Alex Rutledge Mystery Books in Order

Freelance photographer Alex Rutledge sometimes shoots crime scenes for Key West police, but this case turns personal fast. When women from his past start turning up dead, Alex becomes the prime suspect and has to hunt the killer himself.

Alex Rutledge's day off ends when an old Navy friend vanishes after an early morning call from Sloppy Joe's. A murder, a wrecked apartment, and a trip to New Orleans pull him into a long-buried smuggling deal.

A quiet Sunday photo ride turns ugly when Alex Rutledge is drawn into two murders at sites that seem to point back at him. With police suspicion mounting and no clear motive in sight, he has to protect his friends and clear his name.

A missing woman, a mentor's death, and the mayor's apparent suicide all break loose on the same April day. Alex Rutledge is sure the cases connect, but as friends lie and local power players circle, proving it could get him killed.

Two ex-Navy men are found hanging twenty miles apart, and Alex Rutledge is the only person at every scene. When his troubled brother becomes the main suspect, Alex digs into an old wrong that is still killing people.

Back from a Bahamas assignment, Alex Rutledge is asked to look into a missing young woman and quickly finds a dead student, secretive medical smuggling, and dangerous island politics. The search carries him across Key West and the Lower Keys, on land and water.

Called to a double murder scene in Key West, Alex Rutledge is abruptly pushed away, then sent north on a seemingly routine photography job. Murders in both places, plus the death of a friend, force him into a tangled case that stretches from the Keys to Sarasota.

Alex Rutledge and Detective Beth Watkins cut short a Grand Cayman vacation when Beth's houseguest is murdered in Key West. Back home, old relationships, new threats, and a second killing pull Alex into another dangerous island investigation.

A suspicious death wakes Alex Rutledge and Detective Beth Watkins at 2 a.m., kicking off a week of threats, more deaths, and friends under suspicion. When the usual clues fail, Alex has to read the island's people and photographs in a new way.

What starts as a routine check of an apparent heart attack and a separate drive-by shooting turns into a jumble of odd deaths and too many suspects. Alex Rutledge and his allies try to stay calm while Key West slides one step beyond orderly police work.