Katherine Pathak Books in Order
This page shows Katherine Pathak books in order, with quick summaries, reading order, series guides for Dani Bevan and the Crofts, and where to start.
Last updated: July 4, 2026
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Publication Order
24 books
Aoife's Chariot
by Katherine Pathak
2013
After her mother's death, Imogen Croft returns to Garansay to decide the future of the family farm. Research into its past leads to a fresh tragedy and a baffling link to an unsolved death forty years earlier.
The Only Survivor
by Katherine Pathak
2013
A helicopter crash off Garansay leaves nineteen-year-old Cameron Fleming as the lone survivor. Imogen soon doubts his innocence, and she and Hugh are drawn into a wider mystery that runs from the island to Dubai.
Against a Dark Sky
by Katherine Pathak
2014
Five walkers climb Ben Lomond, but only panic and death come back down the mountain. Dani investigates a strangling and a disappearance that echo an earlier tragedy, while the case stirs ghosts from her own past.
Full Beam
by Katherine Pathak
2014
A nanny dies and two children are badly hurt in what looks like a simple road accident. Defense lawyer Penny Mills asks Imogen Croft to take a closer look, and the crash soon begins to tell a different story.
Lawful Death
by Katherine Pathak
2014
After a young man is shot during a burglary at Langley Farm, Hugh Croft joins the defense as an expert witness. The deeper he and Imogen dig, the clearer it becomes that victim and villain are not so easy to separate.
Memorial for the Dead
by Katherine Pathak
2014
Thirty years after a man was believed drowned when the S.S. Minerva went down, an old friend spots him alive in Toronto. Imogen's questions about a family secret open into a long trail of murder, deception, and wartime shadows.
The Woman Who Vanished
by Katherine Pathak
2014
While Kathleen and Gerry Croft investigate the decades-old disappearance of a woman from Sandlings Hall, Imogen and Hugh face a dangerous present-day case of their own. The result is a layered mystery with past and present colliding.
A Dark Shadow Falls
by Katherine Pathak
2015
Eric Fisher is accused of slaughtering his family, but a wave of violent burglaries suggests the police may have the wrong man. Dani is pulled into a frantic hunt for a killer who seems to stay one step ahead.
Dark As Night
by Katherine Pathak
2015
A routine missing-person report becomes far more troubling when Dani learns the case mirrors a disappearance from ten years earlier. As secrets pile up around a quiet suburban marriage, her investigation heads steadily toward tragedy.
Girls Of The Dark
by Katherine Pathak
2015
A notorious killer convicted of murdering four young women on the Ayrshire coast is about to walk free. Dani discovers the old case reaches into the lives of people she trusts, making every answer harder to face.
Mystery at Christmas Cottage
by Katherine Pathak
2015
A mysterious family rents the nearby Christmas Cottage, and Bridie Croft is sure they are hiding something. As accidents pile up, Imogen and Hugh uncover a second tale of betrayal that turns a festive stay dangerous.
On A Dark Sea
by Katherine Pathak
2015
When fourteen-year-old Maisie Riddell vanishes from a Glasgow school, Dani must move fast. The trail leads through broken loyalties and hidden lives all the way to Norway, where the truth proves darker than anyone expected.
The Dark Fear
by Katherine Pathak
2015
Seconded to Edinburgh to investigate a senior officer suspected of corruption, Dani expects a clear case. Then a key player is murdered, and the inquiry twists into something far more personal and dangerous.
The Ghost Of Marchmont Hall
by Katherine Pathak
2015
When artist Laurie Saunders tells Imogen about ghostly visions at her old boarding school, curiosity wins out. Digging into Marchmont Hall's past uncovers superstition, cruelty, and a threat hanging over a young family.
Dark Remedies
by Katherine Pathak
2016
A young woman is found dead in a swimming pool after a celebrity house party, yet nobody claims to know her. Dani's search for a Jane Doe uncovers drugs, exploitation, and a case that cuts painfully close to home.
Hold Hands In The Dark
by Katherine Pathak
2016
A murdered American police officer draws Dani into a case that reaches back to the industrial unrest of the 1970s. What starts as a favor soon becomes a grim story of old grudges and long-delayed revenge.
I Trust You
by Katherine Pathak
2016
Marisa Coleman thinks she has a happy marriage until her husband leaves her stranded on a boat in the rising tide. As she digs into her own shadowed past, the trust holding her life together begins to give way.
