20 brilliant novels set in Edinburgh

20 years ago this October, Edinburgh proudly became the world’s first UNESCO City of Literature. To celebrate, we teamed up with Edinburgh City of Literature(this link will open in a new window) to create this list of 20 brilliant novels set in Scotland's capital city. We invite you to travel through the cobbled streets of our historic city with this unmissable selection of books featuring new releases, the classics and everything in between.

Edinburgh UNESCO City of Literature Trust is a charity based in Edinburgh that maintains the title and has helped build the network, using it to bring opportunities to Scottish writers to work internationally. Locally, they have created a wide range of projects to connect readers and writers to Edinburgh as an amazing literary place. Find out more by reading our article on Edinburgh City of Literature’s 20th anniversary.

Jenni Fagan Luckenbooth

Luckenbooth takes us into an Edinburgh tenement and the many dark secrets it houses over nine dark decades. From the devil’s daughter to a famous Beat poet, the residents are charmingly peculiar and utterly unforgettable. In haunting prose, Fagan’s novel reimagines Edinburgh as the past and present bleed into one another.

Sir Walter Scott The Heart of Midlothian

It’s tricky to know where to start with the works of the late Sir Walter Scott, a pivotal figure in Scotland’s literary landscape. Often considered his best novel, The Heart of Midlothian is our go-to. Set against the backdrop of the Porteous Riots, the novel follows Jeanie Deans as she seeks justice for her sister, who was wrongly sentenced to death. It’s a poignant story that centres on a truly remarkable heroine. Scott urges us to question justice and our commitment to each other in this classic work of historical fiction.

T L Huchu The Library of the Dead

The first in the Edinburgh Nights series, The Library of the Dead brings us a dystopian Edinburgh brimming with darkness and secrets. After discovering an occult library, teenager and ghostalker Ropa draws on Zimbabwean magic to uncover the city’s deadly mysteries. Gripping and ghoulish, it’s certain to have you sleeping with one eye open.

Lynsey May Weak Teeth

With a bitter breakup, an uninspiring career and a bout of toothache, Ellis is having a bit of a crisis. As she returns to her childhood home, we see Ellis juggle personal struggles amid tangled family dynamics in this all-too-relatable debut novel. It’s a heart-warming and tender story that unpacks the impossible instability of love, loss, and everything in between. As a former New Writers Awardee, Lynsey May has most certainly got our seal of approval.

Sarah Smith Hear No Evil

Based on a landmark case in Scottish legal history, this tale follows Jean Campbell, a young deaf woman who is on trial for a heinous crime in 19th-century Glasgow. Moved to Edinburgh’s Tolbooth and in danger of being executed or committed to an insane asylum, Jean’s only hope comes in the form of deaf school owner Robert Kinniburgh, who works painstakingly to communicate with Jean and uncover her story. This beautifully written page-turner highlights a fascinating period of history when deafness was terribly misunderstood.

Sara Sheridan The Fair Botanists

In the summer of 1822, the newly widowed Elizabeth arrives in Edinburgh to live with her late husband’s aunt Clementina in a grand house bordering the Botanic Garden. Fascinated by the garden – and its rare Agave Americana plant, which is about to flower for the first time in decades – Elizabeth offers her services as an artist, which leads her to meet perfume creator Belle Brodie. This is a lush, vibrant tale of female empowerment and scandal set against the backdrop of Enlightenment-era Edinburgh.

Lucy Ribchester Murder Ballad

Former New Writers Awardee Lucy Ribchester brings us yet another page-tuner with Murder Ballad. The novel follows the stars of the Edinburgh Musical Society and the dark secrets behind an infamous song. Ribchester takes us into the city’s glamorous yet gritty classical music scene while shining a light on its fascinating feminist history. Decadence, mystery & 18th century Edinburgh – it's right up our street.

David Nicholls One Day

Now a major Netflix series, David Nicholls’s 2009 novel begins on St Swithin’s Day, 1988, as Emma and Dexter meet for the first time on the night of their graduation from Edinburgh University. An epic love story, its snapshots of Edinburgh are written with great affection and will definitely inspire readers to venture up Arthur’s Seat – the city’s iconic ancient volcano.

