It’s the spring of 1939 and Dandy Gilver, the mother of two grown-up sons, can’t think of anything except the deteriorating state of Europe and the threat of war. Detective work is the furthest thing from her mind. It takes a desperate cri de coeur from an old friend to persuade her to take on a case.

Nominated for the lefty award for best historical novel 2022

Something sinister is afoot in the streets of Dundee, when a puppeteer is found murdered behind his striped Punch and Judy stand, as children sit cross-legged drinking ginger beer. At once, Dandy Gilver’s semmingly-innocuous investigation into plagiarism takes a darker turn. The gruesome death seems to be inextricably bound to the gloomy offices of Doig’s Publishers . . .

Winner of the Bruce Alexander Award for best historical novel

Finalist for the Historical Agatha Award.

Finalist for the Sue Feder memorial Mcavity

"The perfect literary treat for a rainy Sunday afternoon" Red Magazine (best crime and thriller list)

It’s the breezy Scottish summer of 1936 and aristocratic sleuth Dandy Gilver, along with trusted colleague Alec Osborne, has been called in to solve the strange case of the Cramond Ferrywoman, on the Firth of Forth. She's been refusing to row her boat in fine weather; only in foul. And now she won't put to the water at all.  Has she lost her mind? It seems so . . .

"Marriage is a step so grave that it attracts light-headed, variable men by its very awfulness." Robert Louis Stevenson

"exceptional" PUBLISHERS WEEKLY (starred review)

Wedding bells are set to ring  as  Dandy Gilver, family in tow, arrives in windswept Wester Ross on Valentine’s Day. They’ve come to celebrate Lady Lavinia’s fiftieth birthday and to meet her daughter Mallory, a less-than-suitable bride-to-be for Dandy’s son Donald.

But soon  love is the last thing on Dandy’s mind . . .

"A delightfully uplfiting mystery with a distinctively P.G.Wodehousian feel" Vaseem Khan

"McPherson is a writer as talented as she is versatile" Martin Edwards

Fair is foul and foul is fair when aristocratic private detective Dandy Gilver arrives at Castle Bewer, at midsummer 1934, to solve the tangled mystery of a missing man, a lost ruby and a family curse. The Bewer family's latest wheeze to keep the wolf from the door is turning the castle keep into a theatre . . .

 

"A hedonistic mix of historical fiction, black comedy and murder mystery" THE LADY

The Lanark Moor is a bleak spot, even for Scotland, and at the tail end of a hard winter, a sojourn there is no one's idea of fun. But since the break-out from an insane asylum on Christmas Eve and the fire at the nearby convent while the inmates were at large, trouble has haunted the moor - not to mention the cloisters - and something needs to be done. Dandy Gilver and Alec Osborne arrive to find terrified nuns, troubled patients, and their knottiest mystery yet. Add a cast of cheerful orphans, suspicious villagers and hapless toffs and the scene is set for another adventure with as many shudders as giggles.

"fiendishly intricate and wildly improbable ... very entertaining." HISTORICAL NOVEL SOCIETY

Glasgow,1932, is a city in the grip of dance-fever. Public ballrooms and backstreet dancehalls are thronged every night and competition for professional titles is fierce. Even after the sudden death of one of last year's hopefuls there are plenty willing to take his place, and few who stop to wonder why he died ...

winner of the 2017 Bruce Alexander award.

winner of the 2017 Agatha award for best historical novel

Macavity finalist.

On the rain-drenched, wave-lashed, wind-battered Banffshire coast, tiny fishing villages perch on ledges which would make a seagull think twice and crumbly mansions cling to crumblier cliff tops while, out in the bay, the herring drifters brave the storms to catch their silver darlings. It's nowhere for a child of gentle Northamptonshire to spend Christmas.

Winner of the Bruce Alexander award 2015

Winner of the Sue Feder Memorial Macavity

Perthshire 1929 and the menfolk of the Gilver family have come down, between them, with influenza, bronchitis, pneumonia and pleurisy. Dandy the devoted wife and mother decides it is time to decamp; Dandy the intrepid detective, however, decides to decamp to the scene of a murder she would dearly love to solve. 

Winner of the Bruce Alexander Award, 2014

Shortlisted for the Sue Feder Memorial Macavity

Before she was a detective, before she was a reluctant wife and distracted mother, before she was even a debutante, Dandy Gilver spent one perfect summer with the Lipscotts of Pereford. The golden memories of it have sustained her through many a cold snap in Perthshire. 

Winner of the 2013 Agatha award for Best Historical Mystery

Winner of the 2013 Bruce Alexander Historical Mystery Award

Friday 3rd June, 1927

Dear Alec,
'Careful what you wish for, lest it come true' is my new motto, and here is why. I was summoned to Dunfermline, that old grey town, in the matter of a missing heiress ...

Winner of the Historical Macavity 2012

Boston Globe Top Ten Pick of the Year

 1st May 1926,

Dear Alec, 
Just when those who should be working are all downing tools for this wretched strike (and I still can't believe it - I mean to say: riots, Alec - in Edinburgh of all places) guess who is setting her virgin shoulder to its very first wheel?

Bad luck? Bad timing? Or good old-fashioned MURDER? 

When a circus comes to spend the winter at the neighbouring estate to Gilverton, Dandy Gilver's two sons are cock-a-hoop and they are not alone in their excitement. But when one of the artistes suddenly dies, Dandy must somehow get behind the smoke and mirrors to find answers in a world where nothing is as it seems. 

The one they call the concept album ...

Dear Alec,

Remember my engagement yesterday? The annual duty luncheon for the Reverend Mr Tait from which and whom I expected only boredom? I could hardly have been more wrong. . .

Long-listed for the Theakston's Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year

Summer 1923, and as the village of Queensferry prepares for the annual Ferry Fair and the walk of the Burry Man, feelings are running high.

Shortlisted for the UK Historical Dagger 2005

After the Armistice Ball is set among the struggling upper classes of 1920s Perthshire as, in the aftermath of the First World War, their comfortable world begins to crumble. Dandy Gilver, her husband back from the War, her children off at school and her uniform growing musty in the attic, is bored to a whimper and a little light snooping seems like harmless fun. Before long, though, the puzzle of what really happened to the Duffy diamonds after the Armistice Ball is swept aside by a sudden death in a lonely seaside cottage in Galloway.