Order of Val McDermid Books

Val McDermid is a Scottish novelist of crime fiction, best known for her suspense novels featuring Tony Hill and Carol Jordan. Her other characters include lesbian journalist Lindsay Gordon and private investigator Kate Brannigan. McDermid considers her books to fall under the Tartan Noir crime fiction genre.

McDermid’s first novel was Report for Murder in 1987, part of the Lindsay Gordon series. Since ’87, she has written several different novels in all three of her series. Below is a list of Val McDermid’s published works in order of when they were originally released and in chronological order:

Publication Order of Lindsay Gordon Books

Report for Murder	(1987)
Common Murder	(1989)
Final Edition	(1991)
Union Jack	(1993)
Booked for Murder	(1996)
Hostage to Murder	(2003)

Publication Order of Kate Brannigan Books

Dead Beat	(1992)
Kick Back	(1993)
Crack Down	(1994)
Clean Break	(1995)
Blue Genes	(1996)
Star Struck	(1998)

Publication Order of Tony Hill/Carol Jordan Books

The Mermaids Singing	(1995)
The Wire in the Blood	(1997)
The Last Temptation	(2002)
The Torment of Others	(2004)
Beneath the Bleeding	(2007)
Fever of the Bone	(2009)
The Retribution	(2011)
Cross and Burn	(2013)
Splinter the Silence	(2015)
Insidious Intent	(2017)
How the Dead Speak	(2019)

Publication Order of Karen Pirie Books

The Distant Echo	(2003)
A Darker Domain	(2008)
The Skeleton Road	(2014)
Out of Bounds	(2016)
Broken Ground	(2018)

Publication Order of Austen Project Books

Northanger Abbey

(2014)

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

A Place of Execution	(1999)
Killing the Shadows	(2000)
The Grave Tattoo	(2006)
Trick of the Dark	(2011)
The Vanishing Point	(2012)

Publication Order of Short Stories/Novellas

Cleanskin

(2006)

Publication Order of Short Story Collections

The Writing on the Wall and Other Stories	(1997)
Naked Came the Phoenix	(2001)
Magnetic North: New Work from North East Writers	(2005)
Stranded	(2005)

Publication Order of Picture Books

My Granny is a Pirate

(2012)

Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books

A Suitable Job For a Woman: The World of Female Private Investigators	(1995)
Forensics: An Anatomy of Crime	(2014)

Notes: Final Edition was published as both Open and Shut and Deadline for Murder in the United States. Union Jack was published as Conferences are Murder in the United States. Naked Came the Phoenix is a collaborative novel with contributions by Nevada Barr, Mary Jane Clark, Diana Gabaldon, J.A. Jance, Faye Kellerman, Laurie R. King, Perri O’Shaughnessy, Anne Perry, Nancy Pickard, J.D. Robb, Lisa Scottoline and Marcia Talley. Magnetic North also contains contributions by Neil Astley, Andrew Crumey, Julia Darling, Sean O’Brien and Jacob Polley.

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