Susi Holliday Books in Order

Susi Holliday was born and raised in Scotland, and grew up near Edinburgh in her family's newsagent and pub. That mix of local gossip, long hours, and people coming and going feels like good training for a crime writer. Before fiction became a serious part of her life, she studied microbiology and statistics at Abertay Dundee and Napier Edinburgh.

She did not leave science behind when she started writing. Holliday has spent more than two decades working as a statistician in clinical research and the pharmaceutical world, and that practical, analytical side still feeds the fiction. Her books may involve serial killers, haunted places, or unnerving technology, but the problems inside them usually feel concrete. Cause and effect matter. So do timing, pressure, and the bad choices people make when fear takes over.

The route into writing was not especially neat. In 2006, she took a six month round the world trip with her husband, and being away from normal routine gave her the space to reconnect with writing in a serious way. What had been an interest became a project, then a habit, then a second career built around steady work rather than overnight reinvention.

She learned the short form first.

Holliday began with flash fiction and short stories, and that apprenticeship shows. She gets into a scene quickly, knows how to plant unease early, and likes an ending that lands with a sting. Her short fiction has appeared in magazines, newspapers, and anthologies, and in 2014 she was shortlisted for the CWA Margery Allingham Prize. It was an early sign that the darker side of her imagination was connecting with readers.

She likes enclosed situations.

Readers can see that all through the books published as both Susi Holliday and S.J.I. Holliday. Black Wood, Willow Walk, and The Damselfly take place in the fictional Scottish town of Banktoun, where Sergeant Davie Gray has to work in a place shaped by memory, rumor, and old hurt. The Deaths of December gives her a festive police thriller premise that is as clever as it is nasty, while The Lingering turns a supposedly healing commune into a deeply uneasy gothic setup. The common thread is not one genre label so much as a feeling: someone is trapped, someone is lying, and the past is about to push its way back in.

Travel matters in her work too. Holliday has travelled widely, and books like Violet and The Hike show how easily excitement can slide into dread when the setting closes in around the characters. Violet uses the Trans-Siberian Express to build a tense story about strangers and toxic connection. The Last Resort and Substitute bring in a more speculative edge, with technology, medicine, and ethics creating new kinds of danger. Then The Street brings things back to a Scottish setting and proves she does not need a remote island or train carriage to make a place feel wrong.

What readers often respond to is the balance. The books move quickly, but they also have atmosphere. They are dark without becoming unreadable, and high concept without losing the human mess underneath. Again and again, Holliday returns to secrets, guilt, complicated relationships, and ordinary people pushed into extraordinary pressure.

These days she still balances writing with part time work in clinical research, and she has also taught and coached other writers. She is mostly based in London and keeps strong ties to Scotland, which feels fitting for someone whose fiction often sits between the everyday and the unsettling. One world is meetings and statistics. The other is murder, paranoia, ghosts, and very bad decisions.