Quintin Jardine Books in Order

In this late Bob Skinner story, life outside the force has not freed him from danger. Drawn into a fresh investigation where secrets, politics and family ties close around him like bars, he has to decide what freedom really means and what he is still willing to risk.

A violent storm near a family celebration exposes the remains of a long-buried double murder, reopening a thirty-year-old mystery. At the same time, a vanished crime writer may have staged his own death, and Skinner, now a media boss, is pulled into both tangled investigations.

Now running a global media group, Sir Robert Skinner still likes helping his elderly neighbours with small problems. When several of them die in quick succession and a gruesome find in Glasgow points towards one of his oldest friends, he must decide whether a killer is at work or coincidence is playing tricks.

Set in early 2020, this case drags Skinner into a murky mix of family feuds, hostile corporate takeovers and state-sanctioned violence. As extortion and the darker corners of the publishing world bleed into one another, he must decide who is truly pulling the strings.

Nine years after Marcia Brown apparently killed herself following a theft accusation, her ex-husband insists she was framed and hires Alex Skinner to prove it. As Alex and her investigator dig into village secrets, a fresh tragedy puts her in the firing line and forces her father back into action.

This collection brings together four Oz Blackstone short stories, revisiting the magnetic investigator-turned-star at different points in his career. Fans get fresh glimpses of his schemes, friendships and supposed death, tying off loose ends and raising new questions about his legend.

In this short story from the Oz Blackstone cycle, a seemingly casual encounter spirals into a sharp little mystery. Oz's quick tongue and appetite for risk carry him into trouble yet again, before he can work out who is really calling the shots.

Green Bananas and Oz gathers Jardine's Oz Blackstone tales and other shorter pieces in one volume. It circles around the mystery of Oz's reported death, offering playful, darker and more reflective snapshots of the characters and places that run through the earlier novels.

Thirty years after a popular priest was found dead in a frozen quarry and his killer jailed, new evidence drags the case back into the light. When the old "Body in the Quarry" file begins to haunt Jimmy Proud, Skinner returns to learn if the wrong man went to prison.

When millionaire and former boxing champion Leo Speight is poisoned in his Ayrshire mansion, the list of people who could benefit from his death is long. Brought in as an observer, Skinner works with Police Scotland detectives to sift jealousy, rivalry and security-service secrets.

This brief tale returns to Oz Blackstone's universe for another sideways look at crime, fame and bad luck. In a compact case with a sting in its tail, Oz discovers that even small jobs can open the lid on dangerous secrets.

The Prime Minister is found in her Westminster office with a letter opener buried in her skull, hours before a crucial announcement. Dragged back into service by the security services, Skinner has forty-eight hours to untangle motives swirling through Parliament before the country erupts.

In this Christmas short set in 2041, a retired but still formidable Bob Skinner is drawn into a seasonal case that refuses to stay small, proving that age and distance have not dulled his instincts for trouble.

When supermodel Annette Bordeaux is found strangled in her Edinburgh flat, suspicion falls on her footballer husband and his club. Two years after leaving the force, Skinner cannot resist getting involved, especially when his daughter Alex ends up defending the man everyone wants jailed.

A stolen car slams into Skinner's on the outskirts of Edinburgh, and the carnage in its boot shocks even him. While his former colleagues follow that trail, he is hired to find a vanished million-pound yacht, only to discover the two investigations are tragically intertwined.

Ten years after Oz Blackstone supposedly died while filming in Guatemala, Primavera has rebuilt a quiet life in the Spanish village where Tom was conceived. This short story plays with the rumours that Oz somehow survived, teasing out how legends grow and what his return would mean.

On a trip to Catalunya to ponder retirement, Skinner agrees to help old friend Xavi Aislado track a brilliant employee who has disappeared. Another hunt is underway though, and as Alex fights for him back home, he must decide how far natural justice can stretch the law.

After heroic service at Waterloo, Mathew Fleming returns to rural Lanarkshire in 1818 a changed man. As he builds influence in his community while nursing the loss of his first love, a brutal murder forces him to choose between family vengeance and the rule of law.

A murdered woman washes up on Cramond Island, and days later police find a blood-soaked flat whose tenant has vanished. When the dead woman's identity stirs painful memories for Skinner, now based in Glasgow, he is dragged into a case that forces a life-changing decision.

When DS "Sauce" Haddock visits his former teacher about a suspected jewellery theft, he expects a routine enquiry. Instead he uncovers a much darker secret, and with Skinner's help must prove that appearances are hiding a far more serious crime.

