Val McDermid has always had a soft spot for winter: the bitter clarity of a crisp cold day, the crunch of frost on fallen leaves, and the chance to be enveloped in big jumpers and thick socks. In WINTER, McDermid takes us on an adventure through the season, from the frosty streets of Edinburgh to the windblown Scottish coast, from Bonfire Night and Christmas to Burns Night and Up Helly Aa. Recalling in parallel memories from her own childhood --- of skating over frozen lakes and carving a “neep” (rutabaga) for Halloween to being taken to see her first real Christmas tree in the town square --- McDermid offers a wise and enchanting meditation on winter and its ever-changing, sometimes ephemeral, traditions.

Scotland, 2025. When torrential winter rain causes a landslide on a motorway, it dislodges more than mud and asphalt --- it reveals a skeleton, concealed when the road was built 11 years prior. Sam Nimmo, an investigative journalist who’d been poking his nose into the murky politics of the Scottish independence referendum, had become the prime suspect in the brutal murder of his girlfriend when he vanished. Now he’s reappeared, buried under the motorway. It’s the perfect cold case for DCI Karen Pirie, chief of Police Scotland’s Historic Cases Unit. What was Nimmo investigating that was worth killing over? Or was it revenge for murdering his girlfriend? Meanwhile, an allegation of murder has surfaced over the supposedly accidental death of a hotel manager. It may have links to another accident on a remote Highland road.

A thousand years ago in an ancient Scottish landscape, a woman is on the run with her three companions --- a healer, a weaver and a seer. The men hunting her will kill her --- because she is the only one who stands between them and their violent ambition. She is no lady: she is the first queen of Scotland, married to a king called Macbeth. As the net closes in, what unfurls is a tale of passion, forced marriage, bloody massacre and the harsh realities of medieval Scotland. At the heart of it is one strong, charismatic woman, who survived loss and jeopardy to outwit the endless plotting of a string of ruthless and power-hungry men. Her struggle won her a country. But now it could cost her life.

It’s April 2020, and Edinburgh is in lockdown. It would seem like a strange time for a cold case to go hot --- the streets all but empty, an hour’s outdoor exercise the maximum allowed --- but a mere pandemic doesn’t mean crime takes a holiday. When a source at the National Library contacts DCI Karen Pirie’s team about documents in the archive of a recently deceased crime novelist, it seems it’s game on again. At the center of it, a novel: two crime novelists facing off over a chessboard. But it quickly emerges that their real-life competition is drawing blood. What unspools is a twisted game of betrayal and revenge, and as Karen and her team attempt to disentangle fact from fiction, it becomes clear that their investigation is more complicated than they ever imagined.

Allie Burns is now running the northern news operation of the Sunday Globe, chafing at losing her role in investigative journalism and at the descent into the gutter of the UK tabloid media. But there’s plenty to keep her occupied. The year begins with the memorial service for the victims of the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, but Allie has barely filed her copy when she stumbles over a story about HIV/AIDS that will shock her into a major change of direction. The world of newspapers is undergoing a revolution, there’s skullduggery in the medical research labs, and there are seismic rumblings behind the Iron Curtain. When murder is added to this potent mix, Allie is forced to question all her old certainties.

For journalist Allie Burns, someone else's bad news is the unmistakable sound of opportunity knocking, an opportunity to get away from the "women's stories" her editors at the Scottish daily The Clarion keep assigning her. Striking up an alliance with budding investigative journalist Danny Sullivan, Allie begins covering international tax fraud, then a group of Scottish ultranationalists aiming to cause mayhem ahead of a referendum on breaking away from the United Kingdom. Their stories quickly get attention and create enemies for the two young up-and-comers. As they get closer to the bleeding edge of breaking news, Allie and Danny may find their lives on the line.

When a lobster fisherman discovers a dead body in Scotland’s Firth of Forth, DCI Karen Pirie is called in to investigate. She quickly discovers that the case will require untangling a complicated web --- including a historic disappearance, art forgery and secret identities --- that seems to orbit around a painting copyist who can mimic anyone from Holbein to Hockney. Meanwhile, a traffic crash leads to the discovery of a skeleton in a suburban garage. Needless to say, Karen has her plate full. Meanwhile, the man responsible for the death of the love of her life is being released from prison, reopening old wounds just as she was getting back on her feet.

