Alvirah and Willy
mystery
Series · crime fiction
Lindsay Gordon
The Lindsay Gordon series by Val McDermid has 6 books and is best read in publication order, starting with Report for Murder (1987).
- Books
- 6 books
- First published
- 1987
- Status
- hiatus
- Last checked
Start here: Report for Murder (1987) — then read straight through in publication order.
Reading order
The order the books were released — the default way to read the series.
- Book 1:
Report for Murder
Alternative text for cover: Cover of Report for Murder - Book 2:
Common Murder
Alternative text for cover: Cover of Common Murder - Book 3:
Final Edition
Alternative text for cover: Cover of Final Edition - Book 4:
Union Jack
Alternative text for cover: Cover of Union Jack - Book 5:
Booked for Murder
Alternative text for cover: Cover of Booked for Murder - Book 6:
Hostage to Murder
Alternative text for cover: Cover of Hostage to Murder
About the Lindsay Gordon series
Lindsay Gordon is Val McDermid's debut series and one of the earliest British crime series to put a lesbian protagonist at its center rather than at its margins. Lindsay is a freelance Scottish journalist -- broke, sharp-tongued, and instinctively unable to leave a story alone -- who keeps stumbling into murder investigations that intersect with her professional beat: student politics, trade union conferences, the world of women's football, publishing, and eventually the war-reporting circuit. McDermid started the series in 1987, several years before Kate Brannigan or Tony Hill and Carol Jordan existed, and it shows her working out the amateur-sleuth-with-a-day-job structure she'd return to and refine across her career.
The books track Lindsay's life in something close to real time across a sixteen-year span -- her politics, her relationships, and her circumstances shift novel to novel -- and the settings move with her, from Glasgow and Fleet Street to California and the Balkans. The series was notable on publication for treating its protagonist's sexuality as simply a fact of her life rather than the book's subject, and it remains a touchstone for readers looking for early, unapologetic lesbian detective fiction. McDermid has not returned to Lindsay Gordon since 2003, by which point her career had shifted decisively toward the Tony Hill and Carol Jordan and Karen Pirie series.
Frequently asked questions
How many Lindsay Gordon books are there?
Six, published between 1987 and 2003: Report for Murder, Common Murder, Final Edition, Union Jack, Booked for Murder, and Hostage to Murder.
Is the Lindsay Gordon series finished?
No new installment has appeared since Hostage to Murder (2003) and McDermid has not announced plans to continue it, but she has never formally declared the series ended.
Do I need to read Lindsay Gordon before McDermid's other series?
No -- it shares no characters or setting with Kate Brannigan, Tony Hill and Carol Jordan, Karen Pirie, or Allie Burns. It can be read independently, in any order relative to those.
If you like the Lindsay Gordon series
Reading order last verified .