Cullen & Bain Books in Order

The Cullen & Bain books drop readers into the uneasy partnership between Scott Cullen, an ambitious detective who has clawed his way up from the bottom rung, and Brian Bain, his old boss and long-time thorn in his side. Set within the broader Police Scotland universe that began with the Scott Cullen mysteries, these novels show what happens when two very different cops are forced back together on major cases.

By this stage in his career, Cullen has moved beyond being a rookie constable. He is acting as a detective inspector, juggling supervision duties, office politics and the lingering sense that promotion can still be snatched away if he missteps. Bain, meanwhile, is the definition of an old-school detective, quick-tempered, cutting corners and always convinced he is the smartest person in the room. Their history stretches back years, full of grudges and small betrayals, and neither has truly forgiven the other.

City of the Dead kicks the sequence off with a grim discovery in Glasgow: a body found in an industrial bin, soaked in bleach and wearing nothing but an adult nappy. The murder connects to a run of serious assaults that have stopped just short of killing, and Cullen has to manage Bain on his home turf while trying to keep the investigation focused. The book sets the tone for the series, with overlapping teams, messy jurisdictional lines and a feeling that no one is ever telling Cullen the full story.

In World’s End, the pair are back in Edinburgh, working a case that starts with a corpse in a supermarket. What should be a straightforward inquiry into a workplace and its staff quickly spirals into something much stranger, with hints of an earlier food scandal and the sense that Bain may be holding back information for his own reasons. Cullen’s management responsibilities and personal life collide with the need to keep Bain in check and still catch a killer.

Hell’s Kitchen plays with scale and distance. A throwaway decision leaves Bain stranded on the far side of the Atlantic, recording a true-crime podcast while the situation at home in Scotland deteriorates. Cullen, stuck managing a city under emergency conditions, must deal with fresh murders that stir up ghosts from his past, all while wondering whether Bain is ever going to come back and finish the long game he seems to be playing.

Later entries like Gore Glen, Dead in the Water: When Cullen met Bain and The Last Drop deepen the shared history. One novel rewinds to an earlier case that first forced Cullen, Craig Hunter and Bain into the same orbit, exposing a criminal operation that preys on Edinburgh’s most vulnerable residents. Others move the timeline forward, showing how that case left scars on all three men and how far Cullen will bend the rules when the people he cares about are at risk.

These books are tightly linked to the wider Police Scotland series, with familiar faces from the Cullen and Hunter novels drifting in and out. They reward readers who already know Cullen’s rise from probationer to senior detective, but the core appeal is simple: watching two flawed, driven cops push against each other while trying, sometimes in spite of themselves, to do the right thing in fiercely complicated cases.