James Bryce

Colin Thane of the Scottish Crime Squad is sent to the Scottish Highlands after an arson attack at Broch Distillery has left three men dead and eight million pounds worth of stock destroyed. Finn Rankin, who runs the distillery, is at first unhelpful, then events take a turn for the worse. Thane must head back to Glasgow and its underworld.

On a sunny seaside August morning, a woman on maternity leave spots a body wedged in rocks on a Scottish beach. Gavin Ayre's riding gear sparks the assumption that he had been thrown by a panicked horse… until an autopsy reveals this was no accident.

Soon it becomes clear that Ayre's life was as big a mystery as his death. Detective Superintendent Harold 'Sauce' Haddock heads an investigation that is running into the sand, until a link is revealed between the victim and another man in Spain, with a surprisingly similar name.

Faced with the twin puzzle Sauce turns to his mentor, Bob Skinner, moved on from the police service to head an international media group. Soon the two friends are at the heart of a multi-layered conspiracy.  Book 35 of series.

Can DCC Bob Skinner protect his daughter from being harassed by a stalker in Edinburgh? Has a bookmaker taken one gamble too many? Can Skinner and his people solve, even survive these and the other crimes they are working on?

After three years the Kerr family sell their orange farm in Mallorca and return to Scotland. Viewing Scotland with fresh eyes, this is the reverse of most life-style change journals.

Deputy Chief Constable Bob Skinner has a lot on his plate. One of the world's most ruthless terrorists is on his way to Edinburgh with only one thing on his mind: the forthcoming conference of world Heads of Government. While all eyes are focused on the terrorist threat, a terminally ill woman is found dead - an apparent suicide. But the marks of an assisted death are discovered. For Skinner, the desperate race to find a heartless terrorist mixes uneasily with the search for a mercy killer- a search which takes on a poignant personal significance. And it's not long before Skinner himself will be staring death straight in the eye.  Book 9 of series.

Edinburgh, Yuletide 1743, and Redcoat officer Robert Catto would rather be anywhere else on earth than Scotland. Seconded back from the wars in Europe to captain the city's town guard, Robert fears his covert mission to assess the strength of the Jacobite threat will force him to confront the past he tries so hard to forget.

Detective Inspector Colin Thane, of the Scottish Crime Squad, is called in to investigate Glasgow's most recent and costly crime wave. Someone with impeccable taste is discreetly stealing antiques from some very fashionable addresses. Thane's job: replace the irreplaceable - and fast.

After thirty years of service, former Chief Constable Bob Skinner faces the possible end of his police career, at its pinnacle.

A trip to Catalunya to contemplate his future soon takes on a different flavour when Skinner is asked by an friend, Xavier Aislado, to track down one of his business's brightest talents, vanished without a trace.

But it soon becomes clear that another manhunt is in progress, and that Skinner himself is the target. While his daughter Alex fights that battle at home, Skinner's own search takes one sinister turn after another, until he is faced with the toughest question of all: Is natural justice sometimes the only answer?

Book 25 in the Bob Skinner mystery series.

After the Italian Armistice of 1943, Eric Newby escaped from the prison camp in which he'd been held and evaded the German army by hiding in the forests of Fontanellato, in Italy's Po Valley. He was sheltered for three months by an informal network of Italian peasants who fed, supported and nursed him before his eventual recapture. Part travelogue, part escape story and part romance, this is a mesmerising account of the early life of a man who would become one of Britain's best loved literary adventurers.

In Edinburgh's old Parliament House, an armed robbery trial is about to take a macabre turn. While the lawyers tussle over the evidence, the judge suddenly collapses in mortal agony - the victim of an apparent heart attack. For Deputy Chief Constable Bob Skinner, with his life finally back on track after the near-collapse of his marriage, the last thing he needs is to be faced with the most baffling case of his career. But as the wave of brutal robberies continues, it emerges that Lord Archergait's death may have been murder - and he's not the only judge whose life is in danger. With a gang of ruthless killers still at large, it's down to Skinner to piece together a puzzle of sinister complexity.  Book 8 of series.

The suspicious death of a second-hand car dealer in Glasgow seems a fairly routine case for Thane and Moss but, with the arrival of football fans for a big game, they struggle to make sense of the evidence and to find the link with a major art theft.

An explosion rocks Princes Street in the midst of the Edinburgh Festival. Responsibility is claimed by a group supposedly demanding political separation from Britain. As atrocities escalate Assistant Chief Constable Bob Skinner realises this is no gang of fantics, but a trained task force with an agenda that now threatens the ancient honour of Scotland.. Skinner assembles a crack task force, ready to foil a clever, greedy scheme involving the crown jewels and Skinner's own daughter.  Book 2 of series.

Deputy Chief Constable Bob Skinner could be forgiven for thinking that someone is out to get him. With his marriage already on the rocks, he suddenly finds his private life plastered across the pages of a tabloid. And then a woman already linked to Skinner by tragedy is found dead, with her young son a kidnap victim. Skinner finds himself at the centre of a deadly maze of conspiracy and unless he can clear his name he stands to lose everything.  Book 7 of series.

When an Edinburgh car showroom is torched, leaving a charred body among the burnt-out cars, Bob Skinner wonders if a life of crime has finally caught up with one of the city's most elusive villains. But the corpse turns out not to be that of Jackie Charles, the owner of the showroom, but his wife Carole. However, Skinner's number one priority is a murder much closer to home. Ever since memories of his first wife Myra's death resurfaced under hypnosis, the question of how she really died has become an obsession which could threaten his career, his marriage and even his sanity.  Book 6 of series.

A plane explodes mid-flight and plunges from the Scottish skies, the British and American Defence Secretaries among the victims. For Edinburgh Deputy Chief Constable Bob Skinners, the means of destruction is apparent from the start, but the investigation quickly grows more puzzling as a violence act wenches Skinner out of the picture. As Skinner's ordeal reaches its crescend, the police pursue their suspects one by one, until at last they are brought to a dramatic, thrilling, but tragic conclusion.  Book 5 of series.

As head of Edinburgh's CID, Detective Chief Superintendent Bob Skinner has seen it all... but even he is shocked by the savagely mutilated corpse discovered in a dark alleyway. The victim is a successful young lawyer, and the motive remains a mystery. Then further seemingly random killings begin to suggest a vicious serial killer is on the rampage. But when the lawyer's fiancee is also murdered, Skinner realises that someone is in deadly earnest...  Book 1 of series

A man has been found knifed in a luxury villa in one of Edinburgh's prosperous suburb. The victim had run a chain of launderetes, saunas and pubs throughout the city, but for some time the police suspected these to be the front for a drug-distribution network. As the murder investigation continues, another seemingly minor crime - involving property fraud - takes Assistant Chief Constable Bob Skinner in a new direction.  Book 3 of series.