Cassie Swann Books in Order

Cassie Swann is a professional bridge player and teacher who keeps stumbling into murder. She has left her work as a biology teacher to earn a living from the game, teaching classes, playing in serious matches, and moving through a world where competition, money, and private rivalries often sit at the same table.

She is not a polished private investigator. Cassie is warm, funny, curious, and sometimes insecure, with a tendency to get drawn in because she knows the people involved. Her bridge knowledge gives the series its vocabulary and settings, but the cases are about friendships, families, class tensions, old injuries, and the things people will do to keep a secret.

The series begins with Takeout Double aka Death Takes a Hand. At a bridge weekend in a country-house hotel, three members of Cassie's class are found dead. The shock threatens her new career, and Cassie starts asking questions inside the close-knit bridge circuit. It is a smart place to begin because it establishes her work, her voice, and the trouble that follows her.

In Grand Slam, Cassie is hired for a high-stakes game at a grand country home and becomes involved after Lady Portia Wickham is murdered. King of Hearts takes matters closer to home, as Cassie investigates both a new killing and the long-unsolved death of her father, Handsome Harry.

Her personal life runs alongside the mysteries. Cassie has a complicated connection with police officer Paul Walsh, while the persistent Charlie Quartermain offers very different attention. She is also building a life in the Oxfordshire countryside, which means village relationships and local gossip often become part of the puzzle.

Later books widen the stakes without losing that everyday feel. Doubled in Spades begins with the suspicious death of one of Cassie's bridge partners, Sacrifice Bid turns on a murder and an old secret, and Dummy Hand makes Cassie herself the victim of an apparent hit-and-run. Read the six books in order for the best sense of Cassie's changing relationships, especially the continuing threads around her father, Paul, and Charlie.