Claire McGowan Books in Order

A charity anthology of 47 short stories inspired by classic film titles, with a largely crime-fiction-focused lineup that includes Claire McGowan. The stories range across crime, noir, horror, and speculative fiction, and the project was created to support children’s literacy charities.

Charlotte’s comfortable London life implodes when her banker fiancé is arrested for murdering a nightclub owner. Teaming up uneasily with Keisha, a young mother from the estate where the victim lived, and watched by DC Matthew Hegarty, she uncovers secrets that test loyalty, class and justice.

An avenging nurse carries out secret acts of revenge in the name of giving others a second chance. Short and unsettling, it is a dark character study with a sting in the tail.

Returning to her troubled border hometown to join a new missing-persons unit, forensic psychologist Paula Maguire investigates two vanished teenage girls from very different families. Old disappearances, a secretive religious mission and her own mother’s fate tangle into one dark, dangerous case.

A newborn is snatched from a border-town hospital and a woman is found ritually murdered in a stone circle. As more babies and a pregnant doctor go missing, Paula Maguire races snow and secrecy to catch a killer whose obsessions cut close to her own life.

In this prequel novella, a teenage Paula Maguire navigates school bullies, her mother’s unexplained disappearance and her policeman father’s dangerous work during a tense marching season. When a bomber targets Orange parades, Paula herself becomes a pawn in the escalating violence.

Suspected bombers from the notorious Mayday Five are turning up dead, killed in the same ways their victims once died. Tasked with the case, Paula Maguire must decide where justice ends and revenge begins as the line between killer and victim blurs.

On the eve of her thirtieth birthday, Rachel is broke, newly divorced and living in grumpy single dad Patrick’s box room. Reviving the “before thirty” list she wrote years ago, she starts tackling bold challenges—and finds new friends, confidence and maybe love along the way.

When privileged student Alice Morgan disappears from a rural shrine along with the bones of a saint, Paula Maguire faces a high-profile case loaded with political pressure. Following blood on the altar and echoes of an old murder, she discovers just how savage vengeance can be.

After one breakup too many, Marnie suggests a radical dating idea: she and her three friends will “freecycle” each other’s exes. What begins as a fun experiment soon stirs up old rivalries, unexpected chemistry and painful questions about how honest friends should really be.

Paula Maguire heads to isolated Bone Island to investigate a young couple who vanished during a violent storm. Trapped among hostile locals and rising seas, she must untangle buried island secrets and haunting childhood memories before the tide—and a killer—close in.

Annie is stuck in grief, a failing marriage and a joyless routine until she meets Polly, a terminally ill whirlwind determined to squeeze happiness from her final hundred days. Their “hundred happy days” challenge slowly pulls Annie back toward connection, courage and hope.

When renovations at a remote farm uncover the remains of an IRA man missing since the 1990s and an unidentified girl, forensic psychologist Paula Maguire is called home. As another teenager disappears, the case pulls her perilously close to the truth about her own mother’s fate.

Rosie Cooke lies in a coma, suspended between life and death with no memory of how she got there. As vivid fragments of her past replay, she begins to see the choices that shaped her—and the future she might still fight to reclaim.

Eve remembers every day of her life in perfect detail; Adam remembers nothing after being found wandering a motorway. As she helps him piece together who he was, both must decide whether knowing everything—or starting again—is really the better gift.

Pregnant and isolated in a high-tech country cottage, Suzi clings to the friendship of new neighbour Nora—unaware Nora has come seeking revenge. Meanwhile, polished London wife Elle fights to keep her marriage. Three women’s secrets collide in a twisting story of obsession and control.

At a twenty-year reunion, Ali’s best friend staggers in from the garden, injured and claiming Ali’s husband raped her. As the fallout shreds their once-close group, Ali must decide who to believe and whether a buried incident from university is finally demanding a reckoning.

Six couples from an antenatal class reunite at a lavish house party with their newborns. When someone falls from an upstairs balcony, DS Alison Hegarty suspects more than a tragic accident and uncovers how far new parents will go to protect their carefully curated lives.

Rachel discovers a woman’s body in the woods and runs—because the last time she found a corpse, she was convicted of murder. As the victim is revealed as her boyfriend’s estranged wife, her past life as nanny Casey resurfaces and someone seems determined to destroy her new identity.

A playful update of Jane Austen’s classic, this version of Pride and Prejudice unfolds through posts, DMs and group chats as Lizzy Bennet, Darcy and their families navigate dating, gossip and scandal in a world ruled by likes and screenshots.

Caroline’s husband died by suicide; Josh lost his wife in an accident. Meeting in a support group for the young bereaved, they’re stuck in grief until elderly Sylvia arrives with her own hard-won “handbook” for heartbreak and a gentle push toward living again.

In a sweltering London summer, sleep-deprived mother Mary and insomniac ex-war reporter Tim meet in a park and witness a violent attack. When a local girl vanishes, they investigate themselves, unsure whether they can trust each other—or their own eyes.

In this true-crime investigation, McGowan revisits the cases of eight women who vanished from Ireland’s so-called “vanishing triangle” in the 1990s. Blending reportage with personal reflection, she examines policing failures, cultural silence and misogyny that helped let their killers walk free.

On the morning of her wedding, Ellie is hiding under her childhood bed, suddenly unsure every decision that led her here was right. The story spins through the different paths her life might have taken, showing how tiny choices can change everything.

Helen and George move to a crumbling house on the Cornish coast, hoping for a fresh start. Unearthed dolls in the walls, rumours about a former owner jailed for triple murder and a string of accidents soon convince Helen the house—and her marriage—are hiding deadly secrets.

Edited by Marie O’Regan and Paul Kane, this anthology gathers eighteen original Christmas crime stories, including contributions by Belinda Bauer and Claire McGowan. Its seasonal mysteries range from locked-room cases to whodunits, family rivalries, and darker domestic suspense.

At a lavish fortieth-birthday weekend on a private Scottish island, Amira joins her husband’s old friends in a game of “two truths and a lie.” An anonymous note claiming everyone there has killed someone turns the reunion into a claustrophobic, deadly guessing game.

Emma thinks a “Friendmas” ski trip with her new boyfriend’s old crowd will be a cosy first Christmas together. Stranded in a storm-lashed Alpine chalet, she wakes to find one of the group dead and realises someone inside is willing to kill to keep the past buried.

True-crime writer Karen Walker’s first love grew up to be the Bagman, a serial killer she once defended and finally helped jail. When a new abduction mimics his crimes, she must confront the man she loved—and the truths she buried—to save another young woman.

Three very different couples share a luxury resort in Tenerife, each nursing private tensions, when glamorous lounge singer Ana is found dead on the beach. As local police arrest one guest, off-duty detective Alison Hegarty uncovers a tangle of jealousy, lies and marriage-shattering secrets.