In the immediate aftermath of a devastating loss, Skinner is thrust into the spotlight and into a new Chief Constable role in the west of Scotland. While the media circle, he must balance public grief, political manoeuvring and a fresh wave of violence that refuses to wait for him to heal.

During the fiery Fiesta de San Juan, Prim's village buzzes with celebration and a massive firework display. The mood curdles when journalist Duncan Culshaw starts raking over her past and dabbling in extortion, then marries a dying woman whose fortune threatens Tom's future, forcing Prim to fight back.

Prim has finally carved out some peace on the Spanish coast and has no wish to remarry. When retired Scottish cop Ricky Ross turns up working for budget-airline tycoon Jack Weighley, she is pulled into an investigation of mysterious attacks on Jack's aircraft that may be sabotage or terrorism.

When an anonymous tip leads to a body exhumed from a shallow grave, the post-mortem shows he died of natural causes. Skinner cannot leave it alone. As questions about the secret burial multiply, a corruption probe and cracks in his marriage push him to the brink.

In her quiet seaside village, Prim is busy raising ten-year-old Tom and hosting golf-mad nephew Jonny Sinclair when a smooth stranger, Patterson Cowling, arrives. After a petty thief who crossed his path is found with his face blown off, a cluster of deaths turns their "idyllic" retreat deadly.

Xavier "Xavi" Aislado, a gentle giant of Scottish and Catalan heritage, swaps a brief football career for the cut-throat world of journalism. As his investigations uncover drugs, corruption and murder, tragedy at home forces him to chase the truth across continents, whatever it costs.

Set over the course of a single, uneasy day, this short standalone crime story shows how an apparently ordinary gathering can tip into violence. When loyalties fracture in moments, everyone on the scene is left to live with the consequences.

Set in the mid-1990s, this prequel finds newly promoted Detective Superintendent Skinner investigating a man whose body has been shattered at the bottom of an empty swimming pool. Organised crime, a knife-wielding attacker preying on gay men and the struggles of single fatherhood collide in one brutal case.

In this standalone political fable, Jardine imagines a Britain where politics is still a gentlemanly game, played without spin doctors or rabid media briefings. Through ambitious would-be leaders, he offers a wry, nostalgic look at power, loyalty and how quickly ideals can warp.

A wealthy Lithuanian businessman apparently jumps to his death, but Skinner and his team have crossed swords with him before and doubt he killed himself. Their suspicions deepen when a drugged teenage girl is abandoned at a clinic and massage parlours across the city abruptly close.

Believed dead by much of the world, Primavera Blackstone has built a quiet life on Spain's Catalan coast with her young son Tom. When her formidable aunt arrives seeking help finding a missing son tied to a shady casino scheme, Prim is soon on the run across Spain, fighting to keep her family alive.

As Skinner stands on the brink of promotion to Chief Constable and marriage to Scotland's First Minister, a bestselling crime writer dies at the Edinburgh International Book Festival. When a second celebrity is killed in Australia, the investigation pits him against an old political enemy and threatens his big day.

Prim enjoys near-anonymous life in a tiny Catalan village, raising Tom and befriending the local priest, to the neighbours' unease. After a powerful councillor blocking a wine fair dies in a suspicious fall, gossip and old grudges make Prim the obvious, and very vulnerable, suspect.

Still grieving a fallen colleague, Skinner is called to a golf course where a woman's body has lain unnoticed for days, arranged in a disturbingly familiar pose. As he weighs copycat against continuation, links emerge to a politician's son and a notorious womanising policeman.

Two young artists are murdered in what looks like ritual killing, and the pressure to catch their killer is intense. When one victim's millionaire father brings powerful agencies into the mix, Skinner finds himself navigating high politics and family loyalties as much as forensics.

Juggling a failed marriage and a death on his conscience, Skinner faces four crises at once: a power struggle in Westminster, a stalker targeting his daughter, a bookmaker killed in grisly fashion and a seemingly small bigamy case that hides something nastier.

Gangsters have quietly infiltrated Edinburgh, and a covert sting run by the security services spins out of control. When evidence of a planned royal assassination emerges and police families come under attack, Skinner suspects someone is using revenge to tear the force apart.

In Monaco, with three homes and a blockbuster career, Oz seems untouchable. A desperate writer sells him film rights to a manuscript that becomes a trap, opening the door to blackmail, incriminating photographs and organised crime that could cost Oz far more than his fortune.

A businessman is found hanging from a tree, a visiting bandsman dies in a hit-and-run, and another victim apparently succumbs to a heart attack. As Edinburgh prepares for a massive papal rally, Skinner must decide whether these deaths are random or part of something far more dangerous.

