DC Iona Khan Books in Order

Iona Khan's books shift Chris Simms's crime fiction toward counterterror work, but they keep the same interest in pressure, place, and people being underestimated. Iona is a young Detective Constable in Greater Manchester's Counter Terrorism Unit, introduced in Scratch Deeper. She is sharp, persistent, and still new enough to be handed the job that looks minor, right up until it turns out not to be minor at all.

That first novel sets the tone well. A retired law lord is murdered in Mauritius while, back in Manchester, the Labour Party conference is about to begin. Iona is asked to look into a false identity and some suspicious interest in the city's tunnel system. What sounds like paperwork becomes a race through the hidden spaces beneath Manchester, with political stakes looming overhead. The books like that contrast between the ordinary briefing room and the moment everything turns urgent.

She is often the person in the room who sees the pattern first.

Part of the series appeal is how hard Iona has to push for space. She works in a male-dominated unit where respect is not handed over automatically, and Simms does not make that feel decorative. It shapes how colleagues judge her, how much support she gets, and how carefully she has to choose when to argue and when to simply get on with it. In A Price to Pay, that pressure sharpens further when the death of a runaway girl opens into a case involving missing teenagers, human trafficking, and international consequences.

Manchester matters here in a different way than it does in the Jon Spicer books. In Iona's series, the city becomes a network of routes, blind spots, CCTV, tunnels, traffic, conference venues, and crowded public spaces. The danger is not only a killer in one room. It is the fear that something large and devastating could be moving unnoticed through the everyday machinery of the city.

These are compact books with big stakes.

Even with the Counter Terrorism label, the stories stay close to ground-level police work. Iona follows leads, questions assumptions, and keeps going when support is thin. If you want procedurals that mix police work with political tension, Scratch Deeper and A Price to Pay are a strong place to start. Iona is an appealing lead because she is not written as effortlessly untouchable. She has to think fast, absorb pressure, and keep moving when other people underestimate her. That gives the series its taut, restless energy.