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Lin Anderson Books in Order

Explore all Lin Anderson books in order, with series lists, short summaries, background on her Tartan Noir crime novels and guidance on where to start reading.

Last updated: December 25, 2025

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28 books

The Dead and the Dying

by Lin Anderson

2025

In the aftermath of a natural disaster at Orkney's Skaill Bay, Rhona volunteers with the rescue teams and uncovers a human skeleton sealed in a stone crypt. Thought at first to be Viking, the remains point to a much more recent crime and lead to further buried bodies, exposing secrets that implicate people at the heart of the investigation.

Whispers of the Dead

by Lin Anderson

2024

A man is found tied to a chair in Glasgow's Elder Park, murdered with a bullet engraved with a snake's head. At the same time, a Hollywood blockbuster filming in the city loses its star, and Rhona and DS McNab suspect a gangland revenge story is spilling off the script and into real life.

The Wild Coast

by Lin Anderson

2023

When a shallow grave is found on Scotland's remote west coast with a twig stickman left in the victim's mouth, Rhona is called in to investigate. As wild campers begin to vanish and sinister figurines appear at their sites, she must catch a predator using the coastline as a private hunting ground.

The Party House

by Lin Anderson

2022

In the Highland village of Blackrig, locals still grieving a devastating outbreak linked to a luxury holiday lodge are furious when the estate plans to reopen its party house. A night of vandalism uncovers the buried body of missing teenager Ailsa Cummings, forcing newcomer Joanne to question how well she knows her lover and their closed community.

The Killing Tide

by Lin Anderson

2022

After a ferocious storm, an apparently abandoned cargo ship drifts ashore in Orkney with three brutally killed bodies on board. While Rhona examines the disturbing crime scene, DS McNab investigates a woman burned on a Glasgow street, and together they uncover a conspiracy that reaches far beyond Scotland's coasts.

The Dinosaur Mystery

by Lin Anderson

2021

A priceless dinosaur footprint disappears from the rocks at Staffin beach, and once again Blaze Dog Detective is on the case. Teaming up with Rosa, Rory and Laoch, he tracks the stolen fossil across Skye and uncovers a secret even more magical than the island's prehistoric past.

The Magic Flag Mystery

by Lin Anderson

2020

When the legendary fairy flag of Clan MacLeod is stolen from a locked room in Dunvegan Castle on the Isle of Skye, the local police call in Blaze Dog Detective. With Rosa, Rory and his wee brother Laoch, Blaze races across the island to retrieve the flag before it is lost forever.

The Innocent Dead

by Lin Anderson

2020

The discovery of a child's remains in a peat bog south of Glasgow reopens the forty five year old disappearance of schoolgirl Mary McIntyre. As Rhona applies modern science to old bones, Mary's childhood friend Karen is forced to relive buried memories and confront what really happened the day her friend vanished.

Time for the Dead

by Lin Anderson

2019

Still recovering from trauma, Rhona retreats to Skye and stumbles on a blood soaked room used by a close knit group of medics just back from Afghanistan. With the help of local tracker dog Blaze, she follows a trail from island cliffs to Glasgow, asking whether wartime trauma is now driving someone to kill.

Sins of the Dead

by Lin Anderson

2019

What begins as a teaching exercise in Rhona's forensic science class turns chillingly real when one of four staged victims ends up truly dead. As more bodies appear arranged in the same ritual pose, signs point to a killer trained in forensics who is using their lessons to taunt her.

Follow the Dead

by Lin Anderson

2017

On holiday in the Cairngorms, Rhona joins a mountain rescue after a light aircraft crash and a fatal climbing accident high above a frozen loch. Back in Glasgow, DS McNab's raid on an exclusive club uncovers trafficked girls, and together they trace a trafficking network that links city nightlife to the remote Highlands.

The Case of the Missing Madonna

by Lin Anderson

2016

When a hidden Fragonard Madonna vanishes from the vault of a monastery on the island of Saint Honorat, the monks turn to Patrick de Courvoisier instead of the police. His search for the painting collides with an old enemy, another stolen canvas and buried wartime secrets the powerful would rather forget.

