Bruce Beckham Books in Order
See Bruce Beckham books in order, with DI Skelgill reading order, short summaries, series background and guidance on the best place to start his mysteries.
Last updated: January 13, 2026
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Publication Order
29 books
Murder at Midsomar Manor
by Bruce Beckham
2026
An invitation to Midsomar Manor promises Skelgill a civilized country house gathering, but the estate's polished surface hides old grudges and new money. When a death upends the weekend, he finds himself untangling family politics in a house where everyone knows how to play a part.
Murder on the Menu
by Bruce Beckham
2025
In foodie focused Cumbria, ten star chefs compete to create the ultimate tasting menu for The Great Cumbrian Feast, raiding lakes, woods and fells for rare ingredients. When deadly poisons slip into the dishes, Skelgill has to decide whether the killer is chasing revenge, fame or a ruined rival.
Murder at Blind Beck
by Bruce Beckham
2025
In 1852, teenage servant Flora Mary Graham was convicted of bludgeoning the Seventh Earl of Fellside and sending him to his death in Blind Beck, a Cumbrian stream in spate. Skelgill reopens the notorious case, asking whether her fate, and the fortune involved, truly matched the evidence.
Murder Mere Murder
by Bruce Beckham
2024
Years after a young housewife's weighted body was found in Wastwater, England's deepest lake, memories of the case still haunt the surrounding dales. When new questions surface, Skelgill is drawn into a slow burning investigation about what was hidden, who benefited and how many secrets the waters still hold.
Murder in the Round
by Bruce Beckham
2024
A group venture into the Cumbrian fells goes badly wrong, leaving someone dead and the survivors telling conflicting stories. With rescue hours away from many of the places they walked, Skelgill must decide who engineered the tragedy and who was meant to be the real target.
Murder at Home
by Bruce Beckham
2024
Drifting in his boat on Bassenthwaite Lake, Skelgill strikes up a friendship with an elderly man watching from a nursing home garden. Learning how the wheelchair bound resident has been stripped of his money, he suspects predatory relatives and races to stop a quiet exploitation turning deadly.
Murder on the Farm
by Bruce Beckham
2023
A true crime television crew descends on rural Cumbria to dramatise an unsolved 1970s killing, with celebrity criminologist Simeon Freud front and centre. While DS Jones infiltrates the production, Skelgill works from the sidelines, fearing that buried police mistakes and a manipulative killer are about to collide on camera.
Murder at the Bridge
by Bruce Beckham
2023
An attempted murder in the United States, a fatal road accident in a Cumbrian forest and a stolen photograph seem unconnected until a midnight drowning at Ouse Bridge. Skelgill patiently picks through decades old ties to uncover which familiar face has brought their violence back to the Lakes.
Murder Unsolved
by Bruce Beckham
2022
Notorious burglars die in a burned-out Mercedes and their associate takes the blame, but whispers reach Skelgill that the wrong man is in prison. To reopen the case unofficially, he must challenge organised crime and his own department's certainty.
Murder In The Fells
by Bruce Beckham
2022
When a shepherd's dog uncovers an American passport on the fells, it links to an unidentified walker who fell to her death years earlier. As nighthawkers plunder Roman sites and tourist Dorothy Baum follows a line of ancient forts, Skelgill must find her before history repeats itself.
Murder Unseen
by Bruce Beckham
2021
Young woman Lisa vanishes and a suspect is taken to trial without a body, leaving DS Emma Jones to lead her first major case. With Skelgill and Leyton sidelined, she faces a ruthless opponent who always seems one move ahead.
Murder in Our Midst
by Bruce Beckham
2021
In a quiet Cumbrian community, an unexplained death refuses to settle into a clear story. Were there two murders, one, or none at all? Skelgill, Jones and Leyton wrestle with shifting evidence and pressure to close the file too soon.
Murder on the Moor
by Bruce Beckham
2020
When hard-driving gamekeeper Lawrence Melling takes over a Lakeland sporting estate, he makes enemies among the owners, their heirs and nearby conservationists. Missing jewels, vanished staff and a suspicious death on the moor leave Skelgill wondering whether one hunter has become the prey.
