Denzil Meyrick Books in Order
This page lists every Denzil Meyrick book in order, with DCI Daley and Frank Grasby reading order, story summaries, series background and where to start.
Last updated: January 16, 2026
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Publication Order
16 books
Murder at Holly House
by Denzil Meyrick
2023
December 1952, and disgraced detective Frank Grasby is exiled to the moorland village of Elderby to look into petty thefts. A stranger's body in a chimney and a blizzard-bound second murder soon reveal that this snowed-in community is hiding deadly secrets.
Terms of Restitution
by Denzil Meyrick
2021
Former gangland boss Zander Finn thought he had escaped his brutal past after his son's murder drove him out of Scotland. Dragged back to protect both his crime family and his real one from ruthless rivals and the law, he gambles everything on one last chance at redemption.
For Any Other Truth
by Denzil Meyrick
2021
A light aircraft comes down at Machrie airport, but the two men aboard were killed before the crash. As Hamish stumbles into danger at sea and secrets reach from Kinloch to County Antrim, Daley and Scott confront terrorists, spies and painful choices.
Jeremiah's Bell
by Denzil Meyrick
2020
Decades after vanishing as a teenager, wealthy hotelier Alice Wenger returns to Kinloch, stirring up old memories. On a remote corner of the peninsula, the secretive Doig family begin to fall apart, exposing tales of stolen gold, shipwrecks and violence that refuse to stay buried.
A Breath on Dying Embers
by Denzil Meyrick
2019
A luxury cruise ship carrying influential guests anchors off Kinloch, putting Daley under intense pressure to keep everyone safe. When a crew member and a local birdwatcher vanish, political stakes mix with personal danger, and Brian Scott must face the sea he dreads.
The Relentless Tide
by Denzil Meyrick
2018
When archaeologists uncover the remains of three women on a remote Kintyre hillside, Daley recognises a nightmare from his early career, the unsolved Midweek Murderer killings. As cold-case detectives descend on Kinloch, past mistakes and old loyalties resurface with lethal force.
Well of the Winds
by Denzil Meyrick
2017
As war nears its end, a man is stabbed on Kinloch's shoreline. Decades later, a farming family vanishes from a nearby island, leaving food on the table and no trace behind. Guided by an old inspector's journal, Daley unpicks the island's buried secrets.
One Last Dram Before Midnight
by Denzil Meyrick
2017
This collection of DCI Daley stories follows Jim from his early days pounding the Glasgow beat to later cases in Kinloch. Tales of murder, whisky smuggling and local legends fill in the gaps between the novels with humour and plenty of atmosphere.
The Rat Stone Serenade
by Denzil Meyrick
2016
Snow cuts off the Kintyre peninsula just as the powerful Shannon family gather at their clifftop estate near Kinloch. Guarding them from threats inside and out, Daley uncovers occult rites, old sins and a family curse that may be turning murderous.
Single End
by Denzil Meyrick
2016
By 1989, Jim Daley is a detective constable in Glasgow, investigating the stabbing of a feared gangster's accountant in a grim car park. As Brian Scott is pushed back toward dangerous old associates, Daley races to expose corruption and keep him alive.
Empty Nets and Promises
by Denzil Meyrick
2016
In 1968, Kinloch skipper Sandy Hoynes faces an empty sea, a looming wedding bill and a new supersonic jet that seems to scare away the herring. His crew's scheme to fix things soon tangles with officials, smugglers and island politics.
Two One Three
by Denzil Meyrick
2015
In 1986, young beat cop Jim Daley is pulled into CID when a woman is found dead in her rundown flat. Partnered with sharp-tongued Brian Scott, he chases a possible serial killer through Glasgow's streets in his first major case.
Dark Suits and Sad Songs
by Denzil Meyrick
2015
A senior civil servant throws himself into Kinloch harbour and two local dealers are found ritually murdered. Drawn into high-level politics and shadowy forces, Daley fights to keep his team together as a small-town case threatens national consequences.
The Last Witness
by Denzil Meyrick
2014
Five years after crime boss James Machie was supposedly assassinated, those who put him away start dying. In Kinloch, Daley must protect his colleague Brian Scott and a hidden witness while working out how a dead man can take revenge.
