Kaitlyn Dunnett Books in Order
Explore Kaitlyn Dunnett books in order, from Liss MacCrimmon to Deadly Edits, with quick summaries, series background, and simple advice on where to start.
Last updated: July 1, 2026
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Publication Order
17 books
Kilt Dead
by Kaitlyn Dunnett
2007
After a knee injury ends her dancing career, Liss MacCrimmon returns to Moosetookalook, Maine, to help at her aunt's Scottish shop. When she finds a neighbor's body hidden under tartan fabric, she has to clear her own name by untangling the town's secrets.
Scone Cold Dead
by Kaitlyn Dunnett
2008
Liss welcomes her old Scottish dance company to town and expects nostalgia, not poison. When the troupe's miserable manager dies after eating one of her scones, she and her friends land squarely in the spotlight.
A Wee Christmas Homicide
by Kaitlyn Dunnett
2009
A snowless Christmas has business dragging in Moosetookalook, so Liss helps launch a toy-fueled holiday promotion. Then a greedy shopkeeper is murdered, and the town's festive countdown turns into a race to catch a killer.
The Corpse Wore Tartan
by Kaitlyn Dunnett
2010
A Burns Night celebration at a reopened hotel should be good for business, until a blizzard traps Liss with a quarrelsome Scottish society and a corpse. Cut off from help, she has to sort through grudges before the killer strikes again.
Scotched
by Kaitlyn Dunnett
2011
Moosetookalook's first mystery conference promises full inns and easy sales for the Scottish Emporium. When an unpopular reviewer dies at a scenic overlook, Liss must investigate a crowd of authors, agents, and other suspects with sharp motives.
Bagpipes, Brides and Homicides
by Kaitlyn Dunnett
2012
Liss's wedding weekend collides with the Western Maine Highland Games, picketers, and a murder involving a broadsword. With guests arriving and tensions rising, she has to solve the case before her walk down the aisle turns disastrous.
Vampires, Bones and Treacle Scones
by Kaitlyn Dunnett
2013
While turning the abandoned Chadwick mansion into a haunted house fundraiser, Liss expects cobwebs and fake scares. Then a prop skeleton is replaced by a real corpse, and Halloween fun gives way to a very real investigation.
Ho-Ho-Homicide
by Kaitlyn Dunnett
2014
Liss and Dan head to a Maine Christmas tree farm to judge its business potential, hoping for a quiet holiday week. Instead they find a missing person, an unidentified body, and a tangle of accidents that look anything but accidental.
The Scottie Barked At Midnight
by Kaitlyn Dunnett
2015
When Liss rescues a lost Scottish terrier on an icy road, she gets pulled into the bizarre world of a reality competition show. After the dog's owner is murdered, Liss must sniff out a killer among the show's cutthroat contestants.
Kilt at the Highland Games
by Kaitlyn Dunnett
2017
As Moosetookalook prepares for the annual Highland Games, a bookstore fire, missing people, and vandalism rattle the town. Then a local selectman is shot, and Liss has to find out whether the crimes are linked before the festival falls apart.
X Marks the Scot
by Kaitlyn Dunnett
2017
At an estate sale in the old Chadwick mansion, Liss finds a treasure map and follows it straight into trouble. Hidden clues, family secrets, and a dead body turn a small-town curiosity into a dangerous hunt.
Crime & Punctuation
by Kaitlyn Dunnett
2018
Recently widowed Mikki Lincoln buys back her childhood home in the Catskills and starts over as a freelance editor. When a would-be novelist brings her a messy manuscript tied to a local murder, Mikki's quiet return quickly turns deadly.
Overkilt
by Kaitlyn Dunnett
2018
As Thanksgiving nears, a controversial hotel promotion sets Moosetookalook buzzing and turns social outrage into something uglier. When the campaign's loudest critic ends up dead, Liss has to protect her family without accusing the wrong people.
