The Last Kingdom: 7 Mysteries set in Northumbria

Clomping around the crime scenes of Northumbria in gigantic sandals and wearing an assortment of clothes that seem to have been grabbed from a dressing up box, Ann Cleeves’ middle-aged Detective Chief Inspector Vera Stanhope is everyone’s favorite “large and shabby” sleuth. Vera made her debut in 1999’s The Crow Trap.

This, her 10th outing from 2022, is a classic “locked room mystery.” Vera investigates an apparent suicide at a school reunion on Lindisfarne—an island linked to the mainland by a causeway that is covered at high tide.

Using her usual mix of insight and blunt questioning, Vera soon peels back the layers of apparent friendship to uncover something much nastier: a tale of adolescent loyalty and jealousy, of long buried secrets and the fear of disgrace. And all the while, the sea is rushing in.

The landmark Sycamore Gap in Northumberland made international news headlines in 2023 when vandals felled the famous Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves tree that stands in the dip between two hills on Hadrian’s Wall. This famous beauty spot is the setting for crime of another type in international best-selling novelist LJ Ross’s second DCI Ryan mystery.

When the body of a young woman is discovered buried at the base of the celebrated tree, Ryan begins an investigation that stretches back a decade. The case sees him battling not only with a sociopathic killer, but also with the darkness of his own past.

Filled with loving descriptions of the Northumberland countryside and peppered with the humor for which the locals are noted, Sycamore Gap is a fast-paced whodunit with sinister occult overtones.

Mari Hannah’s DCI Kate Daniels series often takes in the sleepier side of Northumbria. But in this cracking thriller (the fifth in the series) our detective hero is in a very different milieu: the gangland of Newcastle upon Tyne.

When two figures from the same Tyneside crime family are tortured and killed on the same day on the fringes of a bleak industrial estate, Daniels is called in to investigate. As more notorious local gangsters bite the dust, the dogged detective’s search for the killer widens to mainland Europe.

She puts her own life on the line in the search for a murderer who is bent on meting out his own brutal form of justice.

Author Trevor Wood has won praise from Lee Childs and countless awards for his series of mysteries featuring Jimmy Mullen—and it’s easy to see why.

Mullen is an empathetic sleuth, an army veteran with PTSD who lives rough on the streets of Newcastle. His status as a street person gives him a unique insight into what is going on in the city—he’s a man who sees everything but who passes unnoticed.

In this, the third in the series, Mullen has got his life back on track. But when a gang of vigilantes begin attacking the city’s homeless and his pal Gadge is found beaten in an alley with a dead body beside him, the ex-soldier is forced to go back to his old lifestyle to try to find the real killer and save his friend from prison.

The first in Graham’s Seahouses Mysteries sees Izzy returning from abroad to the Northumberland fishing village she spent most of her youth trying desperately to escape.

She’s come back to investigate the death of her sister, Amy. Was it an accident, as the police believe, or is there something more sinister involved?

Firmly rooted in the North East fishing community, Salt Sisters is part-murder mystery, part-family saga with a relatable central character and a plot that is filled with as many twists as the Northumbrian coast.

Mick Herron is best known for his superb and darkly comic Slough House espionage series. Herron was born in Newcastle and this, the fourth in his series featuring Oxford PI Zoe Boehm, is set in his hometown.

In a typical Herron twist, his female sleuth is not the investigator in this one, but the victim, her body washed up on the banks of the river Tyne. Her friend Sarah Tucker travels up from the south to take a look at the circumstances of Zoe’s death.

It appears a simple suicide, but the number of strange coincidences that surround it lead Sarah to conclude that something more is going on. Filled with Herron’s trademark deadpan humor, Smoke and Whispers is a genuine page-turner.

County Durham born author Howard Linskey has written a couple of crime series set in Northumbria—notably the books featuring detective Ian Bradshaw.

Don’t Let Him In is a standalone book, a macabre and creepy psychological thriller set in the fictional (though recognizable) small coal mining town of Eriston. It’s a place where, for decades, people have made a habit of dying unexplained deaths behind locked doors.

One of these victims is the father of the leading character, Rebecca. She returns to attend his funeral and soon discovers that her dad was on the trail of somebody he believed might be responsible for all those deaths—a sinister figure who seems more legend than fact.