Arly Hanks Books in Order
Part ofJoan Hess Books in OrderSee the Arly Hanks books by Joan Hess in order, with quick summaries, series background, and tips on where to start in funny, chaotic Maggody.
Last updated: July 8, 2026
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Publication Order
16 books
Malice in Maggody
by Joan Hess
1987
Arly Hanks comes back to sleepy Maggody after a bad divorce, hoping life will be simpler. Then an escaped convict and a missing sewage specialist land in her lap, and the town's quiet surface cracks wide open.
Miracles in Maggody
by Joan Hess
1988
A slick televangelist rolls into Maggody promising revival, prosperity, and a Christian theme park. Arly Hanks smells a swindle, and when a basketball coach is murdered, she has to prove faith is not the only thing being sold.
Mischief in Maggody
by Joan Hess
1988
Arly Hanks returns from vacation to find Maggody overrun with a doom-spouting psychic, hippies, and fresh trouble. Then Robin Buchanon is found dead in a booby-trapped marijuana field, and the town's craziness gets serious.
Much Ado in Maggody
by Joan Hess
1989
A bank fire and a suspicious death turn one more Maggody uproar into serious business. Arly Hanks has to work through money troubles, local politics, and plenty of nonsense before the truth burns away.
Madness in Maggody
by Joan Hess
1991
A supermarket grand opening ends in disaster when poisoned tamales sicken dozens and leave one person dead. Arly Hanks has to dig into business rivalries and backwoods grudges before Maggody loses what little sense it has left.
Mortal Remains in Maggody
by Joan Hess
1991
A sleazy film crew comes to Maggody to shoot on location and throws the whole town off balance. Arly Hanks expects foolishness, but once actors start vanishing and bodies appear, the circus turns deadly.
Maggody in Manhattan
by Joan Hess
1992
Ruby Bee wins a trip to New York for a cooking contest, then promptly winds up in jail. Arly Hanks heads to Manhattan to bail her out and finds dead bodies, bad recipes, and a hotel full of trouble.
O Little Town of Maggody
by Joan Hess
1993
Christmas arrives in Maggody with its usual mix of sentiment, gossip, and chaos. When a hometown celebration stirs up old tensions and deadly trouble, Arly Hanks has to keep the holiday season from turning murderous.
Martians in Maggody
by Joan Hess
1994
Crop circles appear in Maggody and suddenly every crank, reporter, and UFO hunter wants a piece of the town. Arly Hanks is already losing patience when the extraterrestrial frenzy is interrupted by a very earthly murder.
The Maggody Militia
by Joan Hess
1997
A right-wing militia camps out behind a new pawnshop and turns Maggody into a powder keg. Arly Hanks sees trouble coming long before the first shot, then has to stop the town's madness from ending in murder.
Misery Loves Maggody
by Joan Hess
1999
Ruby Bee and the Maggody faithful head to Graceland for an Elvis pilgrimage, hoping for pure kitschy fun. Instead, one of the travelers ends up dead, and Arly Hanks has to investigate a murder far from home.
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by Joan Hess
2000
The internet arrives in Maggody, and Arly Hanks expects disaster long before the first crime. When a newcomer is murdered and the town's computers start spitting out digital mischief, she has to solve a very modern small-town case.
Maggody and the Moonbeams
by Joan Hess
2001
While chaperoning a youth trip, Arly Hanks thinks rowdy teenagers will be her biggest problem. Then a body turns up in a white robe, and Maggody's police chief gets stuck between a strange cult and a very real murder.
Muletrain to Maggody
by Joan Hess
2004
Another outbreak of Maggody foolishness pulls Arly Hanks into a case that starts messy and gets worse fast. As outsiders, rumors, and local grudges collide, she has to separate backwoods theater from real danger.
Malpractice in Maggody
by Joan Hess
2006
Arly Hanks comes home to find Maggody buzzing over a secretive new rehab center behind locked gates. When a young receptionist is found drowned, she has to cut through gossip, outsiders, and local secrets to find the killer.
The Merry Wives of Maggody
by Joan Hess
2009
A Maggody golf event meant to raise money brings in pros, egos, and trouble. When the celebration turns deadly, Arly Hanks has to sort through local grudges and small-town scheming before somebody else winds up on the wrong side of the rough.
Series background & context
The Arly Hanks books drop you into Maggody, Arkansas, a tiny Ozarks town that would like to call itself peaceful if it could stop embarrassing itself for five minutes. At the center is Ariel "Arly" Hanks, the local chief of police, who came back home after a bad marriage expecting something simpler than city life. What she got instead was a steady stream of feuds, scams, cranks, and sudden deaths.
Arly is the straight face in a very crooked room.
She is smart, sarcastic, impatient, and usually the only person in town who can see how ridiculous everyone is being. That matters, because Maggody runs on gossip, grudges, family loyalties, and half-baked schemes. Arly has to police all of it while dealing with her mother, Ruby Bee, who runs Ruby Bee's Bar and Grill, plus a cast of locals who are forever sticking their noses where they do not belong. The town may be small, but it is never quiet.
One of the pleasures of the series is that the crimes rarely arrive in a plain wrapper. Hess likes to build each book around a fresh bit of collective foolishness. In one story the town gets worked up over a psychic. In another it is crop circles and UFO hunters. Elsewhere it is televangelists, militias, cults, computer labs, movie crews, or busloads of tourists. The joke is that Maggody always seems to invite exactly the wrong kind of excitement, and Arly is left to sort out which part is harmless nonsense and which part is murder.
That comic setup does real work.
These are cozy mysteries in the sense that the violence is not graphic, but they are sharper than the label sometimes suggests. Hess uses Maggody to poke at greed, hypocrisy, fake religion, shady politics, and the way small towns can be both loving and suffocating. Arly sees all of it clearly. She may grumble about her neighbors, but she also knows their histories, their weak spots, and the ways they can still surprise her.
There is also a loose emotional arc running under the jokes. Arly starts the series angry, restless, and not especially thrilled to be back home. Over time, she becomes less of an exile and more of a real center of the town. She never turns sentimental about Maggody, which is part of the fun, but she does become more deeply woven into its life. That gives the later books a nice rhythm. The place stays absurd, but it also feels lived in.
If you like your mysteries with broad humor, recurring eccentrics, and a strong sense of place, this series is an easy one to settle into. Start with Malice in Maggody if you want to meet Arly at the beginning, then keep going to watch Joan Hess turn one odd Arkansas town into a whole comic universe.
Edited by
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