Val McDermid Reading Order

2 books (2021–2022)

Start with 1979 and read in order.

#	Title
1	1979 2021Buy 🇺🇸
2	1989 2022Buy 🇺🇸

21 books (2000–2022)

Start with 12 Days: A Modern Twist on The Twelve Days of Christmas, the first of 21 books in the Anthologies series.

#	Title
1	12 Days: A Modern Twist on The Twelve Days of Christmas 2000Buy 🇺🇸
2	Naked Came the Phoenix 2001Buy 🇺🇸
3	The World's Finest Mystery and Crime Stories 3 2002Buy 🇺🇸
4	Tart Noir 2003Buy 🇺🇸
5	Like a Charm 2004Buy 🇺🇸
6	Magnetic North 2005Buy 🇺🇸
7	The Adventure of the Missing Detective and 19 of the Year's Finest Crime and Mystery Stories 2005Buy 🇺🇸
8	A Merry Band of Murderers 2006Buy 🇺🇸
9	Crime Scenes Revisited: Scottish Popular Fiction 2006Buy 🇺🇸
10	Criminal Tendencies 2009Buy 🇺🇸
11	The Sounds Of Crime 2010Buy 🇺🇸
12	The Killer Cookbook 2012Buy 🇺🇸
13	The Library Book 2012Buy 🇺🇸
14	Inherit the Dead 2013Buy 🇺🇸
15	Out There: An Anthology of Scottish LGBT writing 2014Buy 🇺🇸
16	OxCrimes: 27 Killer Stories from the Cream of Crimewriters 2014Buy 🇺🇸
17	Crime Writers: A Decade of Crime 2016Buy 🇺🇸
18	MatchUp 2017Buy 🇺🇸
19	Bloody Scotland 2019Buy 🇺🇸
20	Exit Wounds 2019Buy 🇺🇸
21	Marple: Twelve New Mysteries 2022Buy 🇺🇸

4 books (2013–2016)

Start with Sense & Sensibility(By: Joanna Trollope), the first of 4 books in the Austen Project series.

#	Title
1	Sense & Sensibility(By: Joanna Trollope) 2013Buy 🇺🇸
2	Emma(By: Alexander McCall Smith) 2014Buy 🇺🇸
3	Northanger Abbey 2014Buy 🇺🇸
4	Eligible(By: Curtis Sittenfeld) 2016Buy 🇺🇸

7 books (2021–2025)

Start with Rizzio(By: Denise Mina), the first of 7 books in the Darkland Tales series.

#	Title
1	Rizzio(By: Denise Mina) 2021Buy 🇺🇸
2	Hex(By: Jenni Fagan) 2022Buy 🇺🇸
3	Columba's Bones(By: David Greig) 2023Buy 🇺🇸
4	Nothing Left to Fear From Hell(By: Alan Warner) 2023Buy 🇺🇸
5	Queen Macbeth 2024Buy 🇺🇸
6	Queen Macbeth 2024Buy 🇺🇸
7	Benbecula(By: Graeme Macrae Burnet) 2025Buy 🇺🇸

1 book (2021–2021)

#	Title
1	Resistance 2021Buy 🇺🇸

8 books (2003–2025)

Start with The Distant Echo, the first of 8 books in the Inspector Karen Pirie series.

#	Title
1	The Distant Echo 2003Buy 🇺🇸
2	A Darker Domain 2008Buy 🇺🇸
3	The Skeleton Road 2014Buy 🇺🇸
4	Out of Bounds 2016Buy 🇺🇸
5	Broken Ground 2018Buy 🇺🇸
6	Still Life 2020Buy 🇺🇸
7	Past Lying 2023Buy 🇺🇸
8	Silent Bones 2025Buy 🇺🇸

6 books (1992–1998)

Start with Dead Beat, the first of 6 books in the Kate Brannigan series.

