgh, journalists and political corruption appear in the subjects. Paying for It (2008) and Gutted (2009) are the earliest books. Irvine Welsh has named Black as a favourite British crime writer. Black was born in Australia to Scottish parents and grew up in Scotland and Ireland. The Lock-In (2023) is the latest of 23 books.

Allan Guthrie, born Allan Buchan in 1965, is a Scottish crime writer who also works as a literary agent and editor. Guthrie was born in Orkney and has lived in Edinburgh for most of his adult life; Edinburgh heads the places indexed in the catalogue, alongside hard-boiled mystery, revenge, extortion and ex-convicts. Two-Way Split (2004) was shortlisted for the CWA Debut Dagger and took the Theakston's Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award in 2007, and Kiss Her Goodbye (2005) drew Edgar, Anthony and Gumshoe nominations. Ten books are catalogued through to Bad Men (2013), and the Pearce series carries the Guthrie credit.

Gillian Galbraith is a Scottish crime writer who practised as an advocate before turning to fiction. The detective at the centre of the work, DS Alice Rice, is based in Edinburgh. Eight books are catalogued between 2007 and 2019, from Blood in the Water (2007) to The End of the Line (2019), by way of Where the Shadow Falls (2008), Dying of the Light (2009), No Sorrow to Die (2010), The Road to Hell (2012), The Good Priest (2014) and Troubled Waters (2014). Recorded subjects include women detectives, police procedure, murder and investigation in Edinburgh. Two series carry the name: Alice Rice and Father Vincent Ross.

Val McDermid

55 books• 13 series

Val McDermid, born 4 June 1955, is a Scottish crime writer whose work falls under the Tartan Noir label and is noted for unflinching violence. The catalogue runs to 55 books, from Report For Murder (1987) to Winter: The Story of a Season (2026). McDermid's best-known novels follow clinical psychologist Tony Hill and his colleagues in the police, a sequence televised as Wire in the Blood from 2002 to 2008. Inspector Karen Pirie, Lindsay Gordon and Kate Brannigan are the other named series. Awards on record include the Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger and the Cartier Diamond Dagger.

Samantha Young has 73 books in the catalogue, from Lunarmorte / Moon Spell / Hunted (2010) to Autumn's Winterhaven (2026), with Isle of Thistles set for 2027. Recorded subjects include contemporary, paranormal and fantasy romance, jinn, teenage girls and Scotland. On Dublin Street is one of the series, alongside Highlands, Adair Family, Hart's Boardwalk, Scottish Isles, Play On, Fire Spirits, Warriors of Ankh and the True Immortality books published as S. Young. Early titles include Blood Past (2011), Smokeless Fire (2011) and Borrowed Ember (2012).

Doug Johnstone

19 books• 2 series

Doug Johnstone, born in 1970, is a Scottish crime writer based in Edinburgh. Tombstoning (2006) and The Ossians (2008) opened the catalogue, and The Jump (2015) was shortlisted for the McIlvanney Prize for Scottish crime writing. Fault Lines, Johnstone's ninth novel, appeared in 2018. The Skelfs series and the Enceladons Trilogy organise the later work, which reaches The Transcendent Tide in 2025. Nineteen titles are catalogued at around 272 pages each. Johnstone has held Royal Literary Fund fellowships, including one at Queen Margaret University from 2014 to 2016.

Oscar de Muriel writes historical crime set in Edinburgh. The Frey & McGray novels pair two detectives across ten catalogued books, from The Strings of Murder (2015) and A Fever of the Blood (2016) through The Loch of the Dead (2018) and The Dance of the Serpents (2020) to The Sign of the Devil (2022). The End of the Vodka (2026) is the most recent title, and the novels run to a median of 432 pages.

Carole Lawrence writes mystery and thriller fiction. Catalogue subjects record criminal profilers, serial murderers, murder and investigation, women sleuths, Edinburgh and New England, with Claire Rawlings named as a recurring fictional character. Three series are listed: Lee Campbell Mystery, Claire Rawlings and Ian Hamilton Mysteries. The 13 catalogued books run from 1999 to 2022, taking in Silent Screams (2009), Silent Victim (2010), Silent Kills (2011), Edinburgh Twilight (2017) and Edinburgh Dusk (2018), and closing with Cleopatra's Dagger (2022). Three titles from 1999 to 2001 are listed under the name Carole Bugge.