books in order

Catriona McPherson Books In Order

Dandy Gilver Books In Publication Order

  1. After the Armistice Ball (2005)
  2. The Burry Man’s Day (2006)
  3. Bury Her Deep (2007)
  4. The Winter Ground (2008)
  5. Proper Treatment of Bloodstains (2009)
  6. Unsuitable Day For A Murder (2010)
  7. Bothersome Number of Corpses (2012)
  8. A Deadly Measure of Brimstone (2013)
  9. The Reek of Red Herrings (2014)
  10. The Unpleasantness in the Ballroom (2015)
  11. The Most Misleading Habit (2016)
  12. Spot of Toil and Trouble (2017)
  13. A Step So Grave (2018)
  14. The Turning Tide (2020)
  15. The Mirror Dance (2021)

Last Ditch Mystery Books In Publication Order

  1. Scot Free (2018)
  2. Scot & Soda (2019)
  3. Scot on the Rocks (2021)
  4. Scot Mist (2022)

Standalone Novels In Publication Order

  1. Growing Up Again (2007)
  2. Straight Up (2008)
  3. As She Left It (2013)
  4. The Day She Died (2014)
  5. Come to Harm (2015)
  6. The Child Garden (2015)
  7. Quiet Neighbors (2016)
  8. The Weight of Angels (2017)
  9. House. Tree. Person. (2017)
  10. Go to My Grave (2018)
  11. Strangers at the Gate (2019)
  12. A Gingerbread House (2021)

Anthologies In Publication Order

  1. Low Down Dirty Vote (2018)
  2. Shattering Glass (2020)

Dandy Gilver Book Covers

Last Ditch Mystery Book Covers

Standalone Novels Book Covers

Anthologies Book Covers

Catriona McPherson Books Overview

After the Armistice Ball

Dandy Gilver, her husband back from the War, her children off at school and her uniform growing musty in the attic, is bored to a whimper in the spring of 1923 and a little light snooping seems like harmless fun. And what could be better than to seek out the Duffy diamonds, stolen from the Esselmont’s country house, Croys, After the Armistice Ball? Before long, though, the puzzle of what really happened to the Duffy diamonds has been swept aside by the sudden, unexpected death of lovely young Cara Duffy in a lonely seaside cottage in Galloway. Society and the law seem ready to call it an accident but Dandy, along with Cara Duffy s fianc Alec, is sure that there is more going on than meets the eye. What is being hidden by members of the Duffy family: the watchful Lena, the cold and distant Clemence and old Gregory Duffy with his air of quiet sadness, not to mention Cara herself whose secret always seems just tantalizingly out of view? Dandy must learn to trust her instincts and swallow most of her scruples if he is to uncover the truth and earn the right to call herself a sleuth.

The Burry Man’s Day

Summer 1923, and as the village of Queensferry prepares for the annual Ferry Fair and the walk of the Burry Man, feelings are running high. With his pagan greenery, his lucky pennies and the nips of whisky he is treated to wherever he goes, the Burry Man has much to offend stricter souls like the minister or temperance pamphleteer. And then at the Fair, in full view of everyone including Dandy Gilver, invited to hand out the prizes the Burry Man falls down dead. If he has been poisoned then the list of suspects includes anyone with a bottle of whisky in the house, and, here at Queensferry, that means just about everyone.

Bury Her Deep

After attending a luncheon with the Reverend Tait, Dandy finds herself traveling with the benevolent clergyman back to his home to attend a meeting of the Rural Women’s Institute. A stranger has been roaming the parish at night and pouncing on the ladies of the Rural, though this stranger only seems to appear at a full moon. After some investigation, Dandy begins to wonder if the story of the stranger is simply used by the residents of the village to hide a darker, more sinister secret.

The Winter Ground

Times are hard for a struggling family circus in the long, cold winter of 1925. Pa and Ma Cooke are more than happy to accept the offer of free winter standing on the remote Blackcraig estate in Perthshire in return for a few shows to the Wilson family around Christmastime. Wealthy but brash Albert Wilson is excited to find himself the center of a circle of bright young women who are agog for the circus and ready to endure his company to view a free show. With the threat of revolution blowing in from the east on the icy gales, Hugh Gilver is less pleased to see the troupe Prebrezhensky ensconced in the valley, but the Gilver boys cannot get enough of Tiny Truman the midget and Andrew Merryman the giant, not to mention the mysterious and beautiful barebacked rider Anastasia. When Ma Cooke asks for Dandy’s help to get to the bottom of a string of spiteful tricks at The Winter Ground, Hugh gives his approval. But the fun runs out when the silly tricks take a darker turn, leaving one of the performers dead and the Cooke, Wilson, and Gilver families fractured amid whispers of murder.

