ShortBookandScribes #BookReview – Unknown by Heather Critchlow

Posted on 25th June 2026 By Nicola

Unknown by Heather Critchlow is published by Canelo Crime and is available now. I purchased my own copy.

A woman with no name, a reckoning with the past, a present fraught with danger.

In the most remote spot of the hills surrounding Loch Tay, a woman’s remains were found. She had lay there a while, but any evidence of who she was had long gone or never existed. Crime podcaster Cal Lovett seeks to put ‘Hillside Jane’ to rest, but is he merely running from his own troubles?

With the wife of his sister’s alleged killer missing and a sense that any chance he had of getting justice for Margot is slipping from his grasp, Cal is at a crossroads. Perhaps peace for Hillside Jane will soothe his own fears. But events in the village don’t bring the results anyone expected. Is Cal so stuck in the past that he won’t spot the risk he faces in the here and now?

A gripping instalment of the bestselling Scottish crime series from Bloody Scotland Debut Prize for Scottish Crime-shortlisted author Heather Critchlow. Perfect for fans of Jane Casey, Claire Douglas and Neil Lancaster.

Unknown is the fourth in the Cal Lovett series by Heather Critchlow. Cal is a podcaster, focusing on cold crimes. After the events of book three, when the trial of Jason Barr, the man believed to have killed Cal’s sister, didn’t mete out the justice Cal hoped for, he’s not looking for a new crime to investigate but one falls into his lap and he finds himself delving into the case of ‘Hillside Jane’, a woman whose remains were found twenty years earlier in a remote walking area but never identified. Surely somebody must have missed her.

The case itself is intriguing and we get to see some of what happened to Jane and why through flashback chapters. Cal’s got a lot on his mind but it doesn’t stop him giving his all to the case, determined to find out who she was.

This is an excellent addition to the series (which sadly will end with book five). I think Cal is an immensely likeable character and I enjoyed his relationships with Shona, a forensic anthropologist (so used to human remains!) and his daughter, Chrissie. His complex dealings with Jason Barr’s wife add another absorbing element to the complications of Cal’s life.

I recommend this series to anyone who enjoys a cold case storyline. It’s dark, tense, emotional and well-plotted and the author does a great job of keeping up the pace and the mystery throughout.

Heather Critchlow grew up in rural Aberdeenshire and trained as a business journalist after studying history and social science at university. Her debut novel Unsolved is the first in a series about true crime podcaster Cal Lovett, and was shortlisted for the the Bloody Scotland debut prize in 2023. It was followed by Unburied, Unsound and Unknown, with Unseen out in summer 2026. Heather is also the author of speculative thriller The Tomorrow Project and has been longlisted for the McIlvanney Scottish Crime Book of the Year. Her short stories have appeared in crime fiction anthologies Afraid of the Light, Afraid of the Christmas Lights and Afraid of the Shadows.