Muriel Spark The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie

In 1930s Edinburgh, unconventional teacher Jean Brodie brings a new lease of life to her class of girls. As comic as it is tragic, the short novel unpacks the unglamorous risks of excessive pride. Adapted into both a film and a stage play, this modern classic hails Muriel Spark as one of Scotland’s most beloved authors.

Olga Wojtas Miss Blaine's Prefect and the Golden Samovar

In this novel inspired by Muriel Spark's The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, middle-aged librarian Shona, a proud alumna of the Marica Blaine Schools for Girls, is thrilled to be sent back in time by Miss Blaine herself, for a one-week match-making mission in 19th-century Russia. Not your typical crime series, this first instalment of the Miss Blaine’s Prefect series makes us think, makes us laugh, and reminds us why you should never underestimate a librarian.

Val McDermid Past Lying

DCI Karen Pirie returns for Past Lying, as the plot of an author’s manuscript is found to be eerily similar to an unsolved case. Uncovering betrayal and jealousy in a city full of writers and their dark secrets, it’s an intricately woven novel that will leave readers astounded. After all, Val McDermid isn’t known as the Queen of Crime for nothing.

Kaite Welsh The Wages of Sin

Medicine and murder are an imperfect pairing in The Wages of Sin, the first in the Sarah Gilchrist series. A young medical student finds herself and her patients embroiled in the city’s disturbing underbelly – from body snatchers to bribery. Reflecting on women’s role in Victorian society, Katie Welsh’s debut is a feminist tour de force with a deadly mystery at its bloody core.

Irvine Welsh Trainspotting

The era-defining novel that became an era-defining film portrays a side of late 20th century Edinburgh that few visitors to the capital would otherwise experience. A Scots language classic, this witty, raw and dark book explores addiction in a way that can’t help but leave a mark on readers.

Doug Johnstone A Dark Matter

The first in a series of darkly entertaining pageturners by popular Edinburgh writer Doug Johnstone, A Dark Matter introduces the three women of the Skelfs family as they take over the family funeral home and private investigation business when the patriarch, Jim, dies. As the business and their personal grief begin to overwhelm them, dark secrets emerge from the past that will change everything that they thought they knew.

Anbara Salam Hazardous Spirits

In this gothic mystery, the unremarkable life of Evelyn Hazard is changed forever when her husband tells her he can communicate with the dead, plunging the couple into the murky world of the early-20th-century spiritualist movement. Hazardous Spirits is a thrilling and unnerving tale that immerses the reader in the moody, bohemian society of 1920s Edinburgh.

Alexander McCall Smith 44 Scotland Street

Learn about tenement life in Edinburgh’s famous New Town in this vivid exploration of the residents of 44 Scotland Street and their neighbours. Gently satirical and partially influenced by Armistead Maupin’s Tales of the City, the novel was first published episodically in The Scotsman but now acts as the gateway to a 15-book series.

Ian Rankin Fleshmarket Close

No list of Edinburgh-set novels would be complete without one of the city’s most famous fictional inhabitants DI Rebus. In the Marchmont resident’s fifteenth outing, an illegal immigrant is found murdered in an Edinburgh scheme. Facing unwanted retirement, Rebus must visit an asylum seekers’ detention centre and deal with Scotland’s capital’s criminal underworld while, maybe, falling in love.

Claire Askew All the Hidden Truths

In the aftermath of a college shooting, everyone knows who committed the unimaginable act and yet no-one knows why. For DI Helen Birch, the first victim’s mother, and the killer’s mother Moira, the lack of answers is unbearable. All the Hidden Truths was poet Claire Askew’s first foray into crime fiction and the author’s poetic touch shines through in her beautifully observed lead characters.

Christopher Brookmyre Quite Ugly One Morning

Brookmyre’s first novel Quite Ugly One Morning introduces wise-cracking investigative journalist Jack Parlabane to the world. Nursing an epic hangover, Parlabane stumbles across the corpse of a wealthy family’s heir. The discovery sends him on a wild journey through most strata of Edinburgh society.

Mary Paulson-Ellis The Other Mrs Walker

One snowy winters night, old Mrs Walker dies alone and friendless in her Edinburgh flat. When Margaret Penny – her life in its own form of disarray – is given the job of tracking down Mrs Walker’s next-of-kin, her life becomes entangled with that of a lonely stranger. Part mystery, part drama, The Other Mrs Walker is an inventive and moving novel with a good smattering of dark humour.