Mint Choc Chip
by Katherine Pathak
2016
Minty Garrone's family ice cream parlour has been part of Mayland-by-the-Sea for generations. When her dad has an accident and a neighbor starts acting oddly, Minty finds herself in the middle of a bright, breezy summer mystery.
The Flawed Emerald and Other Stories
by Katherine Pathak
2016
This collection gathers shorter Imogen and Hugh Croft mysteries, from hate mail and buried bones to a sinister Goa holiday. It's a good sampler of Pathak's knack for clean setups, old secrets, and neatly turned puzzles.
Dark Origin
by Katherine Pathak
2017
A raid on a small pornography operation in south Glasgow turns uglier when a man is found murdered in the outbuilding. Dani's understaffed team faces a rising body count and a disturbing question about where evil begins.
The Dark Isle
by Katherine Pathak
2017
A woman's body is found on the long-abandoned Isle of Ghiant, and the victim turns out to be Dani's first boss. The investigation forces her to reopen old memories and confront secrets that change how she sees her own past.
Dark Enough to See
by Katherine Pathak
2018
Fifteen years after a businessman was shot dead at a remote Highland cottage, Dani revisits the unsolved case at a cold-case conference. Old witnesses, failed evidence, and fresh doubts make this a tense hunt for the truth.
The Eye in the Dark
by Katherine Pathak
2019
Cabin crew supervisor Autumn Carlisle is haunted by terrifying visions linked to air travel. When Dani looks into an air stewardess's apparent suicide, the case widens into multiple murders and deadly secrets from the past.
A Better Place
by Katherine Pathak
2020
Three years after Cordelia Mathison vanished on a gap year, her body turns up close to home in Essex. DI Nate Lawrence follows the case to a Mediterranean island, where Bridie Croft and her family may hold the missing piece.
Where should I start?
If you want a Scottish police procedural: Against a Dark Sky → On A Dark Sea → A Dark Shadow Falls
If you prefer island mysteries and family secrets: Aoife's Chariot → The Only Survivor → Lawful Death
If you like ghostly atmosphere: The Ghost Of Marchmont Hall → Mystery at Christmas Cottage
If you want a standalone psychological thriller: I Trust You
If you're reading with a younger mystery fan: Mint Choc Chip
Author bio
Katherine Pathak was born in Inverness, Scotland, in 1974, but she spent much of her childhood in Essex after her family moved south. That mix of Scottish roots and south-east English life shows up all through her fiction. Her books are full of places that feel lived in, and of characters who cannot quite outrun family history.
She studied History at the University of York and graduated in 1996. After that she worked in the book trade in London for several years, which sounds like a pretty good apprenticeship for a novelist. In 2000 she gained her teaching qualification at the Institute of Education and went on to teach History in secondary schools for more than a decade.
Writing did not arrive out of nowhere. Pathak has said that she had long been interested in history and in the kinds of hidden stories families carry around with them. She also spent years surrounded by books, first in publishing and then in classrooms, before deciding to leave teaching and write full time.
History stayed with her.
She self-published her first novel, Aoife's Chariot, in 2013. That book grew out of stories she had heard about her father's family on the Isle of Arran, which she reshaped into the fictional island of Garansay. The result was the start of the Imogen and Hugh Croft mysteries, a series that mixes island life, old grievances, family secrets, and a steady thread of psychological suspense in books like The Only Survivor, Lawful Death, and The Ghost Of Marchmont Hall.
That Scottish connection matters.
Pathak later built a second series around DCI Dani Bevan, a senior Scottish detective working tough cases across Glasgow, the Highlands, coastal communities, and remote islands. Starting with Against a Dark Sky, those books lean more directly into police procedure while keeping the same interest in memory, motive, and the way the past can break into the present. Later Dani novels such as Girls Of The Dark and The Eye in the Dark show how comfortable she is with cold cases, missing people, and investigations that turn painfully personal.
She has also stepped outside her two main series. I Trust You is a standalone psychological thriller about a marriage cracking under pressure and a past that refuses to stay buried. At the other end of the scale, Mint Choc Chip is a younger-reader adventure with seaside charm and a small mystery at its center, which gives a good sense of her range without changing the basic ingredients she seems to enjoy most: secrets, place, and human behavior.
These days Pathak lives in rural north Essex with her husband and children. She still writes crime fiction shaped by history, close communities, and the awkward fact that people rarely tell the whole truth the first time around.
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