Andrew Barrett Books in Order
Browse Andrew Barrett books in order, with quick summaries, series guides for Eddie Collins, Roger Conniston, and Regan Carter, plus where to start.
Last updated: July 3, 2026
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Publication Order
23 books
A Long Time Dead
by Andrew Barrett
2011
When a woman is found murdered, Scenes of Crime Officer Roger Conniston is already chasing trouble of his own. Then he is arrested for the killing, and proving the evidence was planted becomes a fight from behind bars.
No More Tears
by Andrew Barrett
2011
Roger Conniston has lost faith in the law and goes after the people who ruined his life. The final Roger Conniston book turns into a hard, angry chase through greed, betrayal, and revenge.
Stealing Elgar
by Andrew Barrett
2011
Newly promoted Roger Conniston faces Hades, an ex-bare-knuckle fighter planning a huge robbery with explosives, guns, and no room for mistakes. To stop him, Roger may have to step outside the police machine altogether.
Black by Rose
by Andrew Barrett
2013
Eddie spots what others miss in a staged double murder and gets drawn into a major gang investigation. With Slade Crosby still slipping the net, Eddie pushes too far and ends up staring down a gun.
The Third Rule
by Andrew Barrett
2013
In a harsher near-future England, repeat offenders get two chances, and a third conviction means death. Eddie Collins is caught inside a brutal, broken justice system and forced into a fight for his life.
Sword of Damocles
by Andrew Barrett
2015
A grotesque apparent suicide refuses to make sense, and Eddie Collins will not let it go. As trouble builds at work and at home, he and DI Benson chase a truth someone powerful wants buried.
The Lift
by Andrew Barrett
2015
On his way to a robbery scene, Eddie gets trapped in a lift with a teenage boy and an ex-cop. The ride is short, tense, and just long enough for someone to die.
Ledston Luck
by Andrew Barrett
2017
A booby-trapped body in an abandoned chapel leaves Eddie injured, grieving, and furious. The case reaches back decades into buried lies, and the deeper he digs, the more dangerous the truth becomes.
The End of Lies
by Andrew Barrett
2017
Becky comes home to find her husband dead and armed men tearing apart the house. As grief, paranoia, and hidden criminal ties close in, she must decide which lies she can keep living with.
The Note
by Andrew Barrett
2017
After a late-night murder scene, Eddie finds a death threat waiting on his desk. The note drags him toward a shadow from his past, and the short investigation turns personal fast.
The Long Revenge
by Andrew Barrett
2018
An old body rigged with a deadly trap turns a scene examination into disaster. Hurt, grieving, and furious, Eddie follows a trail of betrayal stretching back thirty years toward a truth the police should have buried.
The Death of Jessica Ripley
by Andrew Barrett
2019
Fresh out of prison, Jessica Ripley walks into a world still shaped by old rage, bad men, and unfinished business. As violence spreads, Eddie Collins is pulled into a case where every loyalty looks cracked.
The Lock
by Andrew Barrett
2019
What looks like a routine death scene turns savage when Eddie hears a voice from a locked cellar. Trapped underground with a man who may be victim or monster, he has to work out the truth before the air runs out.
This Side of Death
by Andrew Barrett
2020
Alex Sheridan believes killing the men in her life is the only way to silence her demons, and Eddie Collins is on her list. When she escapes a high-security hospital, Eddie is dragged back into the worst part of his past.
The Crew
by Andrew Barrett
2021
After an armed robbery, Eddie lands in the middle of a tightly wound mess involving desperate criminals and even more desperate choices. This Eddie Collins novella keeps the pressure close, fast, and personal.
The Pain of Strangers
by Andrew Barrett
2022
A boy escapes a killer who has spent decades punishing street robbers for his mother's death. When Eddie Collins joins the case, gang violence, old grief, and a growing body count push Leeds toward something even worse.
Death Warning
by Andrew Barrett
2023
Two deaths, one brutal murder and one apparent suicide, seem unrelated until Eddie Collins sees the link. As his small CSI team scrambles to prove the case, the killer is already moving toward the next victim.
Eye Contact
by Andrew Barrett
2023
Eddie leaves work early to do something nice for his father's seventieth birthday, then stumbles into a jewellery shop heist instead. With a gun in his face and Charles watching, he has to survive and save some pride.
