D.I. Siv Drummond Books in Order

The D.I. Siv Drummond books are police procedurals, but they never feel mechanical. The cases matter, yet so do the bruised, private lives around them. Siv herself arrives in the series carrying real grief. Widowed after her husband's death, she leaves a high-profile role with the Met and returns to Berminster, the Sussex hometown she once thought she had outgrown.

It is supposed to be a quieter life.

Of course, it is nothing of the sort. Berminster may be a sleepy coastal town with an inland harbour, woods and respectable streets, but Mulrooney uses that calm surface well. Under it sit old resentments, family breakages, class nerves and people who have become very skilled at living beside bad memories without speaking them aloud.

That tone is there from These Little Lies, where Siv's first case in town is a double murder, and it keeps building through Never Came Home, Murder in Mallow Cottage, Murder by the Shore and Murder in the Studio. The mysteries range from cold cases to shocking contemporary killings, but the common thread is secrecy close to home. These are not flashy chase novels. They are books about motive, pressure and the lies people tell themselves before they lie to the police.

Siv is not a grandstanding detective.

She listens, doubles back, notices the awkward detail, and keeps going when others would rather write the whole thing off. Her team matters too, especially DS Ali Carlin and DC Patrick Hill, and the books get much of their warmth from the push and pull inside the station. There is professional rivalry, dry humour and the ordinary strain of work, but also a growing sense that Siv has found people who respect her ability, even when they do not always agree with her.

If you like procedurals that care as much about aftermath as revelation, this series is a good fit. The crimes are knotty, the settings feel lived in, and the emotional weather is often grey in the best possible way. Even the most dramatic cases stay rooted in grief, guilt, family conflict and the strange damage people can do while trying to protect what they think is theirs.