Dead Remaining Books in Order

The Dead Remaining series blends a small-town police mystery with a paranormal question that refuses to go away. Its central pair are Susan Marlan, a determined law-enforcement officer, and Eric Evans, a college professor living with schizophrenia. They come from very different worlds, but both are drawn into cases where ordinary evidence does not fully explain what has happened.

It begins in Forgotten Bones in Perrick, California. When the remains of a young boy are found, the police quickly focus on a nearby convicted felon. Susan is not convinced the case is that simple. Eric, meanwhile, begins seeing a boy in overalls, and the details of his visions appear connected to the investigation. He has every reason to doubt what he sees, which gives the first book its uneasy tension.

Susan trusts her instincts. Eric has to decide whether his experiences are symptoms, messages, or something in between.

The later books move the pair into new settings while carrying forward the emotional weight of the first case. In Hidden Bones, Susan and Eric travel with their friend Jake and his band to Clancy, Washington. The town is remote, its residents are hostile to outsiders, and people begin to disappear around the surrounding forest. The setting turns a planned break into a tense search for answers.

Campus Bones brings the action to Lamount University in San Francisco, where Eric is confronted by Bryan McDougal, a student who insists he is innocent of his former girlfriend's murder. When Bryan dies in what looks like a suicide, Eric's visions suggest there is more to the story. The case crosses paths with Susan's work and leads toward a group of environmental extremists.

Across the series, the mysteries are tied together by Susan and Eric's changing relationship and by Eric's uncertain ability to receive clues from the dead. The books do not treat the paranormal element as a simple shortcut. Instead, each vision raises another question, and the characters still have to investigate, take risks, and face people who want the truth buried.

Start with Forgotten Bones. It introduces the partnership, the rules of Eric's unsettling experiences, and the mix of procedural investigation, personal strain, and eerie suspense that continues through Hidden Bones and Campus Bones.