DS Joe Galbraith Books in Order

Helen Forbes’s DS Joe Galbraith novels are Scottish police procedurals with a strong sense of place. Joe works as a detective in Inverness, but the cases do not stay neatly inside the city. The series moves between the Highlands and the Outer Hebrides, where close communities, old loyalties, and difficult memories can make an investigation harder to untangle.

The first book, In the Shadow of the Hill, begins with the killing of an elderly woman in the stairwell of an Inverness block of flats. What first appears to be a grim local murder leads Joe toward the Isle of Harris, where he spent his childhood. A clue pushes him back into a past he has worked hard to leave behind, and the case becomes tied to events buried beneath the island’s surface.

For Joe, the job is never fully separate from home.

Harris matters as more than a dramatic backdrop. The island’s mountains, weather, language, and tight-knit social world shape the investigation, while Joe’s own memories make every return uncomfortable. The story balances a present-day inquiry with the pressure of history, asking what people choose to hide and what happens when long-held resentments come back into view.

Madness Lies picks up with Joe still carrying the effects of his earlier investigation. When an Inverness councillor is shot in broad daylight, the police need answers quickly. The victim is well known, yet nobody seems willing to offer a useful reason for the murder. As another death raises the stakes, Joe must deal with scrutiny at work, a demanding case, and serious worries in his personal life.

The second investigation stretches from Inverness to North Uist and London before reaching Black Rock Gorge. These shifts give the series a wider canvas, but the tension remains personal. Joe is capable and persistent, though he is also tired, unsettled, and sometimes pulled off balance by what he has already lived through.

Expect dark crimes, troubled relationships, and a steady police investigation rather than a light village mystery. The novels can be read separately, but starting with In the Shadow of the Hill gives the clearest view of Joe’s past and makes the emotional thread in Madness Lies land with more force.