#	Title
1	Dead Beat 1992Buy 🇺🇸
2	Kick Back 1993Buy 🇺🇸
3	Crack Down 1994Buy 🇺🇸
4	Clean Break 1995Buy 🇺🇸
5	Blue Genes 1996Buy 🇺🇸
6	Star Struck 1998Buy 🇺🇸

7 books (1987–2003)

Start with Report For Murder, the first of 7 books in the Lindsay Gordon series.

#	Title
1	Report For Murder 1987Buy 🇺🇸
2	Common Murder 1989Buy 🇺🇸
3	Final Edition / Open and Shut / Deadline for Murder 1991Buy 🇺🇸
4	Union Jack / Conferences Are Murder 1993Buy 🇺🇸
5	Booked For Murder 1996Buy 🇺🇸
6	Final Edition(With: V.L. McDermid) 1997Buy 🇺🇸
7	Hostage To Murder 2003Buy 🇺🇸

7 books (2016–2022)

Start with Murder under the Christmas Tree, the first of 7 books in the Murderous Christmas Stories series.

#	Title
1	Murder under the Christmas Tree 2016Buy 🇺🇸
2	Murder on Christmas Eve 2017Buy 🇺🇸
3	A Very Murderous Christmas 2018Buy 🇺🇸
4	Murder at Christmas 2019Buy 🇺🇸
5	Murder in Midwinter 2020Buy 🇺🇸
6	Murder on a Winter's Night 2021Buy 🇺🇸
7	Murder in the Falling Snow 2022Buy 🇺🇸

4 books (1994–2026)

Start with A Suitable Job for a Woman, the first of 4 books in the Non-Fiction series.

#	Title
1	A Suitable Job for a Woman 1994Buy 🇺🇸
2	Forensics: What Bugs, Burns, Prints, DNA and More Tell Us About Crime 2014Buy 🇺🇸
3	My Scotland 2019Buy 🇺🇸
4	Winter: The Story of a Season 2026Buy 🇺🇸

1 book (2012–2012)

#	Title
1	My Granny Is a Pirate 2012Buy 🇺🇸

3 books (2006–2010)

Start with Cleanskin and read in order.

#	Title
1	Cleanskin 2006Buy 🇺🇸
2	Happy Holidays 2008Buy 🇺🇸
3	Life's Too Short 2010Buy 🇺🇸

3 books (1997–2020)

Start with Writing on the Wall and Other Stories and read in order.

#	Title
1	Writing on the Wall and Other Stories 1997Buy 🇺🇸
2	Stranded 2004Buy 🇺🇸
3	Christmas is Murder 2020Buy 🇺🇸

5 books (1999–2012)

Start with A Place of Execution, the first of 5 books in the Standalone Novels series.

#	Title
1	A Place of Execution 1999Buy 🇺🇸
2	Killing the Shadows 2000Buy 🇺🇸
3	The Grave Tattoo 2006Buy 🇺🇸
4	Trick of the Dark 2010Buy 🇺🇸
5	The Vanishing Point 2012Buy 🇺🇸

11 books (2017–2019)

Start with Deserves to Be Dead(By: John Sandford,Lisa Jackson), the first of 11 books in the The MatchUp Collection series.

12 books (1995–2019)

Start with The Mermaids Singing, the first of 12 books in the Tony Hill/Carol Jordan series.

#	Title
1	The Mermaids Singing 1995Buy 🇺🇸
2	The Wire In The Blood 1997Buy 🇺🇸
3	The Last Temptation 2002Buy 🇺🇸
4	The Torment of Others 2004Buy 🇺🇸
5	Beneath the Bleeding 2007Buy 🇺🇸
6	Fever of the Bone 2009Buy 🇺🇸
7	The Retribution 2011Buy 🇺🇸
8	Cross and Burn 2013Buy 🇺🇸
9	Splinter the Silence 2015Buy 🇺🇸
10	Insidious Intent 2017Buy 🇺🇸
11	Footloose(With: Peter James) 2019Buy 🇺🇸
12	How the Dead Speak 2019Buy 🇺🇸