Denzil Meyrick

After studying politics, Denzil Meyrick worked as a police officer, distillery manager, freelance journalist, and company director. He is originally from Campbeltown in Argyll, but now lives on Loch Lomondside. He is the author of the million copy bestselling D.C.I. Daley series.

The hit series is now being adapted for TV by Ocean Independent. The show will be written and directed by leading Scottish playwright and screenwriter Anthony Neilson (BAFTA 2021 nominated Best Drama Series I Hate Suzie), and feature Game of Thrones and BAFTA Scotland award winning actor Rory McCann as D.C.I. Jim Daley.

As well as the D.C.I. Daley series, Denzil is also the author of the stand-alone gangland thriller, Terms of Restitution, and three nostalgic and humorous short novels, A Large Measure of Snow, A Toast to the Old Stones and Ghosts in the Gloaming. Browse Denzil’s books below!

Tales from Kinloch

  • A Large Measure of Snow
    Hardback | Pub: 01 Oct 2020
    £9.99

    It’s December 1967, and the town of Kinloch is cut off by heavy snow. With all roads closed, the only way to feed and water the townsfolk is for the fishing fleet to sail to Girvan for much needed supplies. But the skipper of the Girl Maggie,…

  • A Toast to the Old Stones
    Hardback | Pub: 04 Nov 2021
    £9.99

    ‘a wonderfully atmospheric tale … offers a brief, magical escape to a kinder, simpler time’ – Roger Cox, The Scotsman It’s 1968, and the fishermen of Kinloch are preparing to celebrate the old New Year on the twelfth of…

  • Ghosts in the Gloaming
    Hardback | Pub: 06 Oct 2022
    £9.99

    From the author of the bestselling D.C.I. Daley series comes a thrilling new tall tale from Kinloch. It’s December 1968. Having cheated Sandy Hoynes out of a rowing race and navigation certificate when they were young, Dreich MacCallum makes an…

Immerse yourself in the Tales from Kinloch

‘superb, feel good, laugh out loud… just wonderful‘

Waterstones, Horsham

‘A Para Handy-style tale celebrating the bygone boats and banter of [Campbeltown’s] busy fishing port … Brimming with bonhomie, bristling with banter and laced with a healthy dose of fantasy‘

Sunday Post

‘It sings with the evocation of time, place and people, and the humour and truth behind fishermen’s tall tales’

Kirsty McLuckie, The Scotsman

Praise for The Death of Remembrance

‘Properly frightening tale in parts … but there’s plenty of humour too, and it’s also a fascinating study of how both policing and crime have changed’

Kirsty McLuckie, The Scotsman

‘Meyrick’s ability to keep the pages turning almost of their own accord marks the Death of Remembrance as top-drawer crime fiction‘

The Herald

‘Daley is a character complete with depths, currents and sudden changes of the Atlantic ocean that crashes against Kinloch’s harbour walls. The remote peninsula and the claustrophobic nature of small-town life are perfectly painted‘

Scotland on Sunday

The DCI Daley Series in Order

  • Whisky from Small Glasses
    Paperback | Pub: 29 Jan 2015
    £8.99

    When the body of a young woman is washed up on an idyllic beach on the west coast of Scotland, D.C.I. Jim Daley is despatched from Glasgow to lead the investigation. Far from home, and his troubled marriage, it seems that Daley’s biggest obstacle…

  • The Last Witness
    Paperback | Pub: 17 Jun 2014
    £8.99

    Ruthless crime lord James Machie was assassinated in the back of a prison ambulance following his trial and conviction. But now, five years later, he appears to be back from the grave and hell-bent on wreaking vengeance on those who brought him…

  • Dark Suits And Sad Songs
    Paperback | Pub: 27 Apr 2015
    £8.99

    When a senior Edinburgh Civil Servant spectacularly takes his own life in Kinloch Harbour, D.C.I. Jim Daley comes face-to-face with the murky world of politics. To add to his woes, two local drug dealers lie dead, ritually assassinated. It’s…

  • The Rat Stone Serenade
    Paperback | Pub: 23 Mar 2016
    £8.99

    It’s December, and the Shannon family are returning home to their clifftop mansion near Kinloch for their annual AGM. Shannon International is one of the world’s biggest private companies, with tendrils reaching around the globe in…

  • Well of the Winds
    Paperback | Pub: 20 Mar 2017
    £8.99

    As the Second World War nears its end, a man is stabbed to death on the shoreline of Kinloch, in the shadow of the great warships in the harbour. Many years later, the postman on Gairsay, a tiny island off the coast of Kintyre, discovers that the…

  • The Relentless Tide
    Paperback | Pub: 06 Sep 2018
    £8.99

    One of the Scotsman‘s Books of 2018 When Professor Francombe and her team of archaeologists find the remains of three women on a remote Kintyre hillside – a site rumoured to have been the base of Viking warlord Somerled – their delight…

  • A Breath on Dying Embers
    Paperback | Pub: 11 Jul 2019
    £8.99

    LONGLISTED FOR THE MCILVANNEY PRIZE 2019 From the pen of the biggest selling crime writer published in Scotland… When the luxury cruiser, hastily renamed Great Britain, berths in Kinloch harbour, the pressure is on DCI Jim Daley. The UK…

  • Jeremiah’s Bell
    Paperback | Pub: 04 Jun 2020
    £8.99

    Voted Culture NL’s Book of the Year for 2020 Teenager Alison Doig disappeared from Kinloch over thirty years ago under mysterious circumstances. Her reclusive family still live in a remote part of the Kintyre peninsula, amidst rumours of…

  • For Any Other Truth
    Paperback | Pub: 03 Jun 2021
    £9.99

    A SUNDAY POST TOP PICK FOR SUMMER READING ‘This latest DCI Daley thriller is deftly plotted and peopled with sympathetically drawn local characters and satisfyingly nuanced local wrongdoers’ – Irish Independent When a light aircraft…

  • The Death of Remembrance
    Paperback | Pub: 02 Jun 2022
    £8.99

    The ghosts of the past will not be silenced. Glasgow, 1983, and a beat constable walks away from a bar where he knows a crime is about to be committed. It is a decision that will haunt him for the rest of his life. In the present, an old fisherman…

  • No Sweet Sorrow
    Paperback | Pub: 01 Jun 2023
    £8.99

    Be sure your sins will find you out . . . one day. A potent new drug has hit the streets of Kinloch, and DCI Daley and Scott are struggling to catch the notorious gang behind this evil trade. After a party of Oxford students arrives in town for a…

One million DCI Daley novels sold across all editions.

‘As an ex-detective, ex-procurator fiscal depute and now an advocate, I was reluctant to buy another Scottish crime series. I was tired of the plastic and sanitised fictional detectives portrayed in crime novels set in Scotland, where clearly the author had no idea of the workings of the Scottish police or legal system.

I should have had no such fears with regards to Mr Meyrick’s DCI Daley novels. I have now read all the books in the series and love the characters. I feel I have even worked with some of them. I am always sad when I come to the end of his books. It’s like being separated from friends. I am looking forward to meeting up with them again’

Joe Cahill, Advocate

Praise for Terms of Restitution

‘A rollicking rollercoaster of violence, misplaced loyalties and some very unexpected interventions that combine to produce one of the most satisfying gangland thrillers of the year‘

Irish Independent

‘Meyrick’s breaking the mould with the latest offering straight out of the underworld of Paisley and the gritty streets of London’

Sunday Post

‘A winning combination of fisticuffs and philosophy’

Mark Sanderson, Times and Sunday Times Crime Club

Books by Denzil