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J.D. Kirk is a pen name. Barry Hutchison, the Scottish author behind the pen name, publishes crime fiction novels as ‘JD Kirk’. Besides novels, Hutchison has also written screenplays. Kirk’s interest in fiction was sparked early on. He frequented the local library, borrowing three or four books every single week.
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Order of DCI Logan Crime Thrillers Series
# | Read | Title | Published | Details |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | A Litter of Bones | 2019 | Description / Buy | |
2 | Thicker than Water | 2019 | Description / Buy | |
3 | The Killing Code | 2019 | Description / Buy | |
4 | Blood and Treachery | 2019 | Description / Buy | |
5 | The Last Bloody Straw | 2020 | Description / Buy | |
6 | A Whisper of Sorrows | 2020 | Description / Buy | |
7 | The Big Man Upstairs | 2020 | Description / Buy | |
8 | A Death Most Monumental | 2020 | Description / Buy | |
9 | A Snowball's Chance in Hell | 2020 | Description / Buy | |
10 | Ahead of the Game | 2021 | Description / Buy | |
11 | An Isolated Incident | 2021 | Description / Buy | |
12 | Colder than the Grave | 2021 | Description / Buy | |
13 | Come Hell or High Water | 2021 | Description / Buy | |
14 | City of Scars | 2022 | Description / Buy | |
15 | Here Lie the Dead | 2022 | Description / Buy | |
16 | One For the Ages | 2023 | Description / Buy | |
17 | In Service of Death | 2023 | Description / Buy | |
18 | A Dead Man Walking | 2023 | Description / Buy | |
19 | Where the Pieces Lie | 2024 | Description / Buy | |
20 | A Killer of Influence | 2024 | Description / Buy |
Order of DI Heather Filson Series
# | Read | Title | Published | Details |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | The One That Got Away | 2023 | Description / Buy | |
2 | This Little Piggy | 2024 | Description / Buy |
Order of Robert Hoon Thrillers Series
# | Read | Title | Published | Details |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Northwind | 2021 | Description / Buy | |
2 | Southpaw | 2022 | Description / Buy | |
3 | Westward | 2022 | Description / Buy | |
4 | Eastgate | 2022 | Description / Buy | |
5 | Stateside | 2024 | Description / Buy |
Back then, his interests were still unformed, so he did not gravitate towards any particular genre. In fact, Kirk’s choices were often influenced by the covers. He would always select the books that had the most interesting cover art. He paid very little attention to the authors.
Though, even as a child, he liked humorous stories. Kirk was not necessarily drawn to comedy. Some of his favorite authors (such as Chris Brookmyre) experimented with dark plots. But they always found a way to insert humor into their work. The approach appealed to Kirk because he had a similar personality.
Even when life became difficult, Kirk would find a way to joke and laugh. The author was nine when he decided that he wanted to write fiction for a living. He had spent his young life writing short stories. He also experimented with comics.
The people that read his earliest works will tell you that Kirk had a penchant for penning violent tales. All his stories featured characters whose bowels were eventually forcibly removed. But at the time, even though he took immense pleasure in writing, Kirk had no idea that the activity was a viable career choice.
Everything changed when his school tasked the author with a project related to Roald Dahl. The assignment taught Kirk that people could earn a living from writing. That was all Kirk needed to hear. He decided that he would spend the rest of his life writing fiction.
Kirk is one of those rare authors that never faced rejection. Before trying his hand at publishing, the author attempted to make movies. He started writing screenplays, hoping that they would become epic movies that would play in cinemas all over the country.
But he realized that turning a screenplay into a blockbuster movie was nearly impossible. So he changed focus. Rather than abandoning the movie-making business, Kirk started writing screenplays for smaller movies.
But even though he successfully sold some of those screenplays, he found that making a small movie was only slightly less difficult than making a big-budget movie. The projects required millions of dollars to execute, which is why Kirk’s screenplays never saw the light of day as movies.
Once it became clear that it was cheaper to publish a novel, Kirk abandoned the movie business. The transition from screenplays to novels wasn’t particularly difficult. Kirk had spent two decades writing stories. But he wrote those stories simply because he enjoyed writing, not because he wanted to submit them to a publisher.
This allowed Kirk to refine his skills. As a result, once he decided to become a published author, he secured an agent and a publisher almost immediately. He did not receive any rejections. Today, the author is primarily known for the DCI Logan books. His first novel was ‘A Litter of Bones’.
Best J.D. Kirk Books
Kirk has his own publishing company. He uses it to publish his novels. The author is no longer at the mercy of traditional publishing houses. Kirk’s best novels include:
A Litter of Bones: DCI Jack Logan did a good thing. He stopped Mister Whisper. The child-killer had claimed quite a few victims. But Logan had successfully ended his reign of terror. But the detective had paid a steep price.
He was now a drunk with a broken marriage. Logan couldn’t get the horrors he had witnessed during the Mister Whisper investigation out of his mind. It did not help matters that another child had gone missing.
As a member of the Major Incident Team, Jack had to investigate. He had to figure out why this most recent case was so similar to the Mister Whisper murders. If Logan captured the wrong man all those years ago, the real Mister Whisper was still out.
The Killing Code: Logan has spent two decades hunting killers. But this latest psychopath is something new. He has a unique psychosis that protects him from the guilt that would normally come as a result of his violent actions.
He already killed a nurse. She was on her way back from a night shift when she met her end. Logan has to find the killer because he takes another life.
When Does The Next JD Kirk book come out?
JD Kirk doesn't seem to have an upcoming book. Their newest book is A Killer of Influence and was released on September, 12th 2024. It is the newest book in the DCI Logan Crime Thrillers Series.
Great series of books. Sure helped an old guy navigate through the Covid pandemic.
Wondered how the colorful vocabulary of Hoon was developed. I spent 17 years in the Canadian military and thought I’d heard it all. Was it developed on a book by book basis or from a predeveloped list? Anyway, looking forward to the next release.
Thanks….two thumbs up
Ron K.
I honestly think, as ex-police and CID (Northern Constabulary, where Logan and Hoon lived and worked) Hutchinson might just have known a few coppers. Hoon makes me laugh, because while he is a monstrous distillation of several aspects of Scottishness – and the Highlander, in particular – he is also people I worked with, people I worked for and (gulp) someone I saw in a mirror, on the odd occasion, during my career. Barry/JD’s writing sets him apart, with a strength of sheer authenticity and grit that is at least a match for MacBride, with a heavy dash of Brookmyre’s darkly irreverent humour. I’ve likened his character to a monstrous love child of Billy Connolly, Begbie (from Trainspotting) and Reacher. The product is terrible to behold, hilarious to read, and yet with a strong vein of pathos running through. It’s a most assured and impressive task, making him my new favourite Tartan Noir author.
His blend of these many aspects, in the one protagonist, makes for a particularly potent combination, and it is one I hope to savour, over and over again. The Loop and their activities is, after all, so very “now”, and straight out of police intelligence briefings, court rolls and sensationalist headlines.
Superb work, Mr H! More Bob, please? 😉