Movie stardom, money and a happy marriage should mean Oz has it made. Then Primavera turns up destitute, robbed of her fortune and her baby son by a charming con man. Helping his ex pulls Oz into a trail of lies and vengeance that threatens to upend his carefully rebuilt life.

Life as an actor has given Oz wealth and fame, but when blackmailers set up a vile scam targeting his father, the gloss vanishes. Determined to fight back, he plunges into a scheme that drags his family into a vortex of violence and moral compromise.

Offered a juicy role in a big cop movie shooting in Edinburgh, Oz grabs his chance at stardom even as his marriage to Prim disintegrates and a new girlfriend complicates life. An old flame begs for help, a body turns up in her flat, and soon murder stalks both set and city.

Still weakened by serious illness, Skinner is rocked when a body washed up after a flood turns out to be the brother he has kept secret for years. As a bomb destroys a prized painting in Edinburgh and his wife faces a murder charge in America, every part of his life is under siege.

Skinner's composure shatters when his wife's parents are found murdered in New York. Out of his jurisdiction but unwilling to stand back, he hunts a killer targeting men linked to a dark episode in the 1960s, while a buried secret threatens Maggie Rose and Mario McGuire at home.

Oz and Primavera return to the Spanish village where they were once happiest, hoping to start over after the tragic death of Oz's wife Jan. When a corpse turns up in their swimming pool, the couple are pitched back into danger and into questions about the past.

Strolling through Edinburgh with movie star Louise Bankier, Skinner is thrown to the pavement by a sudden shotgun blast. As he hunts whoever is stalking his old flame, an ambitious colleague at headquarters schemes to carve up his territory.

For twenty-five years Skinner's Thursday night football game has been a refuge from the job. That ends when one of the "Thursday Legends", a retired Special Branch chief, is found mutilated. After another teammate dies, he must ask how well he really knows his friends.

Now a lottery winner and rising TV personality, Oz could almost retire, reunited with Primavera and living the high life. A simple poison-pen investigation on a film set turns ugly when threats hit those closest to him and a star actress disappears in a chilling echo of the movie's plot.

Newly married to his childhood sweetheart and settled in Glasgow, Oz looks for a little excitement and finds it in the gaudy world of professional wrestling. A string of suspicious "ring accidents" soon proves murderous, and he must work out who is fixing the fights for keeps.

A notorious terrorist heads for Edinburgh ahead of a summit of world leaders, just as a terminally ill woman is found dead in what appears to be an assisted death. Skinner races to stop an attack on the conference while unravelling a quieter, more intimate killing.

With his marriage faltering, the last thing Skinner needs is to see his private life splashed across a tabloid. When two grotesque murders hit the headlines alongside allegations against him, he must clear his name and catch a ruthless killer under intense scrutiny.

During a high-profile robbery trial in Edinburgh's Parliament House, a judge collapses and dies in open court. As more members of the bench seem to be in danger, Skinner confronts a brutal gang determined to bend the justice system to its will.

A luxury car showroom fire leaves a charred body among the wreckage, but the victim is the owner's wife, not the gangster himself. Forced into uneasy alliance with an old enemy, Skinner also reopens painful questions about his first wife's death.

Oz and Primavera, now partners in work and love, are enjoying sun-soaked success on the Spanish coast after cracking their first big case. When a neighbour dies and a lost Dalí painting surfaces, their new life turns into a deadly puzzle involving art, fraud and buried history.

When a plane carrying the British and American defence secretaries explodes over Scotland, Skinner is handed the biggest case of his career. The investigation teems with suspects, and a sudden attack leaves him fighting for his own life as well as justice.

Glasgow private enquiry agent Oz Blackstone is hired to recover a missing half-million from crooked stockbroker Willie Kane. Finding Kane stabbed to death and the money gone, Oz joins forces with Dawn's captivating sister Primavera to hunt both the cash and a killer.

At a new East Lothian golf resort, one of the owners is found with his throat cut in the clubhouse jacuzzi. As rumours of an ancient witch's curse spread, Skinner looks past the legends to expose a very modern motive for murder.

A businessman is knifed in a plush Edinburgh suburb, and a linked fraud case drags Skinner from Scotland to Spain. Following the money leads him into a web of vice, corruption and arms dealers who will kill to protect their trade.

An explosion rips through Princes Street during the Edinburgh Festival, claimed by a shadowy separatist group. Tasked with protecting the city, Skinner must unpick a campaign of bombings and blackmail that reaches from the festival crowds into the heart of government.

When a young Edinburgh lawyer is found mutilated in an alley, DCS Bob Skinner uncovers a series of apparently random murders. As the body count rises, he realises the killings mask a far more calculated conspiracy.