Val McDermid: Karen Pirie, Tony Hill, and How the Two Series Connect
April 27, 2026
Val McDermid is one of Britain’s most decorated crime writers — winner of the CWA Gold Dagger, the Theakston’s Crime Novel of the Year, and a clutch of other awards — and she has spent three decades building two distinct but connected crime universes in parallel.
Most readers come to her through one series or the other. Fewer realise how they interlock — and why reading both deepens your experience of each.
The Tony Hill / Carol Jordan Series
12 novels | 1995–2019
This is McDermid’s flagship series and the one that made her name. Criminal psychologist Tony Hill works alongside Detective Chief Inspector Carol Jordan — a partnership that is by turns professional, fractious, and something neither of them can quite name.
Tony Hill is one of crime fiction’s most compelling recurring characters: brilliant, emotionally damaged, better at understanding killers than understanding himself. Carol Jordan is his foil — driven, capable, and just as complicated beneath the surface. The tension between them, which builds across twelve novels, is the engine of the whole series.
The cases are dark. McDermid doesn’t soften the violence of her villains, and the psychological depth she brings to profiling — she spent years consulting with criminal psychologists — makes the procedural elements feel genuinely expert.
Start here: The Mermaids Singing (1995) introduces both characters and sets the template. It won the CWA Gold Dagger and is still one of the best entry points in British crime fiction.
The full Tony Hill / Carol Jordan order:
- The Mermaids Singing (1995)
- The Wire in the Blood (1997)
- The Last Temptation (2002)
- The Torment of Others (2004)
- Beneath the Bleeding (2007)
- Fever of the Bone (2009)
- The Retribution (2011)
- Cross and Burn (2013)
- Splinter the Silence (2015)
- Insidious Intent (2017)
- How the Dead Speak (2019)
The series is complete. McDermid has confirmed she will not be returning to Tony and Carol — How the Dead Speak is the ending.
The Karen Pirie Series
8 novels | 2003–present
Detective Inspector Karen Pirie leads the Historic Cases Unit in Edinburgh — a cold case unit, which means her investigations reach back years or decades before the present action. This structure gives the series a different rhythm from the Tony Hill books: the past and present run in parallel, the truth assembled from fragments.
Pirie herself is a sharply drawn character. She is stubborn, direct, occasionally infuriating to work with, and very good at her job. The Historic Cases Unit setup lets McDermid explore how crime ripples through time — how a murder in 1979 reshapes lives in 2014, how justice delayed is not always justice denied.
The series is ongoing, with Silent Bones releasing in 2025 as the eighth entry.
Start here: The Distant Echo (2003) — a cold case novel that begins with four students finding a dying girl in 1978 and follows the fallout over the next 25 years.
The full Karen Pirie order:
- The Distant Echo (2003)
- A Darker Domain (2008)
- The Skeleton Road (2014)
- Out of Bounds (2016)
- Broken Ground (2018)
- Still Life (2020)
- Past Lying (2023)
- Silent Bones (2025)
How the Two Series Connect
The two series share the same world — Scotland, the same fictional universe, the same broader landscape of Scottish policing. Characters from one series occasionally surface in the other in minor capacities, and both series draw on McDermid’s deep knowledge of Scottish criminal law and forensic procedure.
The connection is more tonal and thematic than plot-driven. Both series deal with the long aftermath of violence — the way crime reshapes the people who survive it as much as those who don’t. Both feature protagonists defined more by their work than by their personal lives, and both use that work to examine what’s underneath.
You do not need to read one to understand the other. They are parallel tracks, not a shared timeline. Readers who love Tony Hill often come to Karen Pirie and find a different but equally rewarding experience.
The TV Adaptations
Wire in the Blood — the ITV series starring Robson Green as Tony Hill ran for six series from 2002 to 2008. It is faithful to the spirit of the books rather than their plots. Robson Green’s performance is the defining screen version of Hill.
Karen Pirie — the ITV series starring Lauren Lyle premiered in 2022. It adapts The Distant Echo in its first series and has continued beyond that. Lauren Lyle brings a younger, more contemporary energy to the role than the books’ Pirie, but the show captures the cold case structure well.
Both shows are worth watching alongside the books. Neither spoils the other in any meaningful way.
Where to Start
If you want psychological depth and a long-running partnership: start with Tony Hill. The Mermaids Singing is a genuine classic of the genre.
If you prefer cold case investigation and a contemporary female detective: start with Karen Pirie. The Distant Echo is a self-contained novel that works perfectly as a standalone if you want to test the waters.
If you have time for both: start with Tony Hill, work through the series, then move to Karen Pirie. By the time you arrive, you’ll have a feel for McDermid’s Scotland and her particular way of treating violence — as something with history, consequence, and weight.