'The crime czar of the Scottish small town!' Val McDermidOn a clear, moonlit night, DCI Kelso Strang stepped outside the bothy on Suilven and heard, faint but unmistakable, the howl of a wolf. An unsettling sound, but not the only unsettling thing about the remote township of Inverbeg, where he is taking a break with an old army friend.Sean Reynolds is obsessive about rewilding his Auchinglass estate and there are rumours that he's taken illicit steps to hurry that on, to the anger of the local farmers. There are other tensions too. An elderly lady had died some months before, officially in a tragic stumble off a cliff path but she was a woman burdened with many secrets and her closest friend believes her death was not an accident, but retribution.

DCI Kelso Strang is led to believe that something very odd is going on around the prosperous fishing port of Tarleton on Scotland's south-east coast. Firstly, a young Detective Inspector is traumatised after witnessing a doctor throwing herself off a cliff, and accusations of extortion have riven the local community.And when the ugly death of a young farmer sets off a murder investigation, Strang finds himself caught in a spider's web of criminality. He is entirely unprepared when he is struck by the worst tragedy of his career, even though it has also brought him into contact with a young advocate's assistant called Catriona, daughter of DI Marjory Fleming.

Gabrielle, daughter of a brilliant and charismatic local businessman, thinks she's losing her mind. Recovering from a nervous breakdown triggered by her father's death and the loss of her unborn child, her sanity is pushed to the brink when she starts suffering memory lapses. Knowing that the other major shareholder of her father's business is looking for any excuse to squeeze her out, Gabrielle can't trust anyone.When a man's body is found in dilapidated cottage, DCI Kelso Strang is drafted in from Edinburgh to take charge of the investigation. Still grieving the loss of his wife, battlescarred Strang finds himself burdened with an over-eager detective constable and a lazy, obtuse detective sergeant. With inadequate resources at his fingertips, and his boss breathing down his neck to wrap up the case quickly and without embarrassment to the force, Strang must pick his way through the minefield of the local relationships and resentments of the sleepy village community....

When DCI Kelso Strang hears that an old friend from Police College days suspects there is corruption in her local station at Halliburgh in the Borders of Scotland, he sends her down undercover so they can act before a major scandal erupts.Anna Harper's brilliant literary novels are international best-sellers. Her friend and housekeeper Marta Morelli ensures that her private and professional life run smoothly and Anna, acclaimed, rich and elegant, has everything a hugely successful woman could want – except peace of mind. They both live with the knowledge of what they have done and the gnawing worry that one day it might come to light.When Anna's son, Felix, dies of an overdose that may well have been a mistake and her daughter, Cassandra, has an accident that may well have been just that, she refuses to accept reassurance from the police. Just as the situation becomes critical, the Beast from the East roars in bringing chaos and Strang – engaged now in...

The wreck of the Knockhaven lifeboat with the loss of all three of its crew is a hard blow for the small Scottish town. But it's harder still when DS Tam MacNee discovers that it isn't simply a tragic accident. Was it just the act of vandals, bored in a fishing port stricken with unemployment? Could it be linked to the drugs trade which has taken root in the locality? Or is there someone who, in their determination to kill one person, is callous enough to take two innocent lives? And if so, who is the intended victim? As DI Marjory Fleming and her team investigate multiple murders, with a whole community hungry for justice, the pressure - professional and personal - is on. 

On a beautiful, eerily quiet May morning, a girl is found brutally bludgeoned to death. When Detective Inspector Marjory Fleming arrives, the silence of the scene is broken only by the ringing of the girl's cell phone. The nearby community of Drumbreck is small and close-knit, but the veneer of contented prosperity conceals nasty secrets and daily betrayals. When another corpse is discovered, DI Fleming quickly realizes she must watch her own back while she searches for the link between the murders. As she uncovers layer upon layer of intrigue and deceit, it becomes apparent that while the dead can't tell lies, the living most certainly can.

As a catastrophic virus devastates the Scottish countryside, killing cattle and destroying lives, Detective Inspector Marjory Fleming finds herself at the stormy heart of a troubled, trapped community. Pyres are built, infected animals are burnt, and farmland is dug up as burial ground. But the all-pervasive stench of death develops a horrifying, unfamiliar edge when human remains are dug up near the small market town of Kirkluce. Thousands of miles away in New York City, a woman called Laura resolves to unearth the dark secrets of her past. Determined to discover the truth behind her older sister's disappearance fifteen years ago, her journey takes her back to Galloway, to a world of suspicion, fear and menace. A dead body, a missing girl, and a mysterious family's dangerous obsession with bull running provide a sinister backdrop to DI Fleming's first murder investigation. And as the cold shadow of death looms ever larger over this quiet corner of rural Britain, one thing becomes clear: it won't be her last.

