Bill Loehfelm Books in Order
Browse Bill Loehfelm books in order, with Maureen Coughlin and his standalones, plus short summaries, series background, and easy where-to-start advice.
Last updated: July 5, 2026
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Publication Order
8 books
Heroes & Villains - Osama bin Laden
by Bill Loehfelm
2003
This short nonfiction book traces Osama bin Laden's family background, radicalization, and rise as the leader of al-Qaeda. It is written as an accessible overview for younger readers studying recent history.
The Devil She Knows
by Bill Loehfelm
2006
Twenty-nine-year-old waitress Maureen Coughlin is stuck in a Staten Island bar until a deadly affair involving a coworker and an ambitious politician throws her into hiding. To survive, she has to move faster than men with money and power.
Fresh Kills
by Bill Loehfelm
2008
When his abusive father is murdered, John Sanders Jr. is shocked to find himself obsessed with the killer. His search drags him deeper into Staten Island's violence, family damage, and the choice between revenge and a different life.
Bloodroot
by Bill Loehfelm
2009
Kevin Curran is relieved when his troubled brother Danny returns to Staten Island looking clean and successful. Then Danny pulls him into a criminal scheme tied to an abandoned children's hospital, mob violence, and buried family wounds.
The Devil in Her Way
by Bill Loehfelm
2011
Maureen has left Staten Island for New Orleans and is finishing field training with the police. After a routine bust and a disturbing glimpse of something worse, she starts digging into a case no one else sees clearly.
Doing the Devil's Work
by Bill Loehfelm
2014
Now a full New Orleans cop, Maureen thinks she's finding her footing until a mysterious corpse and a disastrous traffic stop blow everything open. She has to sort through corruption, shifting loyalties, and enemies on every side.
Let the Devil Out
by Bill Loehfelm
2016
Suspended rookie cop Maureen Coughlin is forced to help the FBI track a white supremacist militia in New Orleans. What starts as reluctant cooperation turns into a volatile case with citywide consequences.
The Devil's Muse / Can the Devil Catch Fire?
by Bill Loehfelm
2017
On her first Mardi Gras assignment, officer Maureen Coughlin is dropped into crowd chaos, a shooting, and a city already on edge. The case unfolds over one very long New Orleans night.
Where should I start?
If you want the full Maureen Coughlin story: The Devil She Knows → The Devil in Her Way → Doing the Devil's Work → Let the Devil Out → The Devil's Muse
If you want Maureen's New Orleans years: The Devil in Her Way → Doing the Devil's Work → Let the Devil Out → The Devil's Muse
If you prefer standalone Staten Island crime: Fresh Kills → Bloodroot
If you want his nonfiction for younger readers: Heroes & Villains - Osama bin Laden
Author bio
Bill Loehfelm was born in Park Slope, Brooklyn, and grew up between Brooklyn and Staten Island. Those places stayed with him. His fiction keeps returning to working neighborhoods, corner bars, family damage, and the way a city can shape the choices people think they have.
He studied English and communications in Scranton, Pennsylvania, then taught high school English on Staten Island. Before long, he was building a life that looked more like the lives in his books than the neat author bio version of one. Teaching was part of it, but so were side jobs, shifts, and city streets.
He has said he knew he liked writing as a kid, but high school was when it really took hold.
A Saturday morning creative writing class at a branch of the New York Public Library helped set that in motion. In 1997 he moved to New Orleans, a city that became just as important to his work as Staten Island. There he taught high school and college, worked in an antique shop, managed a pizza place, and did just about every restaurant and bar job except cooking.
His first big break came with Fresh Kills. After Hurricane Katrina, he returned to New Orleans and went back to work on the novel, later saying that writing it gave him structure and a way to settle back into daily life. The book, a dark Staten Island crime story about John Sanders Jr. hunting his abusive father's killer, won the first Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award in 2008.
He stayed with Staten Island for Bloodroot, a novel about brothers, addiction, family loyalties, and a criminal scheme built around an abandoned children's hospital.
Then came Maureen Coughlin. Loehfelm has said she started as a nameless waitress in a flash fiction piece and kept resurfacing in different stories until he realized she could carry a novel of her own. That became The Devil She Knows, which introduces a twenty-nine-year-old Staten Island waitress who sees something she shouldn't and gets thrown into a dangerous mess involving power, money, and politics. Readers who click with Loehfelm usually like that kind of character work. His people are smart but impulsive, damaged but funny, and never as simple as the plot first makes them seem.
The later Maureen books, including The Devil in Her Way, Doing the Devil's Work, and The Devil's Muse, move to New Orleans and follow her as she tries to become a cop without losing herself completely. Those novels mix police work, city politics, and street-level tension, but they also stay grounded in the daily mess of work, class, race, and bad decisions. Across both the standalones and the series, Loehfelm keeps coming back to people trying to start over, and to cities that make starting over hard.
He still lives in New Orleans with his wife, writer and yoga instructor AC Lambeth. He also plays drums in a rock band.
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