Anna Smith Books in Order
Browse Anna Smith's books in order, with complete lists for each series, short summaries, background on her journalism, and guidance on the best place to start.
Last updated: December 23, 2025
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Publication Order
19 books
In The Shadows
by Anna Smith
2025
With Lucas safe and a new relationship blooming, Billie Carlson agrees to help Elizabeth Fletcher, who has killed a man she met in a bar and refuses to call the police. Tracking his identity and motives, Billie uncovers dangerous secrets hidden inside a respectable marriage.
Last Seen
by Anna Smith
2024
Life should finally be settling down now Billie Carlson has brought her son Lucas home to Glasgow. Then an anonymous caller asks her to help his brother, jailed for stabbing two men outside a tower block, and Billie's search for the truth makes her a target again.
If I Should Die
by Anna Smith
2023
PI Billie Carlson follows a lead on her missing son to Cleveland, Ohio, only to hit a dead end. Back home, a Swedish friend begs her to investigate his sister's suspicious death in the Highlands, drawing Billie into corruption that stretches back to Sweden.
Until I Find You
by Anna Smith
2022
Once a rising police officer, Billie Carlson now scrapes by as a Glasgow private investigator. A distraught young woman insists her baby has been stolen, and as Billie tests the story she uncovers a twisted criminal network that preys on vulnerable mothers and children.
Trapped
by Anna Smith
2021
Still searching for missing undercover cop Vinny Burns and carrying his child, Kerry Casey is ambushed with her uncle on a country road. Framed with guns, cocaine and two corpses, she lands in a women's prison while her crew races to uncover who set her up.
End Game
by Anna Smith
2020
Physically and emotionally shattered after recent battles, Kerry Casey is offered an alliance by London gangster Wolfie Wolfe and his formidable daughter Hannah. Helping them move stolen diamonds should secure her position, until violent former owners come looking for more than just their loot.
Fight Back
by Anna Smith
2019
Now head of the Casey crime family, Kerry is trying to clean up the business and ditch drug dealers and traffickers. A bold move into Spanish property draws in new enemies, and when her rivals strike at her relatives she is forced into an all-out war.
Blood Feud
by Anna Smith
2018
Kerry Casey built a life away from her Glasgow gangster family, but her brother's funeral ends in a bloody ambush that kills her mother. In the aftermath, Kerry is pushed to lead the Casey crew and vows to hunt down those responsible.
The Hit
by Anna Smith
2017
A money-laundering accountant disappears in Romania and the hitman sent to kill him turns up dead in a Glasgow flat. Rosie Gilmour suspects the grieving widow, then uncovers a ruthless gang selling babies out of orphanages and laundering the profits through respectable fronts.
Death Trap
by Anna Smith
2017
Sadistic killer Thomas Boag escapes custody and is fixated on revenge against Rosie Gilmour. While he stalks the city, Rosie investigates trafficked men kept as modern-day slaves on a farm outside Glasgow, not realising Boag is patiently setting the perfect trap for her.
Rough Cut
by Anna Smith
2016
A young Pakistani bride falls to her death in Glasgow, and Rosie Gilmour suspects it was no accident. At the same time, two prostitutes flee with a dead client's briefcase full of diamonds, drawing Rosie into a violent tangle of forced marriage and smuggling.
Kill Me Twice
by Anna Smith
2016
Scots supermodel Bella Mason falls from a Madrid hotel roof and the world calls it suicide. Rosie Gilmour's investigation into Bella's past, and the testimony of a troubled witness in Westminster, lead to horrific abuse in care homes and a protected circle of predators.
A Cold Killing
by Anna Smith
2015
Returning from hiding in Bosnia, crime reporter Rosie Gilmour walks into the execution-style murder of retired lecturer Tom Mahoney. As she investigates, she discovers his clean academic image hides gun-running, espionage links and secrets powerful people are desperate to keep buried.
Betrayed
by Anna Smith
2014
Back at her newspaper and still bruised from her last case, Rosie Gilmour searches for missing barmaid Wendy Graham. The hunt drags her into the dangerous world of Glasgow's Ulster Volunteer Force, where cocaine money, divided loyalties and old grudges collide.
