Sleepwalker Books in Order

The Sleepwalker books are psychological thrillers set around Chrome Valley, and they work by putting damaged, unstable, or badly cornered people under pressure until their private fears spill into public danger. The series opens with Somnambulist, where Iris Goddard leaves home in the middle of the night during a sleepwalking episode, sending her husband and son into a frantic search. That simple setup becomes something much stranger as buried memories, subconscious terror, and the city's night world begin to close around her.

Chrome Valley is not a comforting place.

In Ventriloquist: aka Puppeteer, Mackay shifts to Lester Cleverley, a stage performer whose act depends on a puppet called Butterfly. Lester's family life is crumbling, drug use is making things worse, and the line between performance and breakdown gets thinner by the page. It is a story about loneliness, dependence, and a man who can no longer trust what part of himself is speaking.

Psychiatrist: aka Shrink turns that same pressure inward again. Dr. Clive McCord spends his days treating other people's fractured minds while his own life is coming apart. He drinks too much, wants his family back, and cannot fully control the old demons surfacing in his head. By this point, the series has settled into one of its main interests: the awful moment when a person who looks functional from the outside can no longer keep reality, memory, fantasy, and guilt in separate boxes.

By Terrorist: aka Versus, the fear spills wider. The series shifts from private mental collapse toward violence that threatens the city at large, which feels like a natural progression for these books. Mackay starts with one troubled mind, then gradually shows how panic, obsession, and hatred can spread outward and infect everyone nearby.

What ties the books together is tone rather than a single ongoing plot. Expect urban grime, dark humor, unreliable perception, and a steady sense that something is wrong even before the blood starts flowing. These are not cozy mysteries and they are not polite thrillers. They are tense, ugly, and interested in how fragile everyday sanity can be.

If you like suspense that feels half psychological and half fever dream, this series is a good fit. The city matters, the protagonists are always in trouble, and the real threat is often the thing inside the character that has been waiting too long to come out.