Bob Skinner Books in Order

In this late Bob Skinner story, life outside the force has not freed him from danger. Drawn into a fresh investigation where secrets, politics and family ties close around him like bars, he has to decide what freedom really means and what he is still willing to risk.

A violent storm near a family celebration exposes the remains of a long-buried double murder, reopening a thirty-year-old mystery. At the same time, a vanished crime writer may have staged his own death, and Skinner, now a media boss, is pulled into both tangled investigations.

Now running a global media group, Sir Robert Skinner still likes helping his elderly neighbours with small problems. When several of them die in quick succession and a gruesome find in Glasgow points towards one of his oldest friends, he must decide whether a killer is at work or coincidence is playing tricks.

Set in early 2020, this case drags Skinner into a murky mix of family feuds, hostile corporate takeovers and state-sanctioned violence. As extortion and the darker corners of the publishing world bleed into one another, he must decide who is truly pulling the strings.

Nine years after Marcia Brown apparently killed herself following a theft accusation, her ex-husband insists she was framed and hires Alex Skinner to prove it. As Alex and her investigator dig into village secrets, a fresh tragedy puts her in the firing line and forces her father back into action.

Thirty years after a popular priest was found dead in a frozen quarry and his killer jailed, new evidence drags the case back into the light. When the old "Body in the Quarry" file begins to haunt Jimmy Proud, Skinner returns to learn if the wrong man went to prison.

When millionaire and former boxing champion Leo Speight is poisoned in his Ayrshire mansion, the list of people who could benefit from his death is long. Brought in as an observer, Skinner works with Police Scotland detectives to sift jealousy, rivalry and security-service secrets.

The Prime Minister is found in her Westminster office with a letter opener buried in her skull, hours before a crucial announcement. Dragged back into service by the security services, Skinner has forty-eight hours to untangle motives swirling through Parliament before the country erupts.

In this Christmas short set in 2041, a retired but still formidable Bob Skinner is drawn into a seasonal case that refuses to stay small, proving that age and distance have not dulled his instincts for trouble.

When supermodel Annette Bordeaux is found strangled in her Edinburgh flat, suspicion falls on her footballer husband and his club. Two years after leaving the force, Skinner cannot resist getting involved, especially when his daughter Alex ends up defending the man everyone wants jailed.

A stolen car slams into Skinner's on the outskirts of Edinburgh, and the carnage in its boot shocks even him. While his former colleagues follow that trail, he is hired to find a vanished million-pound yacht, only to discover the two investigations are tragically intertwined.

On a trip to Catalunya to ponder retirement, Skinner agrees to help old friend Xavi Aislado track a brilliant employee who has disappeared. Another hunt is underway though, and as Alex fights for him back home, he must decide how far natural justice can stretch the law.

A murdered woman washes up on Cramond Island, and days later police find a blood-soaked flat whose tenant has vanished. When the dead woman's identity stirs painful memories for Skinner, now based in Glasgow, he is dragged into a case that forces a life-changing decision.

When DS "Sauce" Haddock visits his former teacher about a suspected jewellery theft, he expects a routine enquiry. Instead he uncovers a much darker secret, and with Skinner's help must prove that appearances are hiding a far more serious crime.

In the immediate aftermath of a devastating loss, Skinner is thrust into the spotlight and into a new Chief Constable role in the west of Scotland. While the media circle, he must balance public grief, political manoeuvring and a fresh wave of violence that refuses to wait for him to heal.

When an anonymous tip leads to a body exhumed from a shallow grave, the post-mortem shows he died of natural causes. Skinner cannot leave it alone. As questions about the secret burial multiply, a corruption probe and cracks in his marriage push him to the brink.

Set in the mid-1990s, this prequel finds newly promoted Detective Superintendent Skinner investigating a man whose body has been shattered at the bottom of an empty swimming pool. Organised crime, a knife-wielding attacker preying on gay men and the struggles of single fatherhood collide in one brutal case.

A wealthy Lithuanian businessman apparently jumps to his death, but Skinner and his team have crossed swords with him before and doubt he killed himself. Their suspicions deepen when a drugged teenage girl is abandoned at a clinic and massage parlours across the city abruptly close.

