Catherine Coles Books in Order
Browse all Catherine Coles books in order, with short summaries, series guides, reading order, and simple tips on where to start across her mysteries and romances.
Last updated: June 7, 2026
As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases (at no extra cost to you).
Publication Order
19 books
Doctor Behind the Mask
by Catherine Coles
2016
A contemporary medical romance about the strain of hospital life and the feelings people hide behind professional calm. As two guarded adults grow closer, they have to decide whether honesty is worth the risk.
Duty of Care
by Catherine Coles
2016
Foster carer Penny Miller is determined to protect baby Ella, abandoned at Seacrest Hospital. But paediatrician Adam Reynolds, the baby's uncle, wants custody too. Their clash over what is best for Ella becomes far more complicated when attraction gets involved.
Murder at the Manor
by Catherine Coles
2020
A weekend shooting party at Hessleham Hall turns deadly when Tommy's uncle is poisoned at dinner. After a second death leaves Tommy under suspicion, Evelyn has to trust her instincts and expose a killer in the family.
Murder at the Village Fete
by Catherine Coles
2021
Hosting the village fete should be a proud day for Tommy and Evelyn, until a local MP is found murdered near the stream. With blackmail, wartime secrets, and uneasy guests all around them, they step in before the killer strikes again.
Murder at the Wedding Chapel
by Catherine Coles
2021
Tommy's mother's society wedding is thrown into chaos when the groom is found dead outside the chapel. With Tommy's teenage brother missing and quickly suspected, Tommy and Evelyn have to clear Harry before the police close in.
Murder in Belgrave Square
by Catherine Coles
2021
In London, a glittering Season is shattered when a young Frenchman is found dead on the back step, with a baby beside him. Tommy and Evelyn must pick through family pressure, jealousy, and class secrets to find the killer.
Murder in the Churchyard
by Catherine Coles
2021
A frozen Yorkshire village becomes a closed circle mystery when Isolde Newley's estranged husband is found dead in the churchyard. Snow traps everyone in place, and Tommy and Evelyn must untangle gossip, jealousy, and old wounds.
Daggers at the Country Fair
by Catherine Coles
2022
Invited to a neighboring country fair as guest of honour, Martha hopes for dog shows and cream teas, not another corpse. When a teenage girl is stabbed behind the tea tent, Martha and Vicar Luke Walker uncover a tangle of secrets.
Murder at Rochester Park
by Catherine Coles
2022
Tommy and Evelyn expect a quiet Christmas at Rochester Park, until a businessman dies in suspicious circumstances. With family tensions rising and another guest at risk, the holiday becomes a race to find a killer.
Poison at the Village Show
by Catherine Coles
2022
Westleham, 1947. Martha Miller is already under suspicion after her husband vanishes, then a poisoning at the village show puts her even closer to danger. To clear her name, she must look past gossip and find the real killer.
Murder at Docere House
by Catherine Coles
2023
A visit to a prestigious school should help Tommy and Evelyn plan for their daughter's future, but an old friend is found dead instead. Hidden loyalties and carefully left clues turn Docere House into another trap for amateur sleuths.
Murder in India
by Catherine Coles
2023
A longed-for trip turns dangerous when silent film star Anna Lascelles is found dead in India and suspicion lands on Evelyn. Far from home and facing a clever killer, Tommy and Evelyn must solve the case before the danger grows.
Death at Lovers Leap
by Catherine Coles
2024
Valentine's Day brings Martha Miller to Lovers Leap, where she finds a body in the river below the bridge. Accident, suicide, or murder, nothing feels simple, and the case pulls her straight back into Westleham's hidden heartbreaks.
Murder at the Seaside
by Catherine Coles
2024
A summer break in Scarborough should give the Christie family rest before Evelyn's baby arrives. Instead, an abduction and a murder turn the holiday into a frantic investigation with the clock ticking on every side.
Murder at Kelleven Castle
by Catherine Coles
2025
Tommy and Evelyn travel to Ireland for Constance's wedding, only to find the best man dead in the castle moat after a poisonous speech. With the groom under suspicion and tensions running high, family celebration turns into another murder hunt.
