Catriona McPherson

On the rain-drenched, wave-lashed, wind-battered Banffshire coast, tiny fishing villages perch on ledges which would make a seagull think twice and crumbly mansions cling to crumblier cliff tops while, out in the bay, the herring drifters brave the storms to catch their silver darlings. It's nowhere for a child of gentle Northamptonshire to spend Christmas. But when odd things start to turn up in barrels of fish - with a strong whiff of murder most...

Edinburgh, 1948. Helen Crowther leaves a crowded tenement home for her very own office in a doctor's surgery. Upstart, ungrateful, out of your depth - the words of disapproval come at her from everywhere but she's determined to take her chance and play her part. She's barely begun when she stumbles over a murder and learns that, in this most respectable of cities, no one will fight for justice at the risk of scandal. As Helen resolves to find a killer,...

Glasgow, 1932, is a city in the grip of dance-fever. Public ballrooms and back-street dancehalls are thronged every night and competition for professional titles is fierce. Even after the sudden death of one of last year's hopefuls there are plenty willing to take his place, and few who stop to wonder why he died. In the melting pot of the Locarno Ballroom in Sauchiehall Street, a debutante rubs shoulders with denizens of Glasgow's meanest streets,...

Eden was its name. 'An alternative school for happy children', said the brochure. 'A load of hippies running wild in the woods', said the locals. After a suicide it closed its doors and the children scattered. Thirty years later, it's a care home; its grounds neglected, its only neighbour Gloria Harkness, who acts as tenant-caretaker in a rundown farmhouse to be close to her son. Nicky lives in the home, lighting up Gloria's life and breaking her...

What secrets do the dark bones of Dundrennan Abbey hold? A year ago, she was happily married, bringing up her beloved son, running her successful beauty salon and living with her loving husband in her dream house. Now Ali McGovern's dreams are slipping away and all her old ghosts are coming back to haunt her. A job at Howell Hall, the private psychiatric facility near her rented cottage and the ruined abbey, seems too good to be true. But why has...

Scotland, 1932. Aristocratic private investigator Dandy Gilver strikes again with her witty sidekick Alec Osbourne to solve sinister goings on at a convent on a bleak Lanarkshire moor. The convent was set alight following a mass breakout at a neighbouring psychiatric hospital on Christmas Eve, resulting in the death of the mother superior. Most patients were returned safely but a few are still at large. As Dandy interviews each nun in turn she senses...

Set in 1930s Dundee and St Andrews, investigating the murder of a Punch and Judy puppeteer, 'The Mirror Dance' is the latest in the Dandy Gilver series from Catriona McPherson.