DI Skelgill Books in Order

An invitation to Midsomar Manor promises Skelgill a civilized country house gathering, but the estate's polished surface hides old grudges and new money. When a death upends the weekend, he finds himself untangling family politics in a house where everyone knows how to play a part.

In foodie focused Cumbria, ten star chefs compete to create the ultimate tasting menu for The Great Cumbrian Feast, raiding lakes, woods and fells for rare ingredients. When deadly poisons slip into the dishes, Skelgill has to decide whether the killer is chasing revenge, fame or a ruined rival.

In 1852, teenage servant Flora Mary Graham was convicted of bludgeoning the Seventh Earl of Fellside and sending him to his death in Blind Beck, a Cumbrian stream in spate. Skelgill reopens the notorious case, asking whether her fate, and the fortune involved, truly matched the evidence.

Years after a young housewife's weighted body was found in Wastwater, England's deepest lake, memories of the case still haunt the surrounding dales. When new questions surface, Skelgill is drawn into a slow burning investigation about what was hidden, who benefited and how many secrets the waters still hold.

A group venture into the Cumbrian fells goes badly wrong, leaving someone dead and the survivors telling conflicting stories. With rescue hours away from many of the places they walked, Skelgill must decide who engineered the tragedy and who was meant to be the real target.

Drifting in his boat on Bassenthwaite Lake, Skelgill strikes up a friendship with an elderly man watching from a nursing home garden. Learning how the wheelchair bound resident has been stripped of his money, he suspects predatory relatives and races to stop a quiet exploitation turning deadly.

A true crime television crew descends on rural Cumbria to dramatise an unsolved 1970s killing, with celebrity criminologist Simeon Freud front and centre. While DS Jones infiltrates the production, Skelgill works from the sidelines, fearing that buried police mistakes and a manipulative killer are about to collide on camera.

An attempted murder in the United States, a fatal road accident in a Cumbrian forest and a stolen photograph seem unconnected until a midnight drowning at Ouse Bridge. Skelgill patiently picks through decades old ties to uncover which familiar face has brought their violence back to the Lakes.

Notorious burglars die in a burned-out Mercedes and their associate takes the blame, but whispers reach Skelgill that the wrong man is in prison. To reopen the case unofficially, he must challenge organised crime and his own department's certainty.

When a shepherd's dog uncovers an American passport on the fells, it links to an unidentified walker who fell to her death years earlier. As nighthawkers plunder Roman sites and tourist Dorothy Baum follows a line of ancient forts, Skelgill must find her before history repeats itself.

Young woman Lisa vanishes and a suspect is taken to trial without a body, leaving DS Emma Jones to lead her first major case. With Skelgill and Leyton sidelined, she faces a ruthless opponent who always seems one move ahead.

In a quiet Cumbrian community, an unexplained death refuses to settle into a clear story. Were there two murders, one, or none at all? Skelgill, Jones and Leyton wrestle with shifting evidence and pressure to close the file too soon.

When hard-driving gamekeeper Lawrence Melling takes over a Lakeland sporting estate, he makes enemies among the owners, their heirs and nearby conservationists. Missing jewels, vanished staff and a suspicious death on the moor leave Skelgill wondering whether one hunter has become the prey.

Twenty years after schoolgirl Mary Wilson disappeared and a mass DNA sweep cleared every local man, human remains are found in Cummacatta Wood. When a convicted serial offender suddenly confesses, Skelgill digs into old loyalties and feuds to expose the real killer.

Skelgill volunteers to mentor his gifted young cousin Jess, a fell runner with few advantages and big dreams. As county lines drug gangs fight over Cumbria, Jess drifts into their orbit, and Skelgill must stop a rising body count before she becomes collateral damage.

After the London to Edinburgh sleeper train is buried in a Cumbrian snowdrift, Skelgill wakes to find one passenger dead and another missing. Stranded at a remote inn with a handful of powerful strangers, he must unmask a killer before the storm or greed claims more lives.

At a lavish murder mystery weekend in a Lakeland castle, glamorous socialite Scarlett Liddell apparently takes her own life. Forensics and gossip quickly point to her millionaire husband, but Skelgill suspects the real plot is buried within their privileged circle of friends and enemies.

A chilling howl echoes across Skiddaw Forest and a young woman from a local zoo is found dead beneath the cliffs known as Dead Crags. As talk of the legendary Black Dog spreads, Skelgill uncovers very human motives circling the failing zoo and its valuable land.

A dog walker finds a badly decomposed body in Harterhow Woods and even a national appeal cannot identify the victim. Skelgill thinks he knows the killer, his team disagrees, and every new clue suggests there may be two murderers with very different reasons to strike again.

During the devastating Cockermouth floods, womaniser and expert kayaker Roger Alcock disappears, then washes up dead on the Solway coast. Officially it looks like misadventure, but as resentful friends and lovers surface, Skelgill wades through a drowned town's secrets to decide whether someone used the chaos to kill.

Called to a remote high security hospital, Skelgill attracts the attention of a notorious female serial killer who seems to know exactly how to press his buttons. A chain of murders, escapes and hostage crises forces him to ask whether he is chasing madness, corruption or something far darker.

One week after a ninety three year old twin dies peacefully, his brother is found murdered in the library of crumbling Crummock Hall. With a fortune and a rare book collection at stake, Skelgill wades into generations of family rivalry where every heir has something to hide.

Stranded by a storm on tiny Grisholm island during a writers' retreat, Skelgill arrives to find a publisher already dead and another guest in grave danger. As more accidents strike, he must unpick tangled literary egos before an unseen killer finishes the cast list.

Attacks on prize Herdwick sheep, the drowning of a reclusive hermit and the disappearance of a foreign hiker pull Skelgill into some of the bleakest corners of Lakeland. Rumours of witchcraft and human trafficking swirl together, forcing him to risk both career and life to expose a hidden ring.

A climber is discovered strangled with his own rope beneath the notorious Sharp Edge, apparently the victim of an accident. After a second body turns up near Striding Edge, Skelgill realises a serial killer may be using the Lake District's ridges as a private hunting ground.

A respected master at an elite English public school is found drowned in Bassenthwaite Lake, his death labelled suicide. Skelgill soon uncovers ruthless infighting behind the school's polished facade, and when another death and a pupil's disappearance follow, he races to stop a third tragedy.

During a company retreat in the Lake District, a charismatic advertising executive is stabbed to death, and every colleague, lover and family member has both motive and opportunity. Skelgill chases leads between Cumbria, London and Edinburgh in a classic whodunit where one misstep could invite another killing.