None But the Dead

by Lin Anderson

2016

Human remains are unearthed at an old primary school on the remote Orkney island of Sanday just as a suspicious death in Glasgow points the police north. Stranded by storms with limited resources, Rhona and DS Michael McNab must untangle wartime memories, thirteen magic flowers and island loyalties before violence erupts again.

The Special Dead

by Lin Anderson

2015

A casual hook up turns to horror when Mark wakes in Leila's flat, opens the wrong door and finds her hanging among a forest of Barbie dolls. Rhona's forensic work exposes Wiccan ritual objects and a circle of influential men whose secret appetites have become lethal.

The Case of the Black Pearl

by Lin Anderson

2014

In Cannes during the film festival, fixer Patrick de Courvoisier enjoys the quiet life on his old gunboat until an elegant visitor asks him to find her missing actress sister and a famous black pearl. When a corpse turns up on his boat, Patrick must outplay oligarchs, gangsters and old comrades.

Paths of the Dead

by Lin Anderson

2014

After a mother hears her living son's voice at a spiritualist meeting, a young man's body is found in a Neolithic stone circle above Glasgow, his hands severed and a numbered stone in his mouth. Rhona uncovers a grim Druid inspired game being played out across the hills.

Saving Mr Ugwu

by Lin Anderson

2013

In a remote Nigerian bush community built around an irrigation project, the Ugwu family and their neighbors face love, betrayal and simmering tensions. A chain of interlinked stories reveals how personal choices, prejudice and corporate power can turn an isolated street into a place of wonder and of murder.

Picture Her Dead

by Lin Anderson

2011

Art student Jude Evans vanishes while photographing Glasgow's derelict cinemas, and the police are slow to act. Rhona, pushed by her son Liam, retraces Jude's steps through crumbling picture houses and uncovers a hidden body in the walls, along with a killer who treats ruin as their stage.

Dead Close

by Lin Anderson

2011

On the verge of retirement, Edinburgh detective Doug Cameron answers a call about an assault in Greyfriars churchyard and stumbles on a mummified body. Convinced the remains belong to his wife who disappeared years before, he is drawn into eerie visions and a case where the dead feel uncomfortably close.

The Reborn

by Lin Anderson

2010

A pregnant teenager is killed at a Glasgow funfair and her unborn baby is surgically removed, possibly alive. Rhona's investigation circles a psychiatric patient who crafts unnervingly lifelike reborn dolls and a tight group of girls known as the Daisy Chain, all hiding dangerous secrets.

Final Cut

by Lin Anderson

2009

After a stranger forces Claire's car off an icy road, her daughter Emma is found near the crash site clutching a child's skull she swears was calling to her. As Rhona investigates a charred corpse found in a skip, the two cases converge into a disturbing hunt for a serial killer.

Easy Kill

by Lin Anderson

2008

The body of a young woman is discovered posed on a grave in Glasgow's sprawling Necropolis cemetery, her murder clearly sexual. When a second victim is found buried beneath her and sex workers start disappearing, Rhona joins a frantic search for a predator who sees women as easy prey.

Dark Flight

by Lin Anderson

2007

A six year old boy vanishes and his mother and grandmother are found brutally murdered, with a chilling talisman made from child bones left behind. Rhona must decode its meaning and trace the killer's links to Nigeria before the missing child becomes the next victim.

Torch

by Lin Anderson

2006

In the run up to Hogmanay, a homeless girl dies in a suspected arson attack and similar fires erupt across Glasgow and Edinburgh. Rhona teams up with volatile fire investigator Severino MacRae to hunt a ruthless firestarter before the next blaze kills again.

Deadly Code

by Lin Anderson

2006

After a trawler hauls a decomposing human foot from the waters off Skye, Rhona is sent back to her island roots to investigate. The trail leads to secret tests, a powerful shadowy organisation and a conspiracy some in authority will do anything to bury.

Braveheart

by Lin Anderson

2006

This non fiction companion to the film Braveheart explores how the movie was made, how it portrays William Wallace and Scottish history, and how its unexpected cultural impact fed into modern debates about Scottish identity and politics.

Blood Red Roses

by Lin Anderson

2005

When a bride to be is found dead on a hen night, twisted on a nightclub bathroom floor with a terrifying grin, Rhona suspects poisoning. Her search for the truth drags her into Glasgow's lap dancing clubs and a dangerous web of obsession, exploitation and jealousy.