Murder at the Meet
by Bruce Beckham
2020
Twenty years after schoolgirl Mary Wilson disappeared and a mass DNA sweep cleared every local man, human remains are found in Cummacatta Wood. When a convicted serial offender suddenly confesses, Skelgill digs into old loyalties and feuds to expose the real killer.
Murder on the Run
by Bruce Beckham
2019
Skelgill volunteers to mentor his gifted young cousin Jess, a fell runner with few advantages and big dreams. As county lines drug gangs fight over Cumbria, Jess drifts into their orbit, and Skelgill must stop a rising body count before she becomes collateral damage.
Murder at Shake Holes
by Bruce Beckham
2019
After the London to Edinburgh sleeper train is buried in a Cumbrian snowdrift, Skelgill wakes to find one passenger dead and another missing. Stranded at a remote inn with a handful of powerful strangers, he must unmask a killer before the storm or greed claims more lives.
Murder Mystery Weekend
by Bruce Beckham
2018
At a lavish murder mystery weekend in a Lakeland castle, glamorous socialite Scarlett Liddell apparently takes her own life. Forensics and gossip quickly point to her millionaire husband, but Skelgill suspects the real plot is buried within their privileged circle of friends and enemies.
Murder at Dead Crags
by Bruce Beckham
2018
A chilling howl echoes across Skiddaw Forest and a young woman from a local zoo is found dead beneath the cliffs known as Dead Crags. As talk of the legendary Black Dog spreads, Skelgill uncovers very human motives circling the failing zoo and its valuable land.
Murder in the Woods
by Bruce Beckham
2017
A dog walker finds a badly decomposed body in Harterhow Woods and even a national appeal cannot identify the victim. Skelgill thinks he knows the killer, his team disagrees, and every new clue suggests there may be two murderers with very different reasons to strike again.
Murder at the Flood
by Bruce Beckham
2017
During the devastating Cockermouth floods, womaniser and expert kayaker Roger Alcock disappears, then washes up dead on the Solway coast. Officially it looks like misadventure, but as resentful friends and lovers surface, Skelgill wades through a drowned town's secrets to decide whether someone used the chaos to kill.
Murder in the Mind
by Bruce Beckham
2016
Called to a remote high security hospital, Skelgill attracts the attention of a notorious female serial killer who seems to know exactly how to press his buttons. A chain of murders, escapes and hostage crises forces him to ask whether he is chasing madness, corruption or something far darker.
Murder at the Wake
by Bruce Beckham
2016
One week after a ninety three year old twin dies peacefully, his brother is found murdered in the library of crumbling Crummock Hall. With a fortune and a rare book collection at stake, Skelgill wades into generations of family rivalry where every heir has something to hide.
Murder on the Lake
by Bruce Beckham
2015
Stranded by a storm on tiny Grisholm island during a writers' retreat, Skelgill arrives to find a publisher already dead and another guest in grave danger. As more accidents strike, he must unpick tangled literary egos before an unseen killer finishes the cast list.
Murder by Magic
by Bruce Beckham
2015
Attacks on prize Herdwick sheep, the drowning of a reclusive hermit and the disappearance of a foreign hiker pull Skelgill into some of the bleakest corners of Lakeland. Rumours of witchcraft and human trafficking swirl together, forcing him to risk both career and life to expose a hidden ring.
Murder on the Edge
by Bruce Beckham
2014
A climber is discovered strangled with his own rope beneath the notorious Sharp Edge, apparently the victim of an accident. After a second body turns up near Striding Edge, Skelgill realises a serial killer may be using the Lake District's ridges as a private hunting ground.
Murder In School
by Bruce Beckham
2014
A respected master at an elite English public school is found drowned in Bassenthwaite Lake, his death labelled suicide. Skelgill soon uncovers ruthless infighting behind the school's polished facade, and when another death and a pupil's disappearance follow, he races to stop a third tragedy.
