Cat Marsala Mystery Books in Order

Cat Marsala is a freelance investigative reporter in Chicago, and that job gives Barbara D'Amato's longest-running mystery series its shape. Cat goes where a story takes her, asks direct questions, and has a stubborn habit of seeing a murder investigation through even when it would be safer to leave it to the police.

She is curious, funny, and often short of money. That helps.

The series starts with Hardball, when a bomb kills a woman campaigning to decriminalize drugs in Illinois. Cat is caught close to the blast and begins looking at the people on both sides of a bitter political argument. From there, each book drops her into a new corner of Chicago life or the surrounding region, with the setting doing real work in the plot.

In Hard Tack, Cat boards a luxury yacht despite being unable to swim, then finds herself trapped during a storm after a guest is murdered. Hard Luck takes her into the Illinois lottery after an official falls to his death. Hard Women follows her research for a documentary on prostitution after a young woman she knows is killed. The books are mysteries first, but they also take time to examine the systems and communities around each crime.

Later cases bring Cat to a trauma center, a Michigan Christmas-tree farm, Chicago police politics, a specialty food business, and an Oz-themed festival in Grant Park. The variety is one of the series' pleasures. Cat may be the constant, but every assignment gives her a different world to learn before she can understand what went wrong.

Chicago is more than scenery here. Its neighborhoods, institutions, weather, media culture, and police connections affect the way Cat works. Her friendship with detective Harold McCoo gives her an important contact, but it doesn't make the answers easy. Cat still has to earn the truth through interviews, persistence, and a willingness to make powerful people uncomfortable.

The tone is smart and grounded, with danger that can turn serious quickly. Start with Hardball for Cat's introduction, then continue in publication order. Readers who prefer a self-contained setting can also sample Hard Tack or Hard Case, but the earlier books make Cat's voice and relationships land best.