Accused of murdering the baby in her care, seemingly cold and measured nanny Lisa Stewart maintains her innocence. But when she changes her name and tries to run away, the terrifying threats always find her. Is she an innocent victim of public anger? Or a calculating murderer on the run? 

In a sea-cave on Lovatt Island, just off the west coast of Scotland, a skeleton is found shackled to the rocks. Although the apparent victim of a crime of unparalleled brutality, the skeleton seems to belong firmly in the past. Detective Inspector Marjory Fleming, called in to investigate, anticipates a straightforward case unhampered by the pressures of time. But when a modern watch is discovered on the skeleton's wrist, Fleming realises the crime may be far closer to home than she initially assumed. Meanwhile, in the nearby village of Innellan, mysterious events begin to occur. Matt Lovatt, eponymous owner of the island, is at the centre of a series of escalating crimes - could someone be targeting him? The villagers, members of a small and introverted community, are little help - many seem damaged by their own enigmatic pasts, and all are reluctant to speak out. Fleming, sensing a pattern she cannot clearly make out, becomes increasingly desperate to prevent more violence. Are the skeleton and the current spate of crimes connected? If so, what evil act could have motivated such a deadly, merciless design?

Marnie Bruce has hyperthymesia; she can remember everything she has ever seen. Everything except from one fateful night when she was eleven; she woke up in an isolated cottage with a head injury and her mother gone.Twenty years later Marnie heads back to Scotland seeking answers to what happened, but in the small town of Galloway, her mother’s disappearance still burns in the air and Marnie’s return looks set to tear open old wounds for many of the locals.For DI Marjory Fleming the disappearance of Karen Bruce is a case she would prefer not to re-open but the ripple effect of Marnie’s return makes it clear this is one mystery that must be solved. As Fleming unravels the secrets of the past, she realises Marnie’s life is inextricably, terribly linked to a monstrous crime decades ago.Can Fleming fit the puzzle together before it’s too late? And will the truth be one Marnie wants to remember?Review'Loved it. She has become the crime czar of the Scottish small town!' Val McDermid 'Vivid characterisation, excellent description and a horribly looming sense of inevitability ... a riveting read' The Guardian 'Aline Templeton has demonstrated that, just when we thought Scotland was saturated with detectives, a strong woman can elbow her way in and find a unique niche' The Scotsman About the AuthorALINE TEMPLETON lives in Edinburgh with her husband and their Dalmatian dog. She has been Chair of the Society of Authors in Scotland and has been nominated for the Crime Writers' Association committee.

The young victim had been pregnant, her body washed up on the rocks. Twenty years on the murder remains unsolved; her father is now dead, and her mother refuses to talk about what went on all those years ago. Detective Inspector Marjory Fleming is called in to reopen the case that her late father, a policeman, was unable to put to rest. As Fleming digs deeper it becomes clear that her father had struggled to keep secret some of the shameful details around the young girl's death.Can she handle the truth she will unearth, not just about her father but about herself?

A sunny evening, a tranquil garden and an old man brutally gunned down on his doorstep. In the pretty and tranquil market town of Kirkluce a proposed superstore development has divided the population in an increasingly bitter war. The low-level aggression of bored youth that is generally tolerated has become sinister. The bloodied carcass of a sheep abandoned in the streets is more than just unpleasant vandalism and teenage bikers, terrorising a woman to breaking point, are impossible to control. When a second victim is killed in what seems a random shooting, the fear in the town becomes tangible. DI Fleming will not accept that the crimes are motiveless, but she struggles to make sense of the two murders, when nothing makes sense any more and no one will believe anything. Not even the truth. 

Beatrice Lacey is passionate about Human Face, the charity for Third World children she helped to found, and its co-founder Adam Carnegie. She has learned to turn a blind eye to some strange goings on, however; parties for donors who don't seem the philanthropic type and a merry-go-round of 'housekeepers'. But when the latest housekeeper, Eva, suddenly disappears, the police and DI Kelso Strang are called in. Keen to move on from recent personal horrors, Strang revels in the responsibility the investigation affords. But when he and the team make some fatal errors, Strang has his work cut out to avoid the case ending in disaster and death.

Pleasure is the highest good: the Cyrenaics practised the principle until the death of one from an overdose and the apparent suicide of another. Sobered, the group went their several ways. One heads to Canada, another disappears and a third is believed to have committed suicide, at least until his body turns up two years later in the wreck of a car swept up on to the Solway mud flats. DI Marjory Fleming finds the case on her own patch, obstructed by the unpleasant and resentful Inspector she has been asked to direct, and DC Hepburn and DS Macdonald, still at loggerheads, don't make it any easier.