Logan McRae Books in Order: How to read Stuart MacBride’s series?

Murder in the “Granite City.”

What is the Logan McRae series about?

Published in the UK since 2005, The Logan McRae series is written by the Scottish writer Stuart MacBride, also known for his Oldcastle novels.

These crime thrillers sometimes described as “Tartan Noir” are set in the “Granite City” of Aberdeen and follow the murder investigations led by Detective Sergeant Logan McRae and his team-and sometimes with DS Roberta Steel who got her own spin-off stories.

How to read the Logan McRae Books in Order?

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

1. Cold Granite – It’s DS Logan McRae’s first day back on the job after a year off on the sick, and it couldn’t get much worse. Three-year-old David Reid’s body is discovered in a ditch, strangled, mutilated, and a long time dead. And he’s only the first. There’s a serial killer stalking the Granite City and the local media are baying for blood. Soon the dead are piling up in the morgue almost as fast as the snow on the streets, and Logan knows time is running out.
2. Dying Light – Down by the docks, in the dead of night, a woman is hunted down and killed. For DS Logan McRae, it’s just the beginning of another nightmare. As the day dawns and the body count rises, Logan realizes that this isn’t just an isolated murder. It’s far more disturbing than that. A killer is on the loose and wreaking havoc – and Logan is running out of time to stop them.
3. Broken Skin (also known as Bloodshot) – A serial rapist is leaving a string of tortured women behind him, but while DS Logan McRae’s girlfriend, PC Jackie ‘Ball Breaker’ Watson, is out acting as bait, he’s trying to identify a blood-drenched body dumped outside Accident and Emergency. Logan’s investigations suggest someone in the local bondage community has developed a taste for violent death, and he soon finds himself dragged into the twilight world of pornographers, sex-shops and S&M.

4. Flesh House – When an offshore container turns up at Aberdeen Harbour full of human meat, it kicks off the largest manhunt in the Granite City’s history. Twenty years ago ‘The Flesher’ was butchering people all over the UK – turning victims into oven-ready joints – until Grampian’s finest put him away. But eleven years later he was out on appeal. Now he’s missing and people are dying again. When members of the original investigation start to disappear, Detective Sergeant Logan McRae realizes the case might not be as clear-cut as everyone thinks…
5. Blind Eye – Someone’s preying on Aberdeen’s growing Polish population. The pattern is always the same: men abandoned on building sites, barely alive, their eyes gouged out and the sockets burned. With the victims too scared to talk, and the only witness a pedophile who’s on the run, Grampian Police is getting nowhere fast. The attacks are brutal, they keep on happening, and soon DS Logan McRae will have to decide how far he’s prepared to bend the rules to get a result.
6. Dark Blood – Richard Knox has done his time and seen the error of his ways. He wants to leave his dark past behind, so why shouldn’t he be allowed to live wherever he wants? Detective Sergeant Logan McRae isn’t thrilled about having to help a violent rapist settle into Aberdeen. Even worse, he’s stuck with the man who put Knox behind bars, DSI Danby, supposedly to ‘keep an eye on things.’ Only things are about to go very, very wrong.

7. Shatter the Bones – ‘You will raise money for the safe return of Alison and Jenny McGregor. If you raise enough money within fourteen days they will be released. If not, Jenny will be killed.’ Aberdeen’s own mother-daughter singing sensation is through to the semi-finals of TV smash-hit Britain’s Next Big Star. But their reality-TV dream has turned into a real-life nightmare. The ransom demand appears in all the papers, on the TV, and on the internet, telling the nation to dig deep if they want to keep Alison and Jenny alive. Time is running out, but DS Logan McRae and his colleagues have nothing to go on
8. Partners in Crime – Two Logan and Steel short stories: Bad Heir Day and Stramash. Also collected in 22 Dead Little Bodies and Other Stories.
9. Close to the Bone – The first body is chained to a stake: strangled, and stabbed, with a burning tyre around its neck. But is this a gangland execution or something much darker? Someone’s leaving little knots of bones on DI Logan McRae’s doorstep, but he’s got bigger concerns. Rival drug gangs are fighting over product and territory; two teenage lovers are missing; someone’s crippling Asian immigrants; and Logan’s been lumbered with an ambitious new Detective Sergeant and gained the unwelcome attention of the local crime boss.
10. The 45% Hangover – A Logan and Steel 80-page novella. It’s the night of the big Referendum, and all Acting Detective Inspector Logan McRae has to do is find a missing ‘No’ campaigner. Should be easy enough… But, as usual, DCI Steel has plans of her own. Also collected in 22 Dead Little Bodies and Other Stories.
11. The Missing and the Dead – A little girl’s body washes up just outside the sleepy coastal town of Macduff, kicking off a major manhunt. Officially, the investigation is out of Sergeant Logan McRae’s hands, but DCI Steel’s Major Investigation Team, drafted in from Aberdeen, is getting nowhere fast. Steel is running out of ideas and time. She wants Logan back on her team and doesn’t care how she gets him there.
12. 22 Dead Little Bodies – A Logan and Steel short novel.

13. In the Cold Dark Ground – Sergeant Logan McRae’s team finds a body dumped in the woods – but is it the missing businessman they’ve been searching for, or something far more sinister? It doesn’t help that his ex-boss is taking over the case, a new Superintendent has it in for him, and Professional Standards are looming. Even worse: Aberdeen’s criminal overlord, Wee Hamish Mowat, is dying and rival gangs all over the UK are eying his territory.

• Now We Are Dead – A DS Roberta Steel without Logan McRae. Detective Chief Inspector Roberta Steel got caught fitting up Jack Wallace – that’s why they demoted her and quashed his sentence. Now he’s back on the streets and women are being attacked again. The top brass have made it very clear that if Detective Sergeant Steel goes anywhere near him, she’ll be thrown off the force for good. But she can’t just do nothing – if she does he’ll keep hurting women. The question is: how much is she willing to sacrifice to stop him?

14. The Blood Road – When Detective Inspector Bell turns up dead in a crashed car, it’s a shock to everyone. Because Bell died two years ago. Or at least they thought he did. Now Inspector Logan McRae has to work out where DI Bell’s been all this time – and what was so important that he felt the need to come back from the dead. But the deeper Logan digs, the more bones he uncovers. And there are people out there who’ll kill to keep those skeletons buried…
15. All That’s Dead – A dark night in the isolated Scottish countryside. Nicholas Wilson, a prominent professor known for his divisive social media rants, leaves the house with his dog, as he does every night. But this time he doesn’t come back… The last thing Inspector Logan McRae wants is to take on such a high-profile case. But when a second man vanishes in similar circumstances, the media turns its merciless gaze on him, and he has no choice.

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