Dandy Gilver Books in Order: How to read Catriona McPherson’s series?

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Murder mysteries in the 1920s!

What is the Dandy Gilver series about?

Set in Scotland in an era beginning shortly after World War I, this Dandy Gilver series is a historical mystery series written by Catriona McPherson.

Dandy Gilver is rich, but bored. To try to change that by doing some snooping. Soon she become a private investigator and is joined in her detecting activities by her friend Alec Osborne in this cozy mystery series taking us from the 1920s to the end of the 1930s.

How to read the Dandy Gilver Books in Order?

Every book in the Dandy Gilver series works as a standalone story, but the lives of the different characters evolve from one novel to the other.

After the Armistice Ball Dandy Gilver Books in Order The Burry Man's Day Dandy Gilver Books in Order Bury Her Deep Dandy Gilver Books in Order The Winter Ground Dandy Gilver Books in Order

  1. 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. Before long, though, the puzzle of what really happened to the Duffy diamonds after the Armistice Ball has been swept aside by a sudden, unexpected death in a lonely seaside cottage in Galloway.
  2. The Burry Man’s Day – Summer 1923. The festivities at the annual Ferry Fair in 1923 are thrown into turmoil when the ubiquitous Burry Man, a pagan-dressed, whiskey-nipping character who routinely offends the stricter members of the community, from the minister to the temperance pamphleteer, falls dead from poisoning while handing out prizes.
  3. Bury Her Deep – A stranger is roaming the night and pouncing on the ladies of the Rural. At least that’s the tale they’re telling and the one that Mr Tait told Dandy Gilver, but since half the village think he’s a figment and he only ever strikes at the full moon, Dandy cannot help but wonder if there’s something even odder going on…
  4. The Winter Ground – When a circus comes to spend the winter at the neighbouring estate to Gilverton, Dandy Gilver’s two sons are cock-a-hoop and they are not alone in their excitement. But when Dandy Gilver is asked to investigate a series of nasty tricks taking place in the circus she discovers, under the colourful charms on the surface of circus life, a hotbed of passion and resentment she cannot begin to understand.

Dandy Gilver and the Proper Treatment of Bloodstains Dandy Gilver Books in Order Dandy Gilver and an Unsuitable Day for a Murder Dandy Gilver Books in Order Dandy Gilver and a Bothersome Number of Corpses Dandy Gilver Books in Order Dandy Gilver & A Deadly Measure of Brimstone Dandy Gilver Books in Order

  1. Dandy Gilver and the Proper Treatment of Bloodstains – Welcome to Edinburgh, 1926. Dandy Gilver, a wealthy and witty aristocrat (and sometimes amateur sleuth) receives a letter from Lollie Balfour, who insists that her husband of five years is having her followed and her mail is being steamed open. The only way for Dandy to help is by pretending to applying for a job as a lady’s maid in Lollie’s house. Dandy gets a crash course from her own maid and arrives at 31 Heriot Row, ready to put all of her detection skills to good use.
  2. Dandy Gilver and an Unsuitable Day for a Murder – Danny Gilver is summoned to Dunfermline in the matter of a missing heiress. She had flounced off in a sulk over forbidden love. Suspecting elopement, Danny doesn’t want to take the job of scouring guesthouses to find the little madam and her paramour. Before he can get out of it though, there’s murder in the mix – or is it suicide?
  3. Dandy Gilver and a Bothersome Number of Corpses – Dandy Gilver travels to an all-girls school in the small seaside town of Portpatrick to investigate the disappearance of a childhood friend who taught there. Soon, Dandy discovers that her missing chum is not the only thing that’s off in Portpatrick. Other teachers have been disappearing at an alarming rate.
  4. Dandy Gilver & A Deadly Measure of Brimstone – Perthshire 1929 and the menfolk of the Gilver family have come down, between them, with influenza, bronchitis, pneumonia and pleurisy. Dandy the devoted wife and mother decides it is time to decamp; Dandy the intrepid detective, however, decides to decamp to the scene of a murder she would dearly love to solve.

