Unfinished Business Books in Order

Unfinished Business is Heather Atkinson’s long-running Glasgow crime series centred on Brodie MacBride, an ex-police officer who has reinvented himself as a private investigator. Brodie’s speciality is exactly what the series title suggests – cases the system has failed, victims who were denied justice and the loose ends that will not stay buried.

In the opening novel, Unfinished Business, we meet both Brodie and the Creegan family. Mark Creegan appears to have everything – money, a successful business and a loving family – but he is being stalked by reminders of a very dark past. Brodie’s investigation into that past tangles with a serial killer known as The Carver, and the case quickly becomes personal for everyone involved.

Subsequent books deepen Brodie’s world. Face in the Frame sees him and his second-in-command Cass up against Lucas Thorne, an artist whose disturbingly realistic sculptures may be linked to a series of disappearances among Glasgow’s homeless community. At the same time, the powerful McVay crime family keep dragging Brodie into their own internal wars, forcing him to walk a line between upholding the law and surviving.

As the series progresses through titles like The Secret Keeper, Pound of Flesh and In The Shadows, Brodie and Cass’s relationship shifts from professional to romantic, something they must keep hidden so enemies cannot use it as a weapon. They face vengeful killers they once helped jail, corrupt officials and enemies who operate just as effectively in the courts as on the street. Later books such as Ghosts of the Past even send them back to the village where Cass grew up, showing how trauma can follow you home.

What sets Unfinished Business apart is the mix of procedural grit and emotional investment. Brodie is tough but far from invincible, Cass is capable and flawed, and their team feel like people who have lived in the city all their lives. Glasgow itself is present in every bar, back lane and tenement stairwell. If you enjoy crime fiction that balances twisty plots with the cost of violence on those who fight it, this series is worth reading in order.