Logan McRae Books in Order
Part ofStuart MacBride Books in OrderBrowse all Logan McRae novels by Stuart MacBride in order, with plot summaries, series background, reading order, and tips on where to begin this darkly funny Aberdeen-set crime series.
Last updated: December 21, 2025
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Publication Order
13 books
This House of Burning Bones
by Stuart MacBride
2025
During a sweltering Aberdeen summer, half the police force is off sick, a hotel housing migrants has been firebombed, and a massive protest is days away. With only a skeleton crew, DI Logan McRae must run a major murder inquiry while hostile media fans the flames.
All That's Dead
by Stuart MacBride
2019
An outspoken English unionist lecturer disappears from Aberdeen, leaving only bloodstains behind. Back from medical leave, Logan McRae is loaned to a politically explosive case linking hardline nationalists, past extremist ties inside the police, and a string of disappearances that could ignite a wider backlash.
The Blood Road
by Stuart MacBride
2018
Working in Professional Standards, Logan McRae is called to a car crash and finds the driver is a detective inspector who supposedly died two years ago. Investigating Bell’s vanished life pulls Logan into a disturbing abuse network and forces him to confront corruption inside the job.
In the Cold Dark Ground
by Stuart MacBride
2016
Sergeant Logan McRae juggles a buried‑in‑the‑woods murder, pressure from Professional Standards, and the impending death of Aberdeen crime lord Wee Hamish Mowat, who’s chosen Logan as his unlikely heir. With gangsters circling and bosses watching, every decision could ruin either his career or his soul.
The Missing and the Dead
by Stuart MacBride
2014
Punished for bending the rules, Logan McRae is exiled from Aberdeen to run a small rural station. A little girl’s body in a derelict outdoor pool, grieving parents, and unfinished business from his last case soon turn quiet countryside duty into something far more harrowing.
Close to the Bone
by Stuart MacBride
2013
Victims are being strangled, stabbed and burned with tyres around their necks, in scenes that echo a witchcraft film shooting in Aberdeen. As bones appear on his doorstep and two teens vanish, Logan McRae untangles copycat murders, gang feuds, and his own haunted past.
Shatter the Bones
by Stuart MacBride
2011
A mother‑and‑daughter folk duo vanish while starring on a national talent show, and their kidnappers demand a multimillion‑pound ransom raised by horrified fans. Logan McRae races to find them while juggling a vicious drug case and a personal tragedy that shatters his home life.
Dark Blood
by Stuart MacBride
2010
Sex offender Richard Knox is released under strict supervision into Logan McRae’s patch, and furious locals want him gone. When a body is found buried in concrete, Logan’s attempt to protect the community drags him deep into vigilantism, political pressure, and brutal retribution.
Blind Eye
by Stuart MacBride
2009
Someone is hunting Aberdeen’s Polish workers, leaving them beaten, maimed, and with their eyes burned out. As racial tension spirals and a gang war brews, Logan McRae and foul‑mouthed DI Roberta Steel push the law to stop an escalating hate‑fueled killer.
Flesh House
by Stuart MacBride
2008
When a shipping container packed with butchered human meat turns up in Aberdeen Harbour, whispers of a cannibal killer known as the Flesher resurface. Logan McRae must reopen a notorious case and untangle decades of lies before the slaughter starts again.
Broken Skin
by Stuart MacBride
2007
A serial rapist is torturing women across Aberdeen, and Logan McRae’s partner Jackie is being used as bait. At the same time, a blood‑soaked corpse points Logan toward the city’s kinky underground, where a football star and violent fantasies collide.
Dying Light
by Stuart MacBride
2006
Demoted to DI Steel’s so‑called Screw‑up Squad after a botched raid, Logan McRae investigates a prostitute’s murder and a deadly arson attack. As more bodies appear, links emerge between the red‑light killings, political corruption, and Logan’s own past mistakes.
Cold Granite
by Stuart MacBride
2005
Back on duty after a year-long recovery, DS Logan McRae is thrown into a case involving abducted and murdered children on Aberdeen’s frozen streets. With the press baying for blood and a leak inside the force, every mistake could cost another life.
Series background & context
The Logan McRae series is MacBride’s longest‑running work and the one most readers start with. Set in Aberdeen – the “Granite City” – it follows Logan from his early days as a damaged detective sergeant to later promotions and sideways moves, all while he wades through an endless stream of murders, missing persons, political scandals and bureaucratic disasters.
In Cold Granite, Logan returns from a near‑fatal stabbing to investigate murdered children on freezing winter streets, fighting both a media circus and leaks from inside the station. Dying Light sees him banished to DI Roberta Steel’s infamous “Screw‑up Squad” after a disastrous raid, juggling a prostitute’s murder with a fatal arson attack. By Broken Skin and Flesh House, he’s chasing rapists, kink‑scene killers and a cannibalistic butcher whose crimes reach back decades.
Later cases push him into even uglier corners of the city. Blind Eye deals with horrific attacks on Polish immigrants and hints of gang warfare. In Dark Blood, Logan must protect a deeply unpopular released sex offender while also investigating a man entombed in concrete. Shatter the Bones revolves around the kidnapping of a mother‑and‑daughter singing duo from a TV talent show, while Close to the Bone mixes gang rivalries with murders that mimic a witchcraft film being shot in Aberdeen.
A big shift comes with The Missing and the Dead and In the Cold Dark Ground. After overstepping the mark once too often, Logan is sent to run a small rural station, only to find that the countryside has as many bodies as the city. He juggles the discovery of a dead child at an abandoned swimming pool, the slow collapse of his personal life, pressure from Professional Standards, and the unwanted attention of dying crime boss Wee Hamish Mowat, who tries to make Logan his successor.
That leads into Now We Are Dead, a spin‑off focused on Roberta Steel’s demotion and vendetta against a suspected rapist, with Logan appearing only briefly. In The Blood Road, Logan works inside Professional Standards and investigates a detective who appears to have returned from the dead, uncovering a disturbing abuse ring. All That’s Dead drops him into a politically charged case involving missing unionist voices and hardline Scottish nationalists. Most recently, This House of Burning Bones finds him leading a major investigation during a blistering Aberdeen summer, with a firebombed hotel for migrants, protests on the streets, and a hollowed‑out police force struggling to cope.
Shorter pieces like Partners in Crime, The 45% Hangover and the tales collected in 22 Dead Little Bodies and Other Stories fill in the gaps: a disastrous island assignment here, a referendum‑night search there, Steel’s chaotic Christmas and Logan’s worst week on record. They’re not essential to follow the main plot, but they show the characters at their most unfiltered.
Across the series you get procedural detail, knotty plots and a cast of detectives who bicker, swear and eat badly while trying to do the right thing. If you want Scottish crime that’s grim, funny and oddly human all at once, Logan McRae is the place to go.
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