


Books in series

#1
Dead Beat
1992
Dead Beat introduces Kate Brannigan, a female private detective who does for Manchester what V.I. Warshawski has done for Chicago.
As a favour, Kate agrees to track down a missing songwriter, Moira Pollock, a search that takes her into some of the seediest parts of Leeds and Bradford. But little does she realize that finding Moira is a prelude to murder...

#2
Kick Back
1993
PI Kate Brannigan is hired to investigate a series of strange financial scams across Manchester. At first it looks like a discrepancy with the paperwork, but the deeper Kate digs, the murkier the case becomes.
Before long she’s up to her neck in crooked land deals – and murder – and her own life is on the line…

#3
Crack Down
1994
There was only one reason Manchester-based private eye Kate Brannigan was prepared to let her boyfriend help out with the investigation into a car sales fraud – nothing bad could happen. But by now Kate should know that with Richard you have to expect the unexpected.
With the unexpected being Richard behind bars, Kate seems to be the obvious choice to look after his eight-year-old son – who proves even more troublesome than his father. Kate finds herself dragged into a world of drug traffickers, child pornographers, fraudsters and violent gangland enforcers… bringing her face to face with death in the most terrifying investigation of her career.

#4
Clean Break
1995
Manchester-based, kick-boxing PI Kate Brannigan takes on the hard men of European organised crime as she battles to recover a Monet in a case that stretches love and loyalty to the limits.
Kate is not amused when thieves have the audacity to steal a Monet from a stately home where she’s arranged security. She’s even less thrilled when the hunt for the thieves drags her on a treacherous foray across Europe as she goes head to head with organized crime.
And as if that isn’t enough, a routine industrial case starts leaving a trail of bodies across the Northwest. Unfortunately, cleaning up this mess will mean confronting some truths about her own life…

#5
Blue Genes
1996
Kate Brannigan, Manchester's tough-talking crime-stalking PI, isn't just having a bad day. She's having a bad week. The worst week of her life, in fact. Her boyfriend's obituary is in the newspaper, her plans to capture a team of heartless crooks are in disarray, and a Celtic neo-punk band under siege wants her to rescue them from the saboteurs who are trashing their posters and gigs.
Kate can't even cry on her best friend's shoulder because ace crime reporter Alexis has a few worries of her own. Her girlfriend Chris is pregnant, and when someone involved in pioneering illegal fertility treatment is murdered, Alexis needs Kate as she's never needed her before.
Delving into the alien world of medical experimentation and the underbelly of the rock music business, Kate confronts betrayal and cold-blooded greed as she fights to save not only her livelihood but her life.

#6
Star Struck
1998
Bodyguarding had never made it to Manchester PI Kate Brannigan's wish list. But somebody's got to pay the bills at Brannigan & Co. and if the only earner on offer is playing nursemaid to a paranoid soap star, the fast-talking computer-loving white-collar-crime expert has to swallow her pride and slip into something more glam than her Thai-boxing kit.
Soon, however, offstage dramas overshadow the fictional storylines, culminating in the unscripted murder of the self-styled ' Seer to the Stars'. and Kate finds herself with more questions than answers. What's more, her tame hacker has found virtual love, her process server keeps getting arrested, and the ever-reliable Dennis has had the temerity to get himself charged with murder.

#1-2
Dead Beat & Kick Back
2004
Diamond Dagger Award-Winning Two mysteries introducing a Thai boxing, rock-and-roll female private detective from Manchester, England...
As a favor to her rock journalist boyfriend, Kate Branningan agrees to track down missing song-writer Moira Pollock, a search that takes her into some of the seediest parts of Leeds and Bradford. But little does she realize that finding Moira is only a prelude to murder. Juggling her other cases, including a search to uncover the source of counterfeit luxury goods, Brannigan finds herself for the first time on the trail of a killer.
In Kick Back, Kate Brannigan investigates the bizarre case of the missing conservatories. Before long she's up to her neck in crooked land deals, mortgage scams, financial chicanery, and murder. But when a favor for a friend puts Kate's own life in danger, bizarre is not the first word she thinks of...
Author

Val McDermid
Author · 67 books
Val McDermid is a No. 1 bestseller whose novels have been translated into more than thirty languages, and have sold over eleven million copies. She has won many awards internationally, including the CWA Gold Dagger for best crime novel of the year and the LA Times Book of the Year Award. She was inducted into the ITV3 Crime Thriller Awards Hall of Fame in 2009 and was the recipient of the CWA Cartier Diamond Dagger for 2010. In 2011 she received the Lambda Literary Foundation Pioneer Award. She writes full time and divides her time between Cheshire and Edinburgh.