As Skinner stands on the brink of promotion to Chief Constable and marriage to Scotland's First Minister, a bestselling crime writer dies at the Edinburgh International Book Festival. When a second celebrity is killed in Australia, the investigation pits him against an old political enemy and threatens his big day.

Still grieving a fallen colleague, Skinner is called to a golf course where a woman's body has lain unnoticed for days, arranged in a disturbingly familiar pose. As he weighs copycat against continuation, links emerge to a politician's son and a notorious womanising policeman.

Two young artists are murdered in what looks like ritual killing, and the pressure to catch their killer is intense. When one victim's millionaire father brings powerful agencies into the mix, Skinner finds himself navigating high politics and family loyalties as much as forensics.

Juggling a failed marriage and a death on his conscience, Skinner faces four crises at once: a power struggle in Westminster, a stalker targeting his daughter, a bookmaker killed in grisly fashion and a seemingly small bigamy case that hides something nastier.

Gangsters have quietly infiltrated Edinburgh, and a covert sting run by the security services spins out of control. When evidence of a planned royal assassination emerges and police families come under attack, Skinner suspects someone is using revenge to tear the force apart.

A businessman is found hanging from a tree, a visiting bandsman dies in a hit-and-run, and another victim apparently succumbs to a heart attack. As Edinburgh prepares for a massive papal rally, Skinner must decide whether these deaths are random or part of something far more dangerous.

Still weakened by serious illness, Skinner is rocked when a body washed up after a flood turns out to be the brother he has kept secret for years. As a bomb destroys a prized painting in Edinburgh and his wife faces a murder charge in America, every part of his life is under siege.

Skinner's composure shatters when his wife's parents are found murdered in New York. Out of his jurisdiction but unwilling to stand back, he hunts a killer targeting men linked to a dark episode in the 1960s, while a buried secret threatens Maggie Rose and Mario McGuire at home.

Strolling through Edinburgh with movie star Louise Bankier, Skinner is thrown to the pavement by a sudden shotgun blast. As he hunts whoever is stalking his old flame, an ambitious colleague at headquarters schemes to carve up his territory.

For twenty-five years Skinner's Thursday night football game has been a refuge from the job. That ends when one of the "Thursday Legends", a retired Special Branch chief, is found mutilated. After another teammate dies, he must ask how well he really knows his friends.

A notorious terrorist heads for Edinburgh ahead of a summit of world leaders, just as a terminally ill woman is found dead in what appears to be an assisted death. Skinner races to stop an attack on the conference while unravelling a quieter, more intimate killing.

With his marriage faltering, the last thing Skinner needs is to see his private life splashed across a tabloid. When two grotesque murders hit the headlines alongside allegations against him, he must clear his name and catch a ruthless killer under intense scrutiny.

During a high-profile robbery trial in Edinburgh's Parliament House, a judge collapses and dies in open court. As more members of the bench seem to be in danger, Skinner confronts a brutal gang determined to bend the justice system to its will.

A luxury car showroom fire leaves a charred body among the wreckage, but the victim is the owner's wife, not the gangster himself. Forced into uneasy alliance with an old enemy, Skinner also reopens painful questions about his first wife's death.

When a plane carrying the British and American defence secretaries explodes over Scotland, Skinner is handed the biggest case of his career. The investigation teems with suspects, and a sudden attack leaves him fighting for his own life as well as justice.

At a new East Lothian golf resort, one of the owners is found with his throat cut in the clubhouse jacuzzi. As rumours of an ancient witch's curse spread, Skinner looks past the legends to expose a very modern motive for murder.

A businessman is knifed in a plush Edinburgh suburb, and a linked fraud case drags Skinner from Scotland to Spain. Following the money leads him into a web of vice, corruption and arms dealers who will kill to protect their trade.

An explosion rips through Princes Street during the Edinburgh Festival, claimed by a shadowy separatist group. Tasked with protecting the city, Skinner must unpick a campaign of bombings and blackmail that reaches from the festival crowds into the heart of government.

When a young Edinburgh lawyer is found mutilated in an alley, DCS Bob Skinner uncovers a series of apparently random murders. As the body count rises, he realises the killings mask a far more calculated conspiracy.