Dolly Rawlins Books in Order
Part ofLynda La Plante Books in OrderFollow the Dolly Rawlins Widows saga by Lynda La Plante in order, with heist-novel summaries, series background and notes on how the story links into the later Jack Warr books.
Last updated: December 17, 2025
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Publication Order
3 books
She's Out
by Lynda La Plante
1995
After serving time for the last job, Dolly Rawlins walks out of prison determined to go straight and enjoy the country property she has inherited. But old enemies, buried loot and the lure of one more score drag her back into a dangerous world where loyalty can be fatal.
Widows Revenge
by Lynda La Plante
1994
Years after the widows pulled off their audacious robbery, Dolly Rawlins is trying to live quietly abroad. When news from London suggests someone is cashing in on Harry Rawlins’s old plans, she returns to settle scores—only to find that betrayal inside her own circle may be the deadliest threat of all.
Widows
by Lynda La Plante
1985
After three armed robbers are killed in a botched security-van heist, their widows are left with grief, debts and dangerous enemies. When Dolly Rawlins discovers her husband’s detailed plans for the job, she and the other women decide to finish it themselves—if they can trust each other and outsmart the men who want them dead.
Series background & context
The Dolly Rawlins books grow out of Widows, the heist story that first made Lynda La Plante a name in crime drama. At the start, Dolly is the wife of gang leader Harry Rawlins, used to looking the other way while her husband plans robberies with his crew. When a security‑van raid goes catastrophically wrong and the men are killed, Dolly and the other widows are left with grief, debts and dangerous enemies.
Going through Harry’s safety deposit box, Dolly finds cash, a gun and meticulous plans for the hijack that never happened. Faced with pressure from both the police and rival criminals, she realises the job itself may be the only way out. She persuades Linda Perelli and Shirley Miller to join her, and recruits outsider Bella O’Reilly to fill the missing fourth slot in the plan.
The Widows stories are as much about relationships as they are about robbery. The women are very different in background and temperament: some are frightened, some reckless, some more used to taking orders than giving them. Learning to trust one another—and to trust their own nerve—drives much of the tension as they rehearse a job that could either free them or destroy them.
Crime does not solve everything. Later books show how success brings new problems: unwanted attention, shifting loyalties and the risk that violence will seep into the next generation. Old secrets about Harry’s past and the original raid resurface, forcing Dolly to question what really happened to the men that night and who might still be alive.
La Plante also uses the Dolly Rawlins world as the foundation for other stories. The hidden proceeds of the Widows’ hijack echo decades later in the DC Jack Warr novels, where a young detective discovers that his own history may be entangled with Dolly’s criminal legacy.
Taken together, the Dolly Rawlins books offer a blend of heist mechanics, gangland politics and complex female friendships. They’re a good fit if you like crime fiction that lets the women take charge of the job—and shows the emotional price of stepping into that role.
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