The Case of the Deadly Dog Show
by Catherine Coles
2025
Recently widowed Lady Matilda expects a harmless village dog show, not a strangled socialite lying beside her prize Pekingese. With help from her companion Hetty and Wellington the basset hound, she starts asking dangerous questions.
Murder at the Christmas Ball
by Catherine Coles
2026
A glittering Christmas ball at Hessleham Hall collapses into scandal when the house steward claims he is the true heir, then turns up dead. Tommy and Evelyn must sort through blackmail, old family secrets, and frightened guests.
Murder on the Cricket Green
by Catherine Coles
2026
Just as Westleham prepares for its first postwar cricket match, Martha's long-missing husband reappears. Then he drops dead on the field, and suspicion swings toward Martha, forcing her to uncover what happened during his missing years.
The Case at Hartcombe Head
by Catherine Coles
2026
A welcome weekend at Biddington Court goes badly wrong when the new Lord Dartcombe is found on the rocks below Hartcombe Head. Lady Matilda and Hetty must sift through inheritance, grudges, and secrets before another guest dies.
Where should I start?
If you want the classic country house mystery: Murder at the Manor → Murder at the Village Fete → Murder in the Churchyard
If you want postwar village coziness: Poison at the Village Show → Daggers at the Country Fair → Death at Lovers Leap
If you want the later, bigger-scope cases: Murder in Belgrave Square → Murder at Rochester Park → Murder in India → Murder at Kelleven Castle
If you want a new sleuth in Devon: The Case of the Deadly Dog Show → The Case at Hartcombe Head
If you want contemporary romance first: Duty of Care → Doctor Behind the Mask
Author bio
Catherine Coles was born in Germany and spent much of her childhood moving from place to place because her father was in the military. She has said she lived abroad for most of her first fourteen years. Books became the steady thing in all that movement, and she read whatever she could get from school libraries and army libraries alike.
Nancy Drew got there first.
From there she moved on to Agatha Christie, and the mystery habit stuck. She has talked about loving old detective stories and screen adaptations, and at some point that stopped being just reading and watching for fun and became the nudge to try writing one herself. Her fiction still carries that early reading life with it, the puzzle, the village gossip, the country house, and the feeling that everybody knows more than they are saying.
Her road into writing was anything but tidy. Over the years she worked as a legal secretary, a night carer, a bar worker while finishing a law degree, a family law practitioner, a childminder, a foster carer, a home carer, a receptionist, a delivery facilitator, and a PA and HR manager. It is a long list, but it explains a lot about the way she writes people. Her books tend to notice how work shapes a person, and how family life can be messy, loving, exhausting, and funny all at once.
It was not a straight line.
Her early novels, including Duty of Care and Doctor Behind the Mask, show her interest in care work, medicine, and people trying to do the right thing under pressure. Then Murder at the Manor introduced Tommy and Evelyn Christie, a married sleuthing pair in 1920s North Yorkshire, and that series helped define her as a historical cozy mystery writer. Readers who pick up Murder in the Churchyard or Murder in Belgrave Square usually find the same things waiting for them, strong partnership, family secrets, dogs underfoot, and murders tucked into otherwise orderly English settings.
She followed that with the Martha Miller books, beginning with Poison at the Village Show and continuing in titles like Daggers at the Country Fair. Those novels move to postwar Berkshire and lean into village life, ration-era routines, and the sting of being judged by your neighbors. More recently, she has opened another corner of her fictional world with Lady Matilda and The Case of the Deadly Dog Show, bringing a fresh amateur sleuth to 1920s Devon.
Across her books, certain things come up again and again. She likes communities with long memories, families with old grievances, women who are underestimated, and ordinary places where a crime throws everything off balance. Even when the settings are grand, a manor house, a London square, a village showground, the stories stay close to people and their daily loyalties.
These days Coles lives in northeast England and has spoken about sharing her home with her children and spoiled dogs. She now writes full time, which seems like a good use of someone who once said she always wanted to be an author, even if she could never quite stop collecting other possible careers along the way. That mix of curiosity and practical life experience is part of what makes her fiction feel so lived in.
Edited by
Software engineer whose passion for tracking book recommendations from podcasts inspired the creation of MRB.
Lead investor at 3one4 Capital whose startup expertise and love for books helped shaped MRB and its growth.
Comments
Did we miss something? Have feedback?
Help us improve this page by sharing your thoughts