Birlinn: 208 books

Midwinter, a freezing night in Leith, near Edinburgh's red light district. A policewoman's flashlight stabs the darkness in a snow-covered cemetery. The circle of light stops on a colourless, dead face. So begins the hunt for a serial murderer of prostitutes in Gillian Galbraith's third Alice Rice...

When people in Edinburgh need to borrow money, they go to Cooper. When they don't pay it back, they get a visit from Joe Hope. But now, Joe's got troubles of his own. His teenage daughter's been found dead, an apparent suicide. Then the police arrest him for murder. But, for once, Joe is innocent....

As Heather Brodie kisses her lover goodnight, her disabled husband lies dead, his throat cut from ear to ear. Who wanted Gavin Brodie dead? Many people, including Gavin Brodie. Crushed by an incurable illness, he pleaded to be allowed to die. When Alice Rice is brought in to investigate another terminally-ill...

In 1925, John Buchan published his second most famous novel, "John MacNab"; three high-flying men - a barrister, a cabinet minister and a banker - are suffering from boredom. They concoct a plan to cure it. They inform three Scottish estates that they will poach from each two stags and a...

Has Pearce finally found his match? A time-served Edinburgh hard man, Pearce is still recovering from the recent loss of his mother in a stabbing incident in a post office robbery. He's invited by the dysfunctional Baxter family to protect their pregnant 16-year-old daughter from Wallace, her 26-year-old...

This is the story of the border: a place of beginnings and endings, of differences and similarities. It is the story of England and Scotland, told not from the remoteness of London or Edinburgh or in the tired terms of national histories, but up close and personal, toe to toe and eyeball to eyeball...

TV programmes like My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding, books like Gypsy Boy and the recent disturbances at Dale Farm have created enormous interest in the history and lifestyle of gypsies. Scottish gypsies, known as travellers, have wandered Scotland's roads and byways for centuries, and their turbulent history...

Vienna, 1711. Eleven years after the events of Secretum, and by means of a mysterious bequest, Atto Melani arranges for his faithful helper to relocate from a Roman slum to the imperial court in Vienna. Here, Atto enlists his help in a secret mission to bring about the end of the war between France...

Russia, 1943. A girl from Leningrad, a soldier from Venice, stand together on the edge of wilderness. He is a shadow of a man, trapped behind wire, an enemy in her land. She takes something from her pocket, slips her hand through the wire, and catches her skin on one of the barbs. Up comes a tiny...

Matt Hopwood set off with just a small bag and a walking stick, no possessions and an open mind to walk many hundreds of miles the length and breadth of the country. He relied entirely on the generosity of strangers for shelter and asked people to tell him their transforming stories. They did. All...

. . . being a book about Alvin, Frannie, Dolby, Brian, Belinda (doing eighty), Tyra the Beautiful, Stephen King, Pink Floyd, peach schnapps (and lemonade), hope, dreams, Scotland, death-defying driving, tenpin bowling, love and money, The Lord of the Rings, U2, infinity, Brian's nipples, noddies,...

1582, St Andrews. In the swell of a storm, a battered ship is wrecked in St Andrews harbour. Aboard is a young Flemish sailor - the only survivor. The cargo of the ship appears a welcome windfall but it soon brings devastation to the town as petty squabbling turns to hysteria and tragedy. Hew traces...

The story of Deirdre of the Sorrows is widely known in Ireland, yet all but forgotten across the water in Scotland. This great tragic love story, which has its roots in the ninth or tenth century, is very much shared by both countries. For Deirdre, according to the legend, fled with her lover Naoise...

This stunning new collection features never before published work along with poems written during her time as Scots Makar, and marks the end of her term as Scotland's Poet Laureate (2011-2016). Whether commissioned works, such as 'Connecting Cultures', written for the Commonwealth Games in 2014 or...