Screams In The Dark
by Anna Smith
2013
Refugees are vanishing from Glasgow's streets, dismissed as people who simply moved on. When a mutilated body is pulled from the River Clyde, Rosie Gilmour follows the clues through London and Belgrade, exposing a brutal criminal ring preying on the displaced.
To Tell the Truth
by Anna Smith
2012
A three-year-old girl is snatched from a Spanish beach while on holiday with her parents. Sent to cover the story, Rosie Gilmour quickly senses the mother's account is wrong and uncovers a terrifying trafficking network stretching from Spain to Glasgow and Morocco.
The Dead Won't Sleep
by Anna Smith
2011
When the body of fourteen-year-old Tracy Eadie washes up near Glasgow, most see just another dead junkie. Reporter Rosie Gilmour follows a lead from the streets to a children's home and uncovers a sickening trail of abuse and establishment cover ups.
The Homecoming
by Anna Smith
2004
In 1960s Westerbank, a remote farming village in south-west Scotland, survival matters more than fashion. When Joe McBride returns after fifteen years away, old secrets about a young girl's death surface, forcing the tight-knit community to confront what really happened.
Spit Against the Wind
by Anna Smith
2003
Ten-year-old Kathleen Slaven and her friends spend the summer of 1968 roaming a rundown west of Scotland village. As they play at heroes and plot revenge on cruel adults, they begin to see the harsh poverty and violence surrounding them.
Where should I start?
If you like investigative journalism thrillers: The Dead Won't Sleep → To Tell the Truth → Screams In The Dark
If you want gritty gangland drama: Blood Feud → Fight Back → End Game → Trapped
If you prefer a private investigator series: Until I Find You → If I Should Die → Last Seen → In The Shadows
If you enjoy small-town Scottish dramas: Spit Against the Wind → The Homecoming
Author bio
Anna Smith spent decades on the news desk before she ever wrote a crime novel. She worked in daily newspapers, chasing stories from small Scottish towns to war zones, and learned early that the truth is rarely tidy.
As a reporter and later chief reporter on a major Glasgow tabloid, she covered conflicts in places such as Somalia, Rwanda and Kosovo, as well as the everyday violence and scandal closer to home. She also worked on long investigations that helped expose drug dealers, child abusers and crooked officials.
Those years on the frontline left her with a sharp eye for injustice and a deep sympathy for people on the margins.
When she turned to fiction, she brought all of that experience with her. Her first crime novel, The Dead Won't Sleep, introduced Rosie Gilmour, a Glasgow journalist who digs into the death of a teenage girl and uncovers corruption at the highest levels. Follow up books like To Tell the Truth, Screams In The Dark and Betrayed keep Rosie in the thick of abductions, refugee stories and paramilitary violence, always asking what it costs to tell a story that powerful people want buried.
Smith's fiction has never been limited to one character. In the Kerry Casey books, beginning with Blood Feud, she writes about a young lawyer dragged back into her family's gangland empire and forced to lead it. The series tracks Kerry's attempt to pull her crime family toward legitimacy while fighting rivals, dirty cops and her own thirst for revenge.
More recently she created Billie Carlson, an ex-police officer turned private investigator who works the streets of Glasgow. In Until I Find You, If I Should Die and later novels, Billie takes on missing children, suspicious deaths and dangerous clients while wrestling with grief and the pull of her own past. The cases are twisty, but the heart of the books lies in Billie's voice and the way she keeps going when everything seems lost.
Away from her series characters, Smith has also written stand-alone novels such as Spit Against the Wind and The Homecoming, which draw on west of Scotland village life in the 1960s. These books show the same interest in working-class communities, secrets that fester for years and the quiet strength of people who are rarely centre stage.
Today Smith writes fiction full time. She splits her year between Lanarkshire, the west coast of Ireland and trips to Spain, often retreating to the sea to work on a new manuscript. The places she calls home, and the stories she chased as a reporter, continue to feed into her novels, giving them a mix of pace, grit and lived-in detail that feels very close to the real world.
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