Neil Lancaster Books In Order

Publication Order of DS Max Craigie Books

Publication Order of Tom Novak Books

Neil Lancaster is a mystery fiction author from the United Kingdom who is best known for the “DS Max Craigie” and the “Tom Novak” series of novels.

The author was born in Liverpool in the 1960s and spent much of his childhood and early adulthood living in the UK.

Before he became an author, he served for more than twenty-five years in the Metropolitan Police.

He primarily served as a detective conducting and leading investigations into some of the most serious criminals in the United Kingdom and abroad.

Neil acted as a covert and surveillance policing specialist as he used all manner of techniques to prosecute and arrest murderers, drug dealers, fraudsters, and human traffickers.
In the course of his career, he prosecuted many corrupt and wealthy members of the legal profession most of whom had been deep in organized immigration criminal offenses.
These prosecutions resulted in disbarments, asset confiscations that ran into the millions, and jail sentences.

When he retired from the Metropolitan Police, he moved to the Scottish Highlands where he lives with his wife and son.

Lancaster nowadays makes a living working freelance investigations alongside his creative writing endeavors.

Like many authors, Neil Lancaster grew up with a desire to one day become a fiction author. He believed that one day he would become an author but he was always too busy with family and work that he never had the time.
It was only when he got out of policing and moved to the Scottish countryside that the desire to write became even stronger.

For many years, he never thought of himself as creative as he was never artistic. However, once he started writing the words just came and flowed.
As for his inspiration, he cites many works that he read over the years but there was one that he believes has to be the most impressive.
When he was just a child, his mother got him Desmond Bagley’s espionage thriller “Running Blind.”

Bagley had been one of the biggest thriller authors during the 1970s along with Hammond Innes and Alistair Maclean.
Neil Lancaster absolutely loved the novel and used to find it even more exciting than a film or TV show.

He used to read it over and over again when he was twelve years old until the book ultimately fell apart.

When Neil Lancaster moved to the Scottish Highlands in 2015, he found himself having too much time on his hands.

It was at this time that he began ruminating on what Christopher Hitchens used to say. The author used to say that most people who believe they should write should never do so.

While he had no idea what he wanted to write or any direction to take he just began typing. He had the vague idea of the lead as an undercover officer who finds himself in a sticky situation due to corrupt colleagues and people traffickers.
Over many months, much window staring, and many coffees, he finally had his draft of more than 100,000 words.

“Going Dark,” his debut novel was published by Burning Chair Publishing in 2019 and would go on to become a bestseller.
The novel went right up the Amazon bestselling charts in paperback, hardback audio, and e-book formats.

Neil Lancaster’s novel “Dead Man’s Grave” is a thriller that will grab you from the get-go and never lets go right to the end.

It is the work that introduces detective sergeant Max Craigie the lead character. He is a former military man who is suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and has to deal with horrifying nightmares after serving in Afghanistan.
He has quit the London Met following a shooting incident that resulted in too many questions. Katie his wife has not decided if she will follow him to Scotland or if she will stay back in London.

Max heads to Gartcosh and alongside detective constable Janie Calder they find themselves in an abandoned, isolated and bleak graveyard. They open a grave that has an inscription warning people never to open it.
They unearth large-scale corruption involving the Scottish Police Service. Max and Janie may have to turn against the very people they have been calling colleagues for months.

Craigie soon finds himself wondering if maybe it would have been better not to bother with the grave as he finds himself shunned by Police Scotland and in grave danger.

“The Blood Tide” by Neil Lancaster opens with several low-level drug traffickers going missing. Police constable Hamish Beattie is about to retire after working the night shift and on a popular suicide bridge he chances upon a potential jumper.
He failed to save the suicidal man but in the process, he discovered that he had been terrified about the safety of his family.

As it happens, the man had been an employee of the National Crime Agency where he had been working as an intelligence officer.

His suicide had raised a few eyebrows at police headquarters and hence Beattie knew he had to consult the higher-ups.

He contacts Max but when he searches through the database he cannot much information about the man.

Looking to find more information, Max and Janie go to Beattie’s home to consult. When they arrive at their colleague’s home they find him hanging but are certain that he did not hang himself.
Things get interesting and it is soon clear that the death of both police officers has something to do with corrupt elements in the Police Service.

Soon enough, Max learns about the man that has been behind the corruption and his blood runs cold.

Neil Lancaster’s novel “The Night Watch” opens with Scott Patterson who is one of the most notorious criminals in Scotland being found dead.

His corpse had been found on the grounds of an Edinburgh golf course with some shocking injuries. The investigators are puzzled that such a huge man could be brutally killed and easily beaten with no signs of a struggle.
A few days later, a lawyer who had been out on an early morning run is found dead at Dunnet Head on the northernmost tip of Scotland.

It happens that the man had been on his honeymoon and had just managed to get Scott Paterson released from a high-profile criminal case.

The two deaths are then linked to several other murders and soon DS Max Craigie and his colleagues are dealing with a potential serial killer.
But just how does anyone apprehend a killer who seems to know the investigator’s every move?

It is a fast-paced, suspense-filled, and well-written story with a lot of heart-stopping moments.