Murder Mystery Collection
by Bruce Beckham
2013
This collection gathers eight Edinburgh based mysteries, from the award winning story Cross Words to eerie tales of ghosts, obsession and revenge. It also includes an early look at Skelgill in the opening of Murder in Adland, giving readers a taste of Beckham's Lake District series.
The Dune
by Bruce Beckham
2012
In the long hot summer of 1976, bookish teenager Luke works on a remote bird reserve on the Norfolk coast, where unsettling events prey on his awkward desires. Decades later, human remains at a nearby dig force him to return and face a past steeped in obsession, folklore and murder.
Murder in Adland
by Bruce Beckham
2012
During a company retreat in the Lake District, a charismatic advertising executive is stabbed to death, and every colleague, lover and family member has both motive and opportunity. Skelgill chases leads between Cumbria, London and Edinburgh in a classic whodunit where one misstep could invite another killing.
Where should I start?
If you want to start at the beginning: Murder in Adland → Murder In School → Murder on the Edge.
If you enjoy classic country house puzzles: Murder on the Lake → Murder at the Wake → Murder Mystery Weekend.
If you prefer more recent, twisty cases: Murder in Our Midst → Murder Unsolved → Murder In The Fells.
If you want a standalone outside the series: The Dune for a slow burn suspense story set on the Norfolk coast.
Author bio
Bruce Beckham is a British crime writer who built his fiction around landscapes he loves and jobs he knows well. Before readers met DI Skelgill, he spent years writing copy for other people, sharpening his ear for rhythm and character.
Based in Great Britain, he has travelled and worked in more than sixty countries. That work as an award winning copywriter took him from boardrooms to backroads, and gave him a steady stream of voices, settings and small human details to store away.
He has always been drawn to the outdoors. Lakes, fells, forests and rough weather run through his books, echoing time spent walking, fishing and watching how people behave when they are far from cities.
Alongside commercial work he began to experiment with longer stories. His first novel, The Dune, appeared in 2012, a slow building tale set on an isolated bird reserve on the Norfolk coast. It follows a shy teenager whose unsettling summer in 1976 takes on new meaning decades later, when human remains are found and old memories refuse to stay buried.
A year later he collected several Edinburgh set short pieces in Murder Mystery Collection, including prize winning and award listed stories that play with ghosts, puzzles and uneasy psychology. Those early books let him blend suspense with a slightly off beat sense of humour and a liking for ordinary people pushed into strange corners.
The project that would really define his writing, though, was a series of Lake District mysteries featuring Detective Inspector Daniel Skelgill. The first book, Murder in Adland, introduces a recalcitrant Cumbrian detective dragged into the glossy world of advertising when an executive is stabbed on a company weekend. Skelgill's London colleague DS Leyton and ambitious local DS Emma Jones quickly became fixtures alongside him.
From there the series grew into more than twenty stand alone novels. Each one centres on a closed circle of suspects in a vividly drawn setting, from a public school by Bassenthwaite Lake to a flooded market town, a writers' retreat cut off on an island or a sleeper train stranded in a snowstorm. The tone mixes modern police work with the clue driven feel of a traditional whodunit, often described as mad, bad and just a little bit cozy.
Readers have responded. The DI Skelgill books have sold across five continents, with well over a million copies downloaded, and have been gathered into box sets as well as individual titles. At the same time Beckham has continued to publish other work, but Skelgill and his circle remain the heart of his fiction.
Across his books certain themes recur. Institutions that present a confident face to the world often turn out to be brittle inside. Old class loyalties rub up against tourism, television and modern money. Ordinary landscapes, from sheep farms to quiet coves, are treated as places where secrets can sit undisturbed for years until one strange incident brings everything into the open.
When he is not at his desk, Beckham still spends time outdoors in the British countryside, watching the weather, listening to local talk and quietly collecting the kind of small observations that later feed his plots. His fiction rarely shouts about itself, but it is full of the textures of lives lived close to wild places.
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