Brinker Books in Order

The Brinker series is Jeff Widmer's darkly comic take on crime, publicity, and the people who try to turn disaster into a business opportunity. Its central figure, Brinker, is a former journalist who has drifted into public relations and promotion. He is clever, frustrated, self-destructive, and never far from a scheme that could make his life much worse.

The first novel, Mr. Mayhem, starts with Brinker in a bad spot. Sued for libel by his publisher, he is reduced to promoting trolley tours of crime scenes in a resort town where there are not enough murders to attract customers. When his doctor asks him to help with a plan involving terminally ill patients, Brinker hires an assassin named Angel, and the situation quickly escapes anyone's control.

That is the series in miniature: an outrageous idea, a desperate man, and consequences that refuse to stay neatly managed. Brinker wants money, relevance, and a way out of his own messes. Instead, he finds himself negotiating with criminals and confronting the damage caused by his choices.

The jokes have teeth.

In Mr. Magic, Brinker is working to keep his public-relations career afloat while the head of his agency demands a win in a major competition. His former girlfriend wants him to enter detox, rival advertising executives begin disappearing, and an ambitious state trooper sees Brinker as a likely suspect. Toxic waste, a provocative car wash, and a gun-carrying presidential candidate add to the pressure.

The setting is rooted in northeastern Pennsylvania, including the wider Pocono and Lehigh Valley region. Funeral homes, taverns, local politics, small-town resentments, and advertising culture give the books their particular flavor. Brinker is not a conventional investigator, but his work puts him near crime scenes, public scandals, and people who need a story spun in their favor.

Expect crime fiction with satire and a deliberately unruly antihero. The novels deal with greed, sex, addiction, ambition, and the way public relations can make something awful sound almost reasonable. They are not cozy mysteries, and Brinker is not always easy to root for, which is part of the point. Begin with Mr. Mayhem, then continue to Mr. Magic to follow the fallout from his first major disaster.