Clause & Effect
by Kaitlyn Dunnett
2019
Lenape Hollow's 225th anniversary pageant needs editing, and Mikki Lincoln seems perfect for the job. Then renovations at the historical society uncover a body in a fireplace, and an old crime collides with a new murder.
A Fatal Fiction
by Kaitlyn Dunnett
2020
Mikki is hired to edit an elderly woman's memoir about a once-famous Catskills resort slated for demolition. When a local entrepreneur is killed at the site, she has to separate nostalgia, greed, and long-buried secrets.
A View to a Kilt
by Kaitlyn Dunnett
2020
Put in charge of Moosetookalook's muddy spring sales event, Liss already has enough on her plate. Then a body turns up on her property, and the victim may be an uncle her family thought had died decades ago.
Murder, She Edited
by Kaitlyn Dunnett
2021
Mikki unexpectedly inherits a rundown farm with one condition, she must find, edit, and publish hidden diaries within a month. Strange activity on the property and an old unsolved killing make the job far more dangerous than it sounds.
Where should I start?
If you want the classic Scottish cozy series: Kilt Dead → Scone Cold Dead → A Wee Christmas Homicide
If you want bookish mysteries: Crime & Punctuation → Clause & Effect → A Fatal Fiction
If you want holiday-themed cases: A Wee Christmas Homicide → Ho-Ho-Homicide → Overkilt
If you want later Liss MacCrimmon adventures: Kilt at the Highland Games → X Marks the Scot → A View to a Kilt
Author bio
Kaitlyn Dunnett is the mystery-writing name of Kathy Lynn Emerson, who was born and raised in Liberty, New York, in the Sullivan County Catskills. She later studied at Bates College in Lewiston, Maine, did graduate work at Old Dominion University in Virginia, and spent part of her early working life teaching, including at Tidewater Community College.
Writing came early, but the serious turn came later. Emerson has said that she began writing with publication in mind in 1976, after a rough year teaching seventh and eighth graders convinced her that she wanted a different kind of work. The first published sale that followed was a piece for Highlights for Children.
That change held.
From there she kept building, through children's books, romances, nonfiction, and mysteries. Over time she used different names to keep those lanes clear: Kathy Lynn Emerson for much of her historical work, Kate Emerson for Tudor historical fiction, and Kaitlyn Dunnett for contemporary mysteries. It was less about hiding and more about helping readers know what kind of story they were picking up.
As Kaitlyn Dunnett, she is best known for the Liss MacCrimmon novels, beginning with Kilt Dead. Liss is a former professional Scottish dancer who returns to small-town Maine after a knee injury and winds up solving murders around the Scottish Emporium, local festivals, and a town full of old ties. Readers who like cozy mysteries with a clear setting, recurring characters, and a Scottish twist usually feel at home there.
Maine left its mark on those books.
Emerson has lived there for years, and some of the Scottish flavor in the Liss MacCrimmon stories grew out of real life. She has written that when her husband was learning the bagpipes, she took up the bass drum, and that part of their shared interest later fed into the world of the series. Her husband also helped inspire Dan Ruskin's woodworking projects. She later took the contemporary cozy setup in a different direction with the Deadly Edits books, starting with Crime & Punctuation, which follows retired teacher turned freelance editor Mikki Lincoln back to the Catskills.
Under her own name, Emerson built an equally substantial career in historical mystery. The Face Down books, beginning with Face Down in the Marrow-Bone Pie, feature Susanna, Lady Appleton, a gentlewoman, herbalist, and sleuth in sixteenth-century England. She also wrote the Diana Spaulding mysteries, set in 1888, and won the Agatha Award for How to Write Killer Historical Mysteries, a nonfiction guide shaped by years of research and hands-on experience.
She has never really stayed in one box for long. That range helps explain what links her books: smart women, strong settings, family history, and the way old grudges keep resurfacing. Whether she is writing about Tudor courts, Catskills resorts, or a Maine town full of tartan and gossip, she keeps the work grounded in daily life. These days she lives in Maine with her husband and cats and has described herself as semi-retired while she revises and republishes parts of her backlist.
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