Death At a Scottish Halloween
Book 5 of the Scottish Isle Mysteries
Lucy Connelly
Crooked Lane Books
August 2026
Death At a Scottish Halloween by Lucy Connelly is a cozy mystery with a story that has multiple suspects. This is the fifth book in the series and to better understand the characters readers should probably read the books in order.
It’s the week of Halloween—or as they say in Scotland, All Hallows’ Eve—and the town of Sea Isle is full of spooky celebrations. Dr. Emilia McRoy loves being part of her new community and is eager to help in any way she can. She and her assistant, Abigail, have decorated a room in the town’s All Hallow’s Eve haunted house as a bloody clinic. But the festivities are interrupted when she and her assistant, Abigail, find a dead body in the haunted house, a man named Duncan.
As the team investigates, Dr. Em heads home the next night, escorted by baker pal Jasper only to find another man curled up dead on her doorstep, also named Duncan. Emilia, Abigail, and some of the town patrons join up with the Constable Ewan to determine who is the killer and what is the motive.
Readers will have a hard time guessing who is the murderer because of the many twists and turns.
Elise Cooper: Idea for the series?
Lucy Connelly: I had been talking to my agent about doing something overseas, and then COVID hit. and I wanted to be anywhere but here. During COVID, I had done a DNA test for my doctor and found out that I was about 48% Scottish. As I was doing all kinds of research on Scotland, this idea came to me out of the blue as my ideas do. I had an emergency doctor who wants to chuck it all in America and move to a small town in Scotland and be a family doctor. She starts out in Seattle as an emergency room doctor over the whole department, which was a very stressful job, as you might imagine. And she needed a fresh start for reasons I won’t go into because it comes out in that first book. That’s how it all started, with COVID and the need to want to be anywhere but stuck in the house.
EC: Idea for the story?
LC: It’s the fifth one in the series, and I hadn’t done a Halloween story. I love stories set around holidays, all the holidays. This is the first one in that series that has two murders. This was one of my favorites and one of the easiest for me to write. I don’t say that easily because it’s always a struggle these days. I wanted to do something spooky at a haunted house, and so that’s kind of where that all started. I love a haunted house. I read a lot of haunted house books, especially going into the spooky season. So yep, that’s where it all came from.
EC: Did you ever visit Scotland to get the description correct?
LC: We were supposed to go this fall but we’re postponing it because of family stuff, but hopefully will go in the spring. I know a lot of people from Scotland. In fact, some of my characters are loosely based on them. I use my friends for a lot of inspiration in my books. I amalgamate my friends and use them as characters. They all sort of love it. They try to guess who they are, but I never say.
EC: Why a medical examiner?
LC: The doctor is the main character, Emilia, and she has an assistant, Abigail. The story is set in a small Scottish town that sometimes gets closed off from the bigger cities. The local doctor would have to be able to do a lot of everything, which is why I made her an emergency doctor. As far as her getting involved in the crimes, I just thought it was a funny little twist where she had to be a medical examiner. I played a little bit of fun, literary wise with the town not really having coroners and she is insanely curious about how these people died and what happened. And it’s not so easy working with the police at the beginning, but as the series goes on, they learn to trust one another.
EC: How would you describe Abigail?
LC: Abigail starts out as sort of meek, doesn’t believe in herself, but she grows. I usually write very strong women. She’s raised her brother, who is on the spectrum, basically on her own since she was a kid. So, she must be a very strong woman. She just doesn’t see it in herself. As this series grows, she grows. I’m writing book six right now, and I made myself cry because she has just grown so much.
EC: How would you describe Emilia?
LC: Very confident in herself. She is new to the mystery side of things. So that’s something new for her, although she’s done that in the emergency room. As we all know, doctors must think very fast in the emergency room and come up with theories and ideas of what’s going on and then prove those things. She applies same sort of logic to what she does.
EC: What about the other characters in the story?
LC: She has several friends. One’s a baker, one runs a pub, and along with Abigail and Emilia, they call themselves the little Scooby gang, and they all help her solve these mysteries through the town gossip and watching certain things and people. They all sort of contribute to the mystery, which I love. It’s more about the friendships and how friends can be family. These people are very intertwined and friends who are family and help each other out.
EC: What role does Halloween play in the story?
LC: It’s a big role. It’s almost a character in the story, with different sort of Halloween celebrations that go along with that time of year, the harvest and all of that. It is a big part of the story and adds to the spookiness.
EC: What about Ewan?
LC: He is a constable, also the mayor and the lord of the town. He owns most of the town. The town is his family.
EC: What about the relationship between Emilia and Ewan?
LC: At first, it’s a bit contentious, although he’s the one that wanted her there. It’s a little contentious because she starts evolving herself in the mystery, and he wants to keep her safe. He needs the doctor safe. And the more involved she gets, especially in those early books, the more danger she’s in. It’s a slow burn romance. As the relationship grows, they learn to trust one another.
EC: Next book(s)?
LC: The next book coming is from the Irish series, the Mercy McCarthy series. It is set in a bakery. These twin sisters moved to Ireland. One owns a bookshop, and the other one is a full-time, very successful thriller and mystery writer. They solve crimes in the small town of Shamrock Cove. It comes out in November. Then in January, the second book set in Wales comes out. A journalist goes to Wales and is teaching at a college there and ends up solving crimes. Right now, I’m going through revisions on the sixth book in the Scottish series that will probably be out sometime late 2027. Emilia decides to have a Thanksgiving dinner in Scotland because they don’t know anything about the holiday. And so, she wanted to have a big Thanksgiving meal and someone dies.
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