The Manchester Thrillers Books in Order

The Manchester Thrillers are a set of standalone gangland crime novels that share a common setting and tone.

You can dip into any title on its own, yet recurring streets, clubs and side characters link the books into a wider picture of the city.

The first release, Guilt, grows directly out of the Working Girls world. Laura Sharples is now a successful businesswoman running a small chain of fashion boutiques, but years earlier she worked the streets of Manchester under the name Crystal. She has fought hard to leave drugs and sex work behind and to raise her daughter Candice with different expectations. When her shops are repeatedly vandalised and the attacks escalate, Laura begins to suspect that someone has uncovered her past and is determined to strip away everything she has built.

Blackmail follows Beth, who survives a brutal attack while walking her dog in a secluded woodland outside Manchester. Years later she seems settled, with a driven husband, Brady, and a promising career, but the secret of that night still haunts her. When the truth finally comes out, Brady twists it into a weapon, using it to control Beth and ruin her financially. Her unlikely route out of his grip runs through Martin, a charming but dangerous crime boss, and Beth must decide how far she is willing to go for revenge.

In Redemption, Heather Burnside turns the spotlight onto young men growing up on deprived council estates. Mark, known as Macca, expects little from life until he teams up with rough lad Todd Brown and joins a local gang. The money and status offer a sense of escape, and Macca enjoys being able to give his girlfriend Joanne the kind of gifts she dreamed about. As the gang's activities escalate, however, he is pushed towards decisions that could define his future forever.

The fourth thriller, Vengeance, is set around a city centre nightclub. Single mother Hannah Conway works behind the bar, picking up snatches of gossip from regulars and from her ruthless boss, Jez Reilly. When she overhears Jez talking about buying up her grandmother's street for redevelopment and hears how holdouts are being pressured, the threat feels personal. Violence soon hits close to home, and Hannah teams up with nightclub regular Russ Coles to fight back against the men who treat her community as disposable.

Across these novels Burnside keeps returning to the same questions about loyalty, survival and the lure of easy money. Each story offers a complete, fast paced plot, but there are quiet links to earlier books, especially for readers who already know the Working Girls characters. Read together, the Manchester Thrillers feel like different windows onto the same city, moving from back streets and boutiques to clubs and housing estates while keeping the tension sharp and the emotions grounded.