Frey & McGray Reading Order
| Title | Published | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|
| The Hunt | 2015 | Buy |
| The Strings of Murder | 2015 | Buy |
| A Fever of the Blood | 2016 | Buy |
| A Mask of Shadows | 2017 | Buy |
| The Loch of the Dead | 2018 | Buy |
| The Darker Arts | 2019 | Buy |
| The Dance of the Serpents | 2020 | Buy |
| The Falling Shroud | 2020 | Buy |
| The Sign of the Devil | 2022 | Buy |
Oscar de Muriel was born in Mexico City and is a violinist, translator, chemist, and writer who now lives in Lancashire, England. He fell in love with Edinburgh during visits to the city, and that affection shows in his Frey and McGray mystery series, set in the streets and closes of 1890s Edinburgh.
The series, which began with The Strings of Murder in 2015, has been called “the Victorian X-Files.” Each novel pairs two very different detectives: Nine Nails McGray, a rough-edged Scotsman convinced that supernatural forces are at work, and Ian Frey, a prim Londoner who insists on rational explanations. Their investigations take them through Edinburgh’s criminal underworld and always involve cases with a potentially paranormal dimension. De Muriel drew on his own experience as a violinist for the first novel’s premise, which revolves around a gruesome murder linked to a cursed violin.
The series now spans nine books, with cases ranging from murders at a Scottish loch to dark arts and serpent-worshipping cults. De Muriel’s background in chemistry and translation gives his writing an unusual range of detail, and his outsider’s perspective on Scotland adds a fresh angle to the well-established genre of Victorian crime fiction.