Claire McNab Books in Order
Explore Claire McNab books in order, with quick summaries, series guides, and simple where-to-start tips for Carol Ashton, Kylie Kendall, and more.
Last updated: July 8, 2026
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Publication Order
33 books
Lessons in Murder
by Claire McNab
1988
At a Sydney high school, a teacher is found murdered with shocking precision, and Carol Ashton steps into a web of grudges, letters, and deceit. Her strongest suspect is also the woman she cannot stop thinking about.
Death Down Under
by Claire McNab
1989
Four women have been strangled and arranged with ritual care, and Sydney is terrified by the Orange Strangler. Carol hunts a serial killer while her private life grows harder to hide.
Fatal Reunion
by Claire McNab
1989
Carol's settled life is disrupted when an old lover asks for help after her husband dies. The unofficial investigation pulls Carol into a world of money, bad choices, and dangerous loyalties.
Cop Out
by Claire McNab
1991
A wealthy businessman is murdered, his sister confesses, and everyone wants the case wrapped up. Carol sees too many cracks, and the deeper she goes, the more family secrets and social pressures emerge.
Dead Certain
by Claire McNab
1992
Convinced opera star Collis Raeburn did not kill himself, Carol reopens a case that powerful people want closed. Her instincts may be right, but they come at a cost.
Under the Southern Cross
by Claire McNab
1992
American travel executive Lee Paynter comes to Australia to expand her business and clashes with Alexandra Findlay, the reserved tourism professional assigned to escort her. Their trip becomes part rivalry, part awakening.
Silent Heart
by Claire McNab
1993
Academic Victoria Woodson is blindsided when her serious study of erotic writing becomes a runaway bestseller. The journalist sent to profile her, Reyne Kendall, unsettles everything Victoria thought she wanted.
Body Guard
by Claire McNab
1994
Still recovering from a near-fatal shooting, Carol is assigned to protect visiting feminist firebrand Marla Strickland. When a staff member dies, the unwanted duty turns into a deadly conspiracy.
Double Bluff
by Claire McNab
1995
TV star Madeline Shipley says a stalker is after her, while Carol investigates a possible suicide that may be murder. Soon the threats spread, and Carol's own family is in the firing line.
Inner Circle
by Claire McNab
1996
Execution-style killings and a bombing pull Carol toward an extremist underground group waging its own private war. She is closer to the danger than she knows.
Chain Letter
by Claire McNab
1997
A murdered police officer and a string of unsolved killings seem linked by ominous letters promising death to anyone who breaks the chain. Carol takes the threat seriously, especially when it reaches someone close to her.
The Loving Lesbian
by Claire McNab
1997
Co-written with Sharon Gedan, this nonfiction guide talks plainly about lesbian relationships and everyday emotional life. It aims to be practical, supportive, and easy to live with.
Past Due
by Claire McNab
1998
When scandal-hit fertility specialist Dr. Brin Halstead is found beaten and burned, Carol follows a trail of greed, genetic ambition, and murder. The case turns on who stood to gain from Halstead's fall.
Murder Undercover
by Claire McNab
1999
Denise Cleever heads to a luxury island resort off Queensland on what looks like a quiet assignment. Then bodies start piling up, and her attraction to the owner's rebellious daughter complicates everything.
Set Up
by Claire McNab
1999
While hunting a hired killer, Carol is drawn to a magnetic stranger whose secrets may be part of the trap. Work and desire collide in a case where trust could be fatal.
Death Understood
by Claire McNab
2000
Denise goes undercover inside a powerful ultraconservative institute while investigating an inheritance mystery rooted in a vanished outback expedition. The closer she gets to the truth, the more dangerous the organization becomes.
Under Suspicion
by Claire McNab
2000
Carol travels to the United States for FBI training and ends up accused of murder after clashing with an instructor. Far from home and short on allies, she has to clear her name fast.
Death Club
by Claire McNab
2001
At a glittery women's golf tournament backed by a rich and ruthless hostess, rivalries explode into murder. Carol Ashton has to sort through money, ego, and old grudges before the score gets deadlier.
Out of Sight
by Claire McNab
2001
Denise infiltrates a terrorist camp hidden in remote Australia, where discovery would mean torture and death. Deep inside the operation, she has to bring it down before the country pays the price.
Accidental Murder
by Claire McNab
2002
A fatal fall at North Head looks like one more tragedy until Carol notices a pattern in several similar deaths. If she is right, someone is disguising murder as bad luck for profit.
Blood Link
by Claire McNab
2003
After billionaire Thurmond Rule dies without a valid will, possible heirs begin dying one by one. Carol Ashton must work out whether she is protecting the next victim or helping a killer narrow the field.
Death by Death
by Claire McNab
2003
Denise enters a private psychiatric clinic to learn whether its charismatic director is turning vulnerable patients into killers. The mission demands deep cover, and this time her mind may be as endangered as her life.
Recognition Factor
by Claire McNab
2003
Denise Cleever is the only agent alive who can identify the terrorist mastermind called Red Wolf. Pulled into a race across Los Angeles, she must infiltrate a dangerous network before catastrophe hits.
