Chief Inspector Woodend Mystery Books in Order

When teenager Diane Thorburn is found strangled and buried in a salt store, Chief Inspector Woodend is sent north from London. His search uncovers echoes of an older crime, and the sense that the killer may strike again.

Robbie Peterson, an ex-con turned club owner, is found murdered with a nail driven into his skull. Woodend and Sergeant Rutter face a tangle of family tensions, false leads, and a clue hidden in a political protest.

A young musician is electrocuted onstage before a packed crowd, and Woodend is called to Liverpool. The deeper he digs into the band, the clearer it becomes that someone has been preparing violence for a while.

After the eerie reappearance of a local legend, a German efficiency expert is found beaten to death in the woods. Woodend must sort folklore, wartime bitterness, and an older Liverpool crime to find the truth.

Exiled back to Lancashire, Woodend lands in Blackpool and a murder case no one seems eager for him to solve. Bingo halls, shabby glamour, and local obstruction make this a sharp seaside procedural.

A soap star is murdered in her dressing room, and nearly everyone around her had a reason to want her gone. With Monika Paniatowski undercover, Woodend must untangle vanity, jealousy, and revenge before there is a second death.

Two victims are found shot dead at a remote farmhouse, and the missing farmer makes the scene even stranger. Suspended from the force, Woodend keeps digging into a locked-room puzzle that could send him to prison.

A murdered schoolmistress and a vanished schoolgirl pull Woodend into a case that soon looks bigger than either crime alone. Official interference and split investigations make every answer harder to trust.

Thirty years after Margaret Dodds was executed for murdering her husband, her daughter wants the case reopened. Woodend faces buried lies, powerful resistance, and the chance to overturn an old verdict.

A dying widow has her throat cut and her body left on a children's bonfire, shocking Whitebridge. As personal problems weaken his team, Woodend is forced into a killer's game he barely understands.

Woodend is drawn into a darker case that reaches beyond an ordinary local killing and brings Spanish shadows into view. As fear and silence deepen, he has to work out whether the real danger is closer than it seems.

The revered Witch Maker of Hallerton is found strangled just after performing a centuries-old ritual. Woodend soon learns that solving one murder means cutting through generations of fear, secrecy, and village loyalty.

Another hard case pushes Woodend toward the darker corners of Whitebridge life, where half-truths and private grudges hide the motive. The more he learns, the clearer it becomes that danger thrives in secrecy.

What begins as a brutal murder grows into a more tangled investigation, with Woodend probing old loyalties and stubborn local silences. It is another grounded procedural built on community tensions and hidden histories.

A fresh investigation forces Woodend to confront the way old crimes keep shaping the present. As buried memories and old resentments surface, the case becomes harder to contain.

Family history sits at the center of this Woodend case, where old wrongdoing has not stayed in the past. He must sort inherited bitterness from present guilt before the damage spreads further.

A tense standalone about obsession, pressure, and bad choices, where what starts as a game turns lethal. Sally Spencer turns hidden motives and shifting loyalties into a sharp, tightly wound thriller.

Woodend faces a case watched from too many angles, with witnesses who all seem to know something and none willing to speak plainly. Pressure builds as he tries to get ahead of another possible death.

A new murder drags Woodend into a case shaped by damaged lives, long grudges, and shifting stories. He has to see through the comforting lies people tell before the real pattern appears.

Waiting for retirement, Charlie Woodend tells Monika about the first major case that made his name. Framed as a prequel, it looks back to the investigation that turned a young detective into a chief inspector.