Billie Carson Books in Order

The Billie Carlson series introduces a different kind of heroine to Anna Smith's fiction. Billie is an ex-police officer who left the force under a cloud and now makes a living as a private investigator in Glasgow, tailing cheating spouses and checking out dodgy insurance claims.

On the surface she is tough, sarcastic and self-reliant. Underneath she is carrying a heavy load, including the loss of a child and a long, painful search for her missing son, Lucas. That personal grief runs through the books and shapes the way she responds to the families who come through her office door.

In Until I Find You, the first novel, a young woman bursts into Billie's office claiming that her baby has been stolen. The story sounds impossible and the client is far from perfect, but Billie recognises the raw panic of a mother with nothing left to lose. Following the case pulls her into a cruel network of criminals who see babies as commodities rather than human beings and forces her to lean on old friends inside the police even as she distrusts the institution she left.

If I Should Die sends Billie to Cleveland in the United States on a lead about Lucas, then back to Scotland when that trail fades. No sooner is she home than a childhood friend from Sweden calls to say his sister has been found frozen to death in the Highlands. Officially it is suicide. Billie escorts the body back to Sweden and digs into a tangle of institutional cover ups, corrupt officials and organised crime that someone will kill to protect.

By Last Seen, Billie has finally brought Lucas home and is trying to build a quieter life. A call from a man whose brother has been jailed for a stabbing drags her back into danger. Her investigation into what really happened that night runs alongside the constant unease that she and her son are being watched and that her enemies have long memories.

In The Shadows continues that tension as Billie takes on Elizabeth Fletcher, a respectable woman who has killed a stranger she met in a bar and insists it was self-defence. Terrified of her husband discovering the truth, Elizabeth begs Billie to find out who the man was and what he wanted from the contents of a locked desk, drawing Billie into secrets that reach far beyond one marriage.

Told in a close, first-person voice and packed with city detail, the Billie Carlson books blend twisty investigations with an ongoing story about trauma, trust and how far a mother will go to keep her child safe.