Dandy Gilver and The Reek of Red Herrings Dandy Gilver Books in Order Dandy Gilver and the Unpleasantness in the Ballroom Dandy Gilver Books in Order Dandy Gilver and a Most Misleading Habit Dandy Gilver Books in Order Dandy Gilver and a Spot of Toil and Trouble Dandy Gilver Books in Order

  1. Dandy Gilver and The Reek of Red Herrings – On the wind-battered Banffshire coast, tiny fishing villages perch on ledges which would make a seagull think twice, out in the bay, the herring drifters brave the storms to catch their silver darlings. It’s nowhere for a child of gentle Northamptonshire to spend Christmas. But when odd things start to turn up in barrels of fish – with a strong whiff of murder most foul – that’s exactly where Dandy Gilver finds herself.
  2. Dandy Gilver and the Unpleasantness in the Ballroom – Glasgow, 1932, is a city in the grip of dance-fever. Public ballrooms and backstreet dancehalls are thronged every night and competition for professional titles is fierce. Even after the sudden death of one of last year’s hopefuls there are plenty willing to take his place, and few who stop to wonder why he died. When a debutante starts receiving threats from a rival, they grow frantic enough to call on Dandy Gilver to save their precious daughter from harm.
  3. Dandy Gilver and a Most Misleading Habit – Scotland, 1932. Aristocratic private investigator Dandy Gilver strikes again with her witty sidekick Alec Osbourne to solve sinister goings on at a convent on a bleak Lanarkshire moor. The convent was set alight following a mass breakout at a neighbouring psychiatric hospital on Christmas Eve, resulting in the death of the mother superior. Most patients were returned safely but a few are still at large…
  4. Dandy Gilver and a Spot of Toil and Trouble – Scotland, 1934. Dandy Gilver arrives at Castle Bewer, at midsummer, to solve the tangled mystery of a missing man, a lost ruby and a family curse. The Bewer family’s latest wheeze to keep the wolf from the door is turning the castle keep into a theatre. Meanwhile, Dandy and her sidekick Alec Osborne begin to unravel the many secrets of the Bewers and find that, despite the witches, murders and ghosts onstage, it’s behind the scenes where the darkest deeds are done.

A Step So Grave Dandy Gilver Books in Order The Turning Tide Dandy Gilver Books in Order

    1. A Step So Grave – Wedding bells are set to ring as Dandy Gilver, family in tow, arrives in windswept Wester Ross on Valentine’s Day. They’ve come to celebrate Lady Lavinia’s fiftieth birthday and to meet her daughter Mallory, a less-than-suitable bride-to-be for Dandy’s son Donald. But soon love is the last thing on Dandy’s mind when the news breaks that Lady Lavinia has been found dead.
    2. The Turning Tide – It’s the breezy Scottish summer of 1936 and Dandy Gilver, along with trusted colleague Alec Osborne, has been called to solve the strange case of the Cramond Ferrywoman, on the Firth of Forth. From their cheerless digs in a local stately home, Dandy and Alec track Vesper Kemp, the ferrywoman, to a tiny tidal island. She seems to have lost her mind, roaming the beaches in rags, ranting about snakes and mercury.
      What is even more troubling, is that Vesper claims she murdered Peter Haslett, a young man who fell into the river.
    3. The Mirror Dance – Something sinister is afoot in the streets of Dundee, when a puppeteer is found murdered behind his striped Punch and Judy stand, as children sit cross-legged drinking ginger beer. At once, Dandy Gilver’s seemingly-innocuous investigation into plagiarism takes a darker turn. The gruesome death seems to be inextricably bound to the gloomy offices of Doig’s Publishers, its secrets hidden in the real stories behind their girls’ magazines The Rosie Cheek and The Freckle.

If you like Dandy Gilver, you may also want to see our Enola Holmes reading order, or our guide to Anna Lee Huber’s Lady Darby Mystery series. Don’t hesitate to follow us on Twitter or Facebook to discover more book series.

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