Margaret Kirk Books In Order

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Publication Order of DI Lukas Mahler Books

Margaret Kirk
Margaret Kirk writes ‘Highland Noir’ Scottish crime fiction that is set in and around her home town of Inverness, where she also works and lives.

At the age of ten, she wrote a horrible play. It was set in ancient Egypt, and involved this murderous priest and there was a princess in peril. She supposes she got the crime bug from very early on. However even before that, she was writing these little comic strips. She believes that just as soon as she could make stories on her own, she has wanted to be a writer.

She has always loved languages and lived in Germany for a bit, where she developed a lasting love affair with Lebkuchen and Ritter Sport. She worked in a mental health recovery unit for many years before she took the plunge and became a writer full time.

In order to get over any writers’ block, she goes and does something else for a while. Oddly enough, taking a shower typically helps. She believes it’s got something to do with the sensory deprivation, as it will focus the mind in a different way.

Margaret got lucky with Lukas Mahler, as he pretty much showed up in her head more or less fully formed. She had this image in her mind of the opening chapter, and it followed on for her from there.

Like Lukas, she had to move back to Inverness after she was away for many years when her mother got very ill. She enjoyed her job and it felt like quite the wrench at the time, however if she didn’t make the move, she would not have had the experience of coming back home somewhere and being unsure for quite awhile where she fit in exactly.

Had she not bought a copy of Good Housekeeping one day, and happened to see their First Novel Competition advertised inside, she may never have dared to send anybody the first few chapters of what later became “Shadow Man”.

“In The Blood”, which is set in a place that she has visited many times and has a real hold on her heart, called Orkney. However the idea for the novel came from this incredibly eerie holiday flat that she rented one year, and has never felt an atmosphere that was quite like it, a place that made such a huge impression on her. Margaret would not have stayed there on her own for anything. So naturally, she was going to write about it some day.

In the year 2016, “Shadow Man” won the Good Housekeeping First Novel Competition.

She has also written many award winning short stories, which includes “The Seal Singers”, which took third place in the 2016 Mslexia short story competition and was published in translation in countries like Switzerland and Germany.

Another story, called “Still Life”, was runner up in the Bloody Scotland short story competition in the year 2015. The story was adapted for radio and then broadcast on Radio 4 as a part of its Scottish Shorts series.

Margaret’s debut novel, called “Shadow Man”, was released in the year 2017, and is the first of her “DI Lukas Mahler” series.

“Shadow Man” is the first novel in the “DI Lukas Mahler” series and was released in the year 2017. Two savage murders rock Inverness, and bring former Met Detective Inspector Lukas Mahler the largest challenge of his entire career.

The body of Morven Murray, the queen of daytime TV, is found by Anna, her sister, in the morning of her wedding day. However could Anna know more about this murder than she lets on?

Kevin Ramsay, a police informant, was murdered in what appears to be a gangland-style execution. However could he possibly have stumbled into that could have been dangerous enough for him to be violently murdered?

Mahler just a couple weeks to solve both cases as he also deals with his mom’s fragile mental health. However caught up in a lethal game of cat and mouse, could former Met DI Mahler hunting a single killer, or two of them?

Margaret has written a brilliantly atmospheric and tense debut novel here, and readers cannot wait to read more in this highland crime series.

“What Lies Buried” is the second novel in the “DI Lukas Mahler” series and was released in the year 2019. A missing kid, a seventy year old murder, and a murderer that is still out on the loose.

Erin, ten years old, has vanished, having been taken in broad daylight while attending a friend’s birthday. Without any leads and any witnesses, DI Lukas Mahler races against the clock to locate her. However could it already too late for Erin, and is her abductor quit at just one stolen kid?

And the discovery of human remains on a construction site close to Inverness faces Mahler’s team with a cold case from the 1940s. Was Aeneas Grant’s murder connected to a close by POW camp, or could there be a much darker tale to be revealed?

With his team being stretched to their very limit, Mahler’s quest to find Erin’s kidnapper takes him on to the Lake District. And some decades old family secrets connect both cases in one last stunning twist.

“In the Blood” is the third novel in the “DI Lukas Mahler” series and was released in the year 2021. Some cases are personal. A man’s bloated remains, tied to some derelict pier in Orkney, bob in the waves, underneath the shadow of forbidding Sandisquoy House. The locals know the man as William Spencer, however recently promoted DCI Lukas Mahler identifies the man as Alex Fleming, who was his former boss.

Mahler, now unable to keep from investigating the case, attempts to piece together exactly Fleming would retire to such an isolated location like he did. However the deeper he continues to dig, the more disturbing the investigation gets.

Witches’ salve, seal bones, and runic symbols show up everywhere he looks, ushering Mahler on toward Fleming’s most notorious unsolved case. The horrific “Witchfinder” murders. And toward an uncomfortable and dark truth that somebody’s gone to extreme lengths to bury.

Book Series In Order » Authors » Margaret Kirk