Reading order
| # | Title | Published | Author | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Shot Through the Heart | 2013 | Ed James | Buy |
| 2 | Senseless | 2020 | Ed James | Buy |
| 3 | Lost Cause | 2022 | Ed James | Buy |
Shot Through the Heart (2013) was one of Ed James’s earlier works outside the Scott Cullen series, a standalone thriller that showed range beyond the Edinburgh procedural world he was building at the same time. It arrived during the same period as the early Cullen books and shares the efficient, plot-driven approach of his series work.
Senseless (2020) and Lost Cause (2022) are later additions to the standalone collection, published during the same period James was also expanding his Cullen & Bain, DI Fenchurch, and DS Vicky Dodds series. The standalones tend to be crime-driven narratives without the baggage of series continuity, which gives them a slightly different feel from books where character history is part of the investment.
All three books are good entry points for readers encountering Ed James for the first time, since they give a sense of his plotting style without requiring any prior knowledge of his wider fictional worlds.