A Random Kill
by Andrew Barrett
2024
DS Regan Carter never expected Major Crime, or the constant presence of death. When a young mother is murdered and her baby is taken, she is thrown into a vicious fight with organised criminals and the ghosts of her own past.
CSI Eddie Collins: Jargon, Lingo, and Slang: Eddie, Explain Yourself
by Andrew Barrett
2024
A short, funny companion to the Eddie Collins books, this guide explains Yorkshire slang, police acronyms, swearing, and other bits of language that crop up across the series.
The Dark Arches
by Andrew Barrett
2024
Regan Carter and DC Gypsy Storm go after Bradshaw, a gang figure planning a huge score that could cost many lives. Their pursuit leads into corruption, panic, and a direct collision with a killer who wants Regan dead.
Cutting Ties
by Andrew Barrett
2025
Regan is on leave, stuck with her mother, and still digging into the wreckage left by the Dark Arches case. As Bradshaw gears up for one final move, betrayal and bloodshed drive the series into darker territory.
The Colour of Fury
by Andrew Barrett
2025
Regan Carter's war with Leeds crime boss Kingston reaches breaking point as old betrayals, family loyalties, and raw anger collide. With Bradshaw still dangerous, she has to decide how far she is willing to go.
Where should I start?
If you want the main Eddie Collins run: The Pain of Strangers → Black by Rose → Sword of Damocles
If you want Eddie at his most intense: Ledston Luck → The Death of Jessica Ripley → This Side of Death
If you want Barrett's original forensic trilogy: A Long Time Dead → Stealing Elgar → No More Tears
If you want a new detective lead: A Random Kill → The Dark Arches → Cutting Ties
If you want a darker one-off: The Third Rule or The End of Lies
Author bio
Andrew Barrett works as a Senior CSI in Yorkshire, and that day job sits right at the heart of his fiction. He lives in Leeds, and Leeds shows up again and again in his books, not just as a backdrop but as the place where the pressure, humour, and damage of the stories feel most real.
Before writing crime around a full working life, he built up a very mixed career. He has written about time spent engine-building, farming, and working in Kuwait in oilfield services, the sort of practical jobs that leave you with a sharp eye for systems, faults, and people.
He had been writing for years before crime fiction clicked. Earlier on he leaned toward darker material, but the real turning point came in 1996, when he became a Scenes of Crime Officer. Suddenly he had a world he knew from the inside, one full of evidence, procedure, gallows humour, and the strange things grief does to ordinary rooms.
That changed everything.
The first books to come out of that shift were the Roger Conniston novels, beginning with A Long Time Dead and continuing through Stealing Elgar and No More Tears. Those stories follow a scene of crime officer working cases shaped by corruption, violence, and divided loyalties, and they already show the mix Barrett keeps returning to: forensic detail, emotional fallout, and people making bad decisions under pressure.
Then came Eddie Collins, the character many readers most strongly associate with Barrett. A conversation about repeat offenders helped spark The Third Rule, and from there Eddie grew into a whole body of work: angry, sarcastic, funny, stubborn, and very good at his job. Later books like The Pain of Strangers, Black by Rose, and This Side of Death keep him in present-day Yorkshire, facing gang crime, buried secrets, and the personal cost of never quite learning when to leave things alone.
Barrett also likes stepping sideways when a story calls for it. The End of Lies is a tighter psychological thriller with a very different lead voice, while A Random Kill opens the DS Regan Carter series and proves he can build a new protagonist without losing the raw, grounded feel that readers expect from him.
He likes damaged people who keep going.
That may be the simplest way to describe what links his books. The crime matters, of course, and so does the evidence, but his stories are usually just as interested in pride, guilt, family strain, institutional failure, and the way one case can get under a person's skin. Readers looking for spotless heroes generally will not find them here. What they do get is a strong sense that the author understands how work, stress, and memory grind people down, and how dark situations can still leave room for a dry joke.
Yorkshire matters too. Barrett is a proud Yorkshire writer, and the region gives his fiction its shape, language, and attitude. The streets, houses, villages, and back rooms feel lived in because, for him, they are.
He still works full-time as a Senior CSI, and he has said that balance between the job and the writing life suits him. He lives in Leeds with his wife and two daughters, along with dogs, a cat, and even a pair of goldfish. It sounds busy. It probably is.
Edited by
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