DC Izzy Wilde Crime Thriller Books in Order

The DC Izzy Wilde Crime Thriller series moves David Penny’s storytelling firmly into the present, swapping palaces and battlefields for farm tracks, housing estates and incident rooms in modern England. It follows Izzy Wilde, a young detective constable who has only recently left uniform and is determined to prove herself in CID.

In the opening novel The Murder Trail Izzy is dispatched to what sounds like a routine call at a remote farm. Instead she finds a nightmare: a woman lying dead in a pool of blood, a traumatised stranger on the sofa and a missing baby. Her fast reactions bring her to the attention of the local Murder Team, and she is temporarily seconded to work alongside her more experienced partner, DS Jack Ward.

The case that follows is less about clever forensics and more about the messy overlap between families, secrets and violent obsession. Izzy and Jack dig into the victim’s hidden life, the strained marriage she was part of and the people who might have wanted to hurt her. As they chase leads across police stations, interview rooms and quiet suburban streets, the killer’s pattern slowly comes into focus.

Izzy herself is not a neat, rule bound investigator. She is bright, impulsive and still scarred by events in her own past, which sometimes pushes her to take risks her bosses would rather she avoided. Jack tends to be steadier and more methodical, giving the books a partnership that balances instinct with procedure. Around them, specialists in technology, social services and forensics remind readers that modern policing is very much a team effort.

Although the crimes are serious and the body count is not small, the tone stays grounded rather than flashy. There are no genius profilers or implausible last second rescues here. Instead the story follows how a major investigation unfolds over days and weeks, how public pressure mounts and how detectives keep going when sleep and patience are in short supply.

As more books appear, the DC Izzy Wilde series is set up to offer a mix of tense serial killer hunts and character driven drama. Readers who already like Penny’s historical mysteries will recognise the same interest in how a single case can pull apart a community, only this time with blue lights, mobile phones and social media adding extra complications.