Dalintober Moon
by Denzil Meyrick
2014
When a body is unearthed in a whisky barrel buried beneath Dalintober beach, Daley reopens a century-old feud. Digging into the town's past, he finds that old violence still shapes loyalties, and that some ghosts refuse to stay quiet.
Whisky From Small Glasses
by Denzil Meyrick
2012
DCI Jim Daley is sent from Glasgow to the remote coastal town of Kinloch when a young woman's body is washed up on the beach. As more deaths follow, he uncovers a tangle of small-town secrets, drug money and buried grudges.
Where should I start?
If you want to start with DCI Daley: Whisky From Small Glasses → The Last Witness → Dark Suits and Sad Songs
If you like Kinloch's history and cold cases: Well of the Winds → The Relentless Tide → A Breath on Dying Embers
If you prefer shorter reads and prequels: Dalintober Moon → Two One Three → Single End → One Last Dram Before Midnight
If you enjoy historical festive mysteries: Murder at Holly House
If you want a standalone underworld thriller: Terms of Restitution
Author bio
Denzil Meyrick was a Scottish crime writer whose books feel rooted in real streets, real pubs and real seas. Born in Glasgow in 1965 and raised in the coastal town of Campbeltown, he carried the west of Scotland with him into everything he wrote.
As a boy he grew up on the Kintyre peninsula, looking out across the water that would later become the backdrop to his fictional town of Kinloch. After school at Campbeltown Grammar he went on to study politics at what was then Paisley College, now the University of the West of Scotland.
Instead of heading straight for a desk job, he joined Strathclyde Police and served in Glasgow through the 1980s. The mix of dark humour, sudden violence and quiet tragedy he encountered there would turn into raw material for later novels. Years later he freely admitted that those long shifts on the beat were the best training a crime writer could have.
Policing was only the first act.
A serious fall and the onset of ankylosing spondylitis meant he had to leave the force much earlier than planned. Meyrick then moved through a string of jobs that sound almost like the CV of one of his own characters: managing the Springbank whisky distillery in Campbeltown, directing an engineering firm, running his own public bar, and working in tourism, sales and marketing. Along the way he also wrote and produced pieces as a freelance journalist for both print and radio.
When his health forced him to slow down again, he finally turned to the thing he had always wanted to try, writing a crime novel. Drawing on his police years and the tight‑knit community he knew so well, he created DCI Jim Daley and the harbour town of Kinloch. The debut, Whisky From Small Glasses, appeared in 2012 and soon picked up word‑of‑mouth momentum, later being named Waterstones Scottish Book of the Year and becoming a major hit in audio.
Over the next decade he wrote a long run of Daley novels, including The Last Witness, The Rat Stone Serenade, Well of the Winds, A Breath on Dying Embers and For Any Other Truth. Across those books Daley and his irreverent sidekick Brian Scott investigate everything from Glasgow gangsters and serial killers to wartime secrets, Viking legends and modern terrorism. Readers come for the twists, but many stay for the banter in the County Hotel bar, the sense of weather and sea, and the way the characters age and change over time.
He was just as happy writing in shorter forms.
Collections and novellas such as Dalintober Moon, Empty Nets and Promises and One Last Dram Before Midnight let him explore Kinloch's history, from 1960s fishing crews to eerie beach legends, often with a lighter or more playful tone. Late in his career he launched a new direction with Inspector Frank Grasby, a series of 1950s Christmas mysteries beginning with Murder at Holly House, full of snowbound Yorkshire villages, golden‑age puzzles and sly humour. Between the two strands he managed to cover both the gritty present and a more nostalgic past, without losing his eye for how people actually talk and behave.
Meyrick spent his later years living near Loch Lomond with his wife Fiona, a pianist and poet, and his stepdaughter. Despite long‑term pain from arthritis he continued to write, tour festivals and connect with readers, and his novels regularly topped crime and audiobook charts. He died in February 2025, aged fifty‑nine, leaving behind a body of work that is still drawing new readers to Kinloch's harbour lights and Grasby's snow‑covered villages.
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