Adam Dutton & Beverly Laborde Mystery Books in Order

The Adam Dutton and Beverly Laborde mysteries pair two people who would probably prefer not to need each other. Adam Dutton is a Vermont police detective, steady on the surface but carrying his own difficult history. Beverly Laborde is a clever con artist with a personal reason to take on powerful people who have damaged her family. Their first meeting turns a private revenge plan into a much bigger criminal problem.

In Steal Away, Beverly targets the man she blames for shutting down her grandmother's antiques business and sending her grandmother to an early grave. Her plan brings her into contact with Adam, who has reasons of his own to be wary of the wealthy Reggie Forsythe. Forsythe's influence reaches into Vermont politics and the Northeastern Antiquities League, where theft, bribery, and intimidation are never far from the surface.

Ironwood Junction is central to the series. It is a quirky Vermont town where the antiques trade, local relationships, and old resentments give every investigation a personal angle. A sympathetic antiques dealer and the elusive Mr. X provide help, while powerful local figures can make the line between legitimate business and organized crime difficult to see.

The mysteries keep the pressure on both leads. In Hide Away, Adam must arrest Harlan Wilford, his friend and godfather, after Harlan is accused of murder. Beverly returns to town hoping for a more ordinary life, but the case pulls them back toward the enemies they thought they had escaped. Their developing relationship is complicated by Adam's past, Beverly's hard-earned distrust, and the real danger around them.

Trust is the hard part.

Burn Away raises the stakes with a run of arsons aimed at Vermont antiques stores and a body found in one of the burned buildings. Adam and Beverly have to decide whether the fires are the final move of the old criminal network or evidence that another threat is taking its place. The books use theft, fraud, local corruption, blackmail, and murder as the engine for stories that are part police investigation and part romantic suspense.

Beverly is not presented as a neat or instantly reformed heroine. She is resourceful, angry, funny when she lets herself be, and used to depending on her own instincts. Adam's job asks him to follow procedure, while Beverly is more willing to bend the rules if it gets them closer to the truth. That contrast gives their partnership its spark.

Read the series in order, beginning with Steal Away. The central crimes have their own resolutions, but the conflict with the antiquities network and the question of whether Adam and Beverly can build a life together carry through all three books.