Driftnet

by Lin Anderson

2003

Forensic scientist Rhona MacLeod is called to a Glasgow flat where a teenage boy has been strangled and mutilated, a boy who looks disturbingly like her. Haunted by the son she gave up for adoption, she follows the evidence into a hidden world that preys on vulnerable teens.

Where should I start?

If you want to start with Rhona MacLeod: DriftnetTorchDeadly Code.
If you like remote Scottish settings: None But the DeadFollow the DeadTime for the DeadThe Wild Coast.
If you enjoy glamorous international mysteries: The Case of the Black PearlThe Case of the Missing Madonna.
If you prefer standalone psychological thrillers: The Party House.
If you are choosing for younger readers ages 7 to 11: The Magic Flag MysteryThe Dinosaur Mystery.

Author bio

Lin Anderson grew up in Greenock on Scotland's west coast, the daughter of Scottish and Irish parents and of a CID detective who brought real police work home to the dinner table. Those stories, together with childhood reading that ranged from Enid Blyton to Agatha Christie, quietly laid the foundations for a life in crime writing.

Before she ever imagined herself as a novelist, she studied mathematics at the University of Glasgow and trained as a teacher at the University of Edinburgh, later adding screenwriting studies at Edinburgh Napier's Screen Academy. She taught maths and computing in secondary schools across Scotland and spent several years working in the Nigerian bush, an experience that would later feed into her African short stories and the linked collection behind Saving Mr Ugwu.

Her path into fiction began with those short stories, some of which were broadcast on national radio or appeared in Scottish anthologies. In the late 1990s she turned more deliberately to writing, and in 2003 she introduced forensic scientist Rhona MacLeod in Driftnet, a Glasgow set crime novel where a murdered teenager could be the son Rhona gave up for adoption. The book reached the top of the Scottish bestseller lists and opened a long running Tartan Noir series that now spans investigations in cities, islands and wild stretches of coast.

Readers have followed Rhona through arson attacks in Torch, island conspiracies in Deadly Code, Druid inspired killings in Paths of the Dead and remote island secrets in None But the Dead, among many others. Several titles, including Paths of the Dead and Follow the Dead, have been shortlisted or longlisted for Scottish crime awards, while the series as a whole is often picked out as one of the pillars of contemporary Scottish crime fiction.

Anderson has never kept herself to one corner of the genre. She also writes the Cannes set Patrick de Courvoisier mysteries, where a former British intelligence officer turned fixer solves discreet problems for clients along the French Riviera. More recently she has moved into children's fiction with the Blaze Dog Detective books, co written with Donald McKay, in which a real life Skye border collie chases stolen fairy flags and dinosaur footprints across the Isle of Skye.

Away from the page, she has built a parallel career in film and television. Her screenplay Small Love was screened at major festivals in London and Edinburgh before being broadcast on Scottish television, and her film River Child went on to win both a Celtic Film Festival prize and a Scottish BAFTA for drama. She continues to develop new screen projects, many of them rooted in the same mix of everyday life and quiet menace that runs through her novels.

Anderson is also an organiser and advocate. Alongside fellow writer Alex Gray she co founded Bloody Scotland, the annual crime writing festival held in Stirling, which has become a focal point for fans and writers of Tartan Noir. She has served as Chair of the Society of Authors in Scotland and is a regular presence at festivals, conferences and workshops, talking about the nuts and bolts of forensic investigation and how real science fits on the page.

Her only full length non fiction book, Braveheart: From Hollywood to Holyrood, looks at how the film Braveheart was made and how its portrayal of William Wallace rippled through Scottish culture and politics. It reflects her long running interest in the stories a country tells about itself, whether on screen or in print.

Today she writes full time in Scotland, drawing inspiration from Glasgow's back lanes, the islands of Skye and Orkney and the kind of small communities where secrets can sit undisturbed for decades. Her work is marked by clear prose, careful research and a steady concern for victims, and she shows no sign of leaving Rhona MacLeod, or crime fiction, behind any time soon.

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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All 28 Lin Anderson Books in Order (Complete List 2026)