Proper Treatment of Bloodstains

May 1st, 1926. Dear Alec, Just when those who should be working are all downing tools for this wretched strike and I still can’t believe it I mean to say: riots, Alec in Edinburgh of all places guess who is setting her virgin shoulder to its very first wheel? I am dressed in serge and sensible footwear, sleeping in an iron bed and dining off pickled tongue at six o’clock each day. I am, in short, that nice young Mrs Fleming’s new maid. But don’t worry, Alec dear: things haven’t got as bad as all that. It’s just that that nice young Mr Fleming is going to kill his wife. At least, she thinks so, and the more I hear about him from butler, cook and bootboy the more I’m inclined to agree. So I’m undercover, in disguise, bent upon foiling. And jolly hard work it is too tomorrow is my half day free if you’d care take me out for a restorative bun. Every maid needs a nice young man to buy buns for her. Yours, Dandy xx p.s. Ask for Miss Rossiter: below stairs I am she.

Unsuitable Day For A Murder

Friday 3rd June, 1927 Dear Alec, ‘Careful what you wish for, lest it come true’ is my new motto, and here is why. I was summoned to Dunfermline, that old grey town, in the matter of a missing heiress. She had flounced off in a sulk over forbidden love and I, suspecting elopement, was loath to take the job of scouring guesthouses to find the little madam and her paramour. Before I could wriggle out of it, though, there was a murder in the mix or was it suicide? I had hardly begun to decide when it happened again. Then I was sacked. Actually sacked! By two separate people, and both dismissals in writing. And that’s not even the worst of it, darling: matters here are careering downwards much in the style of a runaway train. Please hurry or who knows where it might end, Dandy xx

Growing Up Again

Janie Lawson’s life hasn’t turned out quite the way she’d hoped. Nearly 40, she’s in a marriage that has stalled with a mother in law she despises. Before Janie can make the final step toward divorce, her fate is taken out of her hands. Janie wakes up in her old bedroom and finds it just as it was in her teens. She stumbles downstairs to the kitchen where her mother greets her, looking radiantly young. But it isn’t until Janie looks in the mirror, to be confronted by her 15 year old self, sporting the most diabolical 80s perm, that the reality of her situation sinks in. For a woman who scoffs at anything science can’t prove, being swept back decades in time is a particularly ironic twist. She’s gone back to 1981 and all the signs suggest that it’s a one way trip. But there’s an upside Janie has the chance to make her life turn out the way she wanted it. She’s determined to help her parents, make her fortune, and do some good in the world, starting with saving Lady Diana Spencer from her fate. But things don’t quite go to plan and pretty soon Janie realizes that even second time around, nothing is guaranteed. Clever and compassionate, this laugh out loud novel speculates the possibilities if you could turn back the clock and be given a second chance.

Straight Up

Verity Drummond florist by trade and a fantasist by nature deals with the end of her marriage by writing Straight Up, a novel in which a man on a mountaineering expedition bearing a striking resemblance to her ex dies all alone in a hole in the ice, starving, wretched, and with his broken bones poking through his skin. Meanwhile in Hollywood, Jasmine and Patrice want to adapt Straight Up for the screen. When Verity goes to meet them, somehow, between the dead man on the mountain and her inability to admit that she’s just another divorcee like the rest of California, she becomes The Widow. The buzz around the script, now ‘based on a true story,’ begins to grow and with it, the biggest rolling snowball and the tightest tangled web of Verity’s life. The story whirlwinds from LA to NYC and while the voice as is sharp as it is dark, there is a top note of poignancy, and 100 laughs along the way.

The Child Garden

Eden was its name. ‘An alternative school for happy children.’ But it closed in disgrace after a student’s suicide. Now it’s a care home, the grounds neglected and overgrown. Gloria Harkness is its only neighbor, staying close to her son who lives in the home, lighting up her life and breaking her heart each day. When a childhood friend turns up at her door, Gloria doesn’t hesitate before asking him in. He claims a girl from Eden is stalking him and has goaded him into meeting near the site of the suicide. Only then, the dead begin to speak–it was murder, they say. Gloria is in over her head before she can help it. Her loneliness, her loyalty, and her all-consuming love for her son lead her into the heart of a dark secret that threatens everything she lives for. Praise: ‘A terrific stand-alone that is complex, haunting, and magical.’–LIBRARY JOURNAL STARRED REVIEW ‘A stunning combination of creepy thriller and classic mystery.’–KIRKUS REVIEWS STARRED REVIEW ‘Catriona McPherson hooks you with her eccentric amateur sleuth, reinvigorating the exhausted conventions of the cozy-style mystery.’–NPR ‘McPherson’s ingenious plot turns will keep even the most astute of crime fiction readers guessing until the last page.’–THE STRAND ‘A fascinating, dark village thriller.’–BOOKLIST ONLINE ‘One surprising plot twist after another leads to a shocking ending.’–PUBLISHERS WEEKLY ‘Catriona McPherson spins webs of intrigue so beautiful and intricate she puts spiders to shame. With The Child Garden, she once again proves why she has rapidly become a star in the thriller genre…
This is a book you will absolutely devour.’–WILLIAM KENT KRUEGER, NEW YORK TIME BESTSELLING AND EDGAR AWARD-WINNING AUTHOR OF ORDINARY GRACE ‘An enchanting brew of mystery, poetry, legends, and dreams, Catriona McPherson’s The Child Garden is also an elaborate shell game that will keep readers guessing up until the very end.’–HALLIE EPHRON, NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF NIGHT NIGHT, SL

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