DCI Liam Brodie Books in Order

DCI Liam Brodie is one of the newer arrivals in John Carson’s line up, but he already comes with a reputation. Before his own series starts, he has become known inside Police Scotland as the man who stopped one of Edinburgh’s most notorious serial killers.

By the time Broken Bones opens, that success has earned him a transfer to Fife’s Major Investigation Team. The move is meant to recognise his abilities, but it drops him straight into a mess. The previous DCI is missing, presumed dead, and the case Brodie is asked to lead hits painfully close to home. A child’s skeletal remains are discovered under the floor of a house where his girlfriend, psychologist Ruth Calder, once lived as a foster child.

From there, Brodie has to navigate a tight knit community where old loyalties and resentments sit just under the surface. Ruth’s foster mother is now living with dementia, clutching fragments of the truth that may never come out cleanly. Neighbours and former foster children all have their own versions of what happened in that house, and Brodie has to work out which stories he can trust while keeping his professional distance from a case that touches the person he loves.

The broader set up of the series leans into that tension between public duty and private connections. Brodie is experienced and respected, but not untouchable. He is moving into a division where he does not yet know who he can rely on, and he is very aware that his earlier success has created expectations some colleagues would be happy to see him fail to meet.

In the second book, False Witness, the past returns in a more direct and chilling way. Years earlier, Brodie led the hunt for a killer dubbed The Embalmer, who murdered seven women and arranged their bodies as if on display. The man was never caught. Now, seven years later, the killings start again with the same signature, and Brodie is called back to Fife to face the case that has haunted him.

As the investigation unfolds, it becomes clear that The Embalmer is not just repeating himself. He is changing the pattern, challenging Brodie directly and using the new murders to rewrite the story of the original hunt. The line between hunter and hunted grows thin, and Brodie has to balance his own safety against the need to stop a killer who has waited years for this rematch.

The Liam Brodie series is a good fit if you like crime fiction that combines long shadows from the past, emotionally tangled relationships, and a detective who has to build trust in a new team while dealing with enemies who already know exactly how he thinks.