Construction is suddenly halted on the redevelopment of an orphanage after dozens of skeletons are found buried in the grounds. Forensic examination reveals they date from between 20 and 40 years ago, when the nuns were running their repressive regime. But then a different set of skeletons are discovered in a far corner, young men from as recent as 10 years ago. When newly promoted DI Paula McIntyre learns that one of the male skeletons is that of a killer who is supposedly alive and behind bars --- and the subject of one of Carol Jordan’s miscarriage investigations --- it brings Tony Hill and Carol irresistibly into each other’s orbit once again.

Six feet under in a Highland peat bog lies Alice Somerville’s inheritance, buried by her grandfather at the end of World War II. But when Alice finally uncovers it, she finds an unwanted surprise --- a body with a bullet hole between the eyes. Meanwhile, cold case detective Karen Pirie is called in to unravel a case where nothing is quite as it seems. And as she gets closer to the truth, it becomes clear that not everyone shares her desire for justice. Or even the idea of what justice is.

In the north of England, single women are beginning to disappear from weddings. A pattern soon becomes clear: Someone is crashing the festivities and luring the women away --- only to leave the victims’ bodies in their own burned-out cars in remote locations. Psychologist Tony Hill and former police detective Carol Jordan are called upon to investigate, but this may be the toughest case they’ve ever had to face. Meanwhile, Detective Sergeant Paula McIntyre and her partner Elinor must deal with a cruel cyber-blackmailer targeting their teenage ward, Torin.

When a teenage joyrider crashes a stolen car and ends up in a coma, a routine DNA test reveals a connection to an unsolved murder from 22 years before. It’s a cold case that should be straightforward. But it’s as twisted as the DNA helix itself. Meanwhile, Karen, mired in grief after the death of her partner, finds herself irresistibly drawn to a mystery that has its roots in a terrorist bombing two decades ago. Karen’s intuition is telling her something doesn’t add up. But is she on to something? Or has she, as her boss has been waiting for, gone too far this time?

While preparing to convert a Victorian Gothic building in historic Edinburgh, builders find skeletal remains hidden in a high pinnacle that hasn’t been touched by maintenance in years. Cold case detective Karen Pirie takes the case and attempts to find the corpse’s identity. It turns out that the bones may be from as far away as former Yugoslavia, and Karen will have to dig deeper into the tragic history of the Balkans, war crimes and their consequences, and the notion of justice itself.

Is it violence if it’s virtual? The outspoken women targeted by the increasingly cruel internet trolls and bullies would probably say so. For some of them, the torrents of bile and vicious threats prove too much. They begin to silence themselves in a series of high-profile suicides. Or do they? Tony Hill isn’t convinced. But he’s the only one. Former cop Carol Jordan is too busy messing up her life to care. Until she gets an unexpected second chance. Now it’s game on, and the stakes have never been higher.

When Cat Morland is asked to join family friends on a trip to Edinburgh, she can’t wait to escape her home in Dorset. She meets new friends, finds love, experiences heartbreak, and faces a mystery or two that can’t compete with her dark and macabre imagination. It’s that creativity that gets her in trouble and could possibly ruin the life she was finally starting to imagine for herself.

Guilt and grief have driven a wedge between crime-fighting partners psychologist Tony Hill and ex-DCI Carol Jordan. Meanwhile, someone is killing women --- women who bear an unsettling resemblance to Carol. And when the evidence begins to point in a disturbing direction, thinking the unthinkable seems the only possible answer. Cornered by events, Tony and Carol are forced to fight for themselves and each other as never before.

Young Jimmy Higgins is snatched from an airport security checkpoint while his guardian, Stephanie Harker, watches helplessly. Assisting the FBI in their attempt to recover the missing boy, Stephanie reaches into the past to uncover the motive for the abduction. Has Jimmy been taken by his own relatives? Is Stephanie’s obsessive ex-lover trying to teach her a lesson? Has a stalker of Jimmy’s mother come back to haunt them all?

Tony Hill and Carol Jordan have put away scores of criminals. But there is one killer who has defined their careers: Jacko Vance. Now Jacko has escaped from prison; even more twisted than before, he is focused on wreaking revenge on Tony and Carol.