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Dr Steven Dunbar Books in Order

Part ofKen McClure Books in Order

See the Dr Steven Dunbar series by Ken McClure in order, with short summaries, series background, and a clear guide to the best place to start.

Last updated: July 1, 2026

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Publication Order

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12 books

1

Donor

by Ken McClure

1999

Seven-year-old Amanda Ross is sent to a gleaming private hospital for a life-saving kidney transplant, but something feels wrong. Dr Steven Dunbar goes undercover and uncovers a sinister medical business built on desperation and false hope.

2

Deception

by Ken McClure

2001

Sent to a village outside Edinburgh, Steven Dunbar investigates attacks by unnaturally aggressive rats and a disputed GM crop. The case widens into a nasty mix of science, politics, and people willing to kill to keep the truth buried.

3

Wildcard

by Ken McClure

2002

When a passenger dies horribly on a flight from Africa, everyone fears Ebola. Steven Dunbar soon realizes the victims do not fit a simple outbreak, and the hunt for the hidden link becomes a race against a terrifying new virus.

4

The Gulf Conspiracy

by Ken McClure

2004

Steven Dunbar digs into a murder tied to a secret vaccine accident from the Gulf War era. As veterans keep dying and officials keep denying, he finds a cover-up with military roots and very human costs.

5

Eye of the Raven

by Ken McClure

2005

A dying psychopath confesses to a notorious murder, even though another man has already been convicted on airtight DNA evidence. Steven Dunbar reopens the shattered case and finds disturbing questions where science and justice should have been certain.

6

The Lazarus Strain

by Ken McClure

2007

A break-in at a research institute looks like animal-rights vandalism until a leading scientist is found murdered and research monkeys vanish. Steven Dunbar uncovers a secretive experiment and races to stop a disaster that could spread far beyond the lab.

7

White Death

by Ken McClure

2009

With governments fearing bioterror, vaccine research is pushed too hard and safety starts to slip. Steven Dunbar is pulled into a case of suspicious death and sick children in a grim thriller about panic, policy, and unintended consequences.

8

Dust to Dust

by Ken McClure

2010

A scientist hoping to prove the Black Death was viral joins an excavation beneath Dryburgh Abbey, and everything goes wrong. When he emerges deranged, Steven Dunbar must decide whether an ancient tomb has released a modern killer.

9

Lost Causes

by Ken McClure

2011

Drawn back to Sci-Med, Steven Dunbar investigates suspicious deaths just as Britain is hit by a bioterror attack using an old disease. The obvious suspects are quickly named, but Steven suspects a darker conspiracy much closer to home.

10

The Secret

by Ken McClure

2013

After the death of old friend Dr Simone Ricard, Steven Dunbar follows a trail from Prague to the polio campaign on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. What begins as grief becomes a tense investigation into secrecy, vaccination politics, and lives put at risk.

11

The Devil's Landscape

by Ken McClure

2017

Steven Dunbar looks into blocked funding for neuroscientist Dorothy Lindstrom and her team's work on epigenetics and violent behavior. When one researcher presses ahead despite warnings, the case turns into a dark study of science, power, and human evil.

12

Miasma

by Ken McClure

2019

Steven Dunbar investigates the murders of top medical scientists across Europe. The only obvious link is money, while an Ebola outbreak and Tally's trip to Congo push the case toward a global conspiracy.

Series background & context

The Dr Steven Dunbar books are Ken McClure's long-running medical thriller series, built around a doctor who is as comfortable reading lab reports as he is walking into danger. Steven is an ex-Special Forces medic who works for the Sci-Med Inspectorate, a small UK agency called in when crime spills into the worlds of medicine, research, public health, or biotechnology. That setup gives the books a strong mix of detective work, science, and political pressure.

He is not a showy action hero.

Dunbar's real strength is that he keeps asking the question nobody else wants asked. In Donor, that means looking past the shiny face of a private hospital and into the ethics of transplant medicine and false hope. In Deception and Wildcard, it means following strange clues, aggressive rats, a mystery virus, and public panic until the science finally starts to make sense. McClure likes institutions that look respectable from the outside and turn murky once Dunbar starts pulling at the threads.

The setting matters a lot. These books move through Edinburgh, London, Newcastle, Norfolk, and other British locations where hospitals, research units, government offices, and universities feel like part of everyday life. McClure knows labs and clinical spaces from the inside, so the danger rarely feels abstract. A locked ward, a field trial, a university excavation, or a vaccine program can become the engine of the whole plot.

As the series goes on, the canvas gets broader. The Gulf Conspiracy and The Lazarus Strain lean into military secrecy and high-stakes biomedical research. White Death and Dust to Dust turn vaccine fears, historical disease, and outbreak science into page-turning threats. The Secret, The Devil's Landscape, and Miasma push even further, into geopolitics, polio eradication, neuroscience, epigenetics, and international conspiracy. Even so, the books stay grounded because Dunbar keeps them grounded. He listens, doubts easy answers, and notices when official explanations arrive a little too neatly.

That is really the hook of the series, plausible science with a human face.

If you like thrillers that feel only half a step away from the evening news, this is a good run to try. The books are usually self-contained, so you can dip in almost anywhere, but starting with Donor gives you the clearest sense of Dunbar, Sci-Med, and the moral pressure that runs through the whole series. Expect fast plots, uneasy medical ideas, and a hero who treats truth as part of the job.

Edited by

Richard Reis

Software engineer whose passion for tracking book recommendations from podcasts inspired the creation of MRB.

Anurag Ramdasan

Lead investor at 3one4 Capital whose startup expertise and love for books helped shaped MRB and its growth.

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