Fall Guy
by Claire McNab
2004
Practical joker Milton Ryce dies in a skydiving accident, and almost nobody seems sorry. Carol Ashton faces a long suspect list and a case where the obvious answer may be a carefully staged setup.
The Wombat Strategy
by Claire McNab
2004
Outback pub owner Kylie Kendall inherits most of a Los Angeles detective agency from the father she never knew. Her new partner wants her gone, but a suspicious Hollywood suicide drags them into business together.
Murder at Random
by Claire McNab
2005
Denise Cleever goes undercover to stop a terrorist network that pays amateur killers for public murders. With panic rising and no backup in sight, every step puts thousands of people at risk.
The Kookaburra Gambit
by Claire McNab
2005
Kylie finally gets a real case when Australian twins ask her to investigate opals being smuggled inside plush toys from their hit children's show. The job pulls her into Hollywood schemes and closer to Ariana.
The Quokka Question
by Claire McNab
2005
A routine UCLA security job turns deadly when marsupial expert Oscar Braithwaite is murdered. Kylie takes the case for his bold sister and must juggle clues, temptation, and her feelings for Ariana.
The Dingo Dilemma
by Claire McNab
2006
Kylie thinks Los Angeles is far from her meddling Australian relatives until cousin Dingo turns up mixed in TV-set trouble. With a star dingo, kidnappers, and an accidental acting job, the case gets wonderfully messy.
Writing My Love
by Claire McNab
2006
Bestselling romance author Vonny Smith is hopelessly in love with her editor, Diana Broswell. Convinced words can do the work, she tries to write Diana into loving her back, with risky and funny results.
The Platypus Ploy
by Claire McNab
2007
Ariana Creeling vanishes without ransom or clear motive, and Kylie Kendall is frantic. Her search leads to a glamorous home for aging show business stars, where Kylie goes undercover and races the clock.
Lethal Care
by Claire McNab
2017
Newly promoted Carol Ashton inherits a loaded case involving Greta Denby's controversial cancer treatment and a second death tied to the original investigation. The deeper Carol digs, the more the case shakes her faith in the job and herself.
Aspects of the Heart
by Claire McNab
2020
Australian playwright Laura Stafford brings her hit play to Los Angeles and gets the chance of a lifetime when a filmmaker wants the movie rights. Then she realizes the producer is the woman who once broke her heart.
Where should I start?
If you want classic police procedurals: Lessons in Murder → Fatal Reunion → Death Down Under
If you want espionage and undercover tension: Murder Undercover → Death Understood → Out of Sight
If you want lighter private eye mysteries: The Wombat Strategy → The Kookaburra Gambit → The Quokka Question
If you want romance instead of crime: Under the Southern Cross → Silent Heart → Writing My Love
Author bio
Claire McNab was the pen name of Claire Carmichael, an Australian writer who built a remarkably wide career across crime fiction, romance, children's books, plays, textbooks, and self-help. She was born in Melbourne in 1940, and later spent her working life between Sydney and Los Angeles.
Before the mysteries arrived, she was a teacher. While teaching high school in Sydney, she also wrote comedy plays and textbooks, which gave her a steady habit of writing for real readers, not some abstract ideal audience.
Then she made the big switch and left teaching in the mid-1980s to write full time.
That change gave crime readers one of her most lasting creations, Detective Inspector Carol Ashton. Beginning with Lessons in Murder, McNab wrote a long Sydney-based police series that mixed solid procedural plotting with the private strain of being a lesbian detective in a profession that did not make life easy. Books like Fatal Reunion, Death Down Under, and Body Guard helped build the series into the center of her fiction.
She did not stay in one mode for long. With Murder Undercover and the Denise Cleever books, she moved into undercover work, espionage, and national security threats. Later, The Wombat Strategy opened the Kylie Kendall mysteries, which brought a looser, funnier energy, an outback Australian heroine dropped into Los Angeles, a detective agency inheritance, and a lot of fish-out-of-water charm.
McNab also wrote romance, including Under the Southern Cross, Silent Heart, Writing My Love, and Aspects of the Heart. Across all of these books, certain things keep showing up: smart women under pressure, secrets that cost something, strong settings, and relationships that can be tender one moment and complicated the next. She wrote plainly, moved fast, and trusted readers to keep up.
That directness is part of why her books still read well.
Under her own name, Claire Carmichael, she also published children's novels, picture books, self-help titles, and English textbooks. She served as president of Sisters in Crime, belonged to Mystery Writers of America and Science Fiction Writers of America, and received the Alice B. Medal in 2006. She was part of the growth of lesbian popular fiction in both Australian and American publishing circles.
In 1994 she moved to Los Angeles after falling in love with an American woman. She later taught developing writers through the UCLA Extension Writers' Program, which feels fitting for someone who had already spent years moving between classrooms and writing desks.
McNab died in 2022 after living for years with Parkinson's disease. What remains is a body of work that is broad, busy, and very readable, especially for anyone looking for mystery series led by capable lesbian protagonists who get to be flawed, funny, determined, and fully alive.
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