Dreda Say Mitchell Books in Order
Find Dreda Say Mitchell books in order, with series lists, quick summaries, author background, and where to start reading her crime thrillers.
Last updated: June 6, 2026
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Publication Order
26 books
Watching You Fall
by Dreda Say Mitchell
2026
Josie promises to care for her nephew Sunny if anything happens to her sister Megan. After Megan dies, grief, strange incidents, and unanswered questions make Josie doubt everyone, including herself.
Secrets and Lies
by Dreda Say Mitchell
2025
In 1974, strikes and blackouts darken London while Jimmy Southpaw Steele and Brother Bertie remain bitter enemies. Corruption forces them together, but old sins and dangerous women are waiting.
Love and Hate
by Dreda Say Mitchell
2025
In 1967 East London, Danny Steele rules the docks while Jimmy Southpaw Steele and Brother Bertie take a dangerous job behind his back. Sin Steele's forbidden affair threatens to make everything worse.
Honour and Vengeance
by Dreda Say Mitchell
2025
As the East End docks begin to close in 1969, Danny Steele plans a bank heist that pulls Jimmy and Brother Bertie deeper into crime. Secrets, love, and loyalty turn gang warfare personal.
Gone
by Dreda Say Mitchell
2025
Alison's son Sam disappeared on a family holiday and was presumed lost at sea. Ten years later, her ex wants him declared dead, pushing Alison into a desperate search for the truth.
Girl, Missing
by Dreda Say Mitchell
2024
Fifteen years after Gem's daughter Sara-Jane vanished outside school, remains are found in the chapel. When Sara-Jane's belongings start appearing, Gem returns to a community still hiding its secrets.
Believe Me
by Dreda Say Mitchell
2023
Lawyer Gabby Lewis has always feared dying at forty, the age her mother died. A link to the mansion Ocean Haven makes her suspect murder, just as she develops the same strange symptoms.
Say Her Name
by Dreda Say Mitchell
2022
After her adoptive mother's death, Eva uses DNA testing to search for her birth family. The trail leads into a hidden world where Black women vanish and someone wants Eva to stop asking questions.
Wicked Women
by Dreda Say Mitchell
2021
Big Mo discovers her dead father's plan for a perfect heist and faces The Duchess, a ruthless rival with old power. The fight also drags Mo toward the truth about Robbie Steele's death.
Fight Dirty
by Dreda Say Mitchell
2021
Jimmy Southpaw has named Big Mo heir to his criminal empire, but not everyone accepts her crown. With enemies closing in, Mo turns to Nico Sinclair to uncover who is trying to topple her.
Trap Door
by Dreda Say Mitchell
2020
Rachel takes a much-needed job in a company housed on the site of a deadly Victorian sweatshop fire. Debt traps her there, but the building's past may not be finished with the living.
Dirty Tricks
by Dreda Say Mitchell
2020
Teenage Maureen Big Mo Watson runs a street gang and grabs a chance to impress local villain Barker. Soon she is trapped between rival East End criminals and fighting to stay alive.
Spare Room
by Dreda Say Mitchell
2019
Lisa rents a beautiful room from a friendly couple, then finds a hidden suicide note. When her landlords deny the previous tenant existed, she starts digging into a house full of secrets.
Blood Secrets
by Dreda Say Mitchell
2018
Only Babs Miller and her friend Pearl know where stolen gold is hidden. When it disappears, suspicion turns them against each other and drags both families toward gangland revenge.
One False Move
by Dreda Say Mitchell
2017
Fresh out of prison, Hayley is trying to care for her daughter on The Devil's Estate. When the cash she collects for her boss is stolen, she has twenty-four hours to get it back.
Blood Mother
by Dreda Say Mitchell
2017
In 1970s London, pregnant Babs thinks Stan Miller can save her from a hard future. Instead, his criminal dealings and secrets threaten to shape her family for decades.
Blood Daughter
by Dreda Say Mitchell
2017
Babs Miller wants to share her new money with her daughters, but money brings danger. Jen wants security, Tiff owes violent men, and Dee fears old criminal ties are pulling her family back in.
Blood Sister
by Dreda Say Mitchell
2016
On Essex Lane Estate, Jen Miller dreams of a safer future while her sister Tiff runs errands for a gangster. Their choices pull them toward Dee, danger, and the costs of life on The Devil.
Snatched
by Dreda Say Mitchell
2015
Mac investigates a child found hidden behind a bathroom wall in a respectable house. The case cuts into his past when DNA reveals the boy may be his son.
Death Trap
by Dreda Say Mitchell
2015
Teenager Nikki Bell survives a brutal attack that kills members of her family and their cleaner. As the only witness to a wider criminal plan, she needs DI Rio Wray to keep her alive.
Vendetta
by Dreda Say Mitchell
2014
Mac wakes in a smashed hotel room with a dead lover nearby and no memory of the night. While DI Rio Wray closes in, he has less than a day to prove he is being framed.
Hit Girls
by Dreda Say Mitchell
2011
Two ten-year-old sisters are killed outside school, and their gangland family wants revenge. Jackie, Anna, Roxy, and Ollie investigate, but the case turns personal when Jackie's son disappears.
Gangster Girl
by Dreda Say Mitchell
2010
Lawyer Daisy Sullivan wants to outrun her late father's gangster name. When her absent mother reappears with links to a prostitution ring and a crime family, Daisy is pulled into a robbery and a fight to survive.
Geezer Girls
by Dreda Say Mitchell
2009
Jade Flynn and three friends once escaped a man who used them for criminal work. Ten years later, Jade is Jackie Jarvis, ready to marry, until the Geezer returns demanding one final job.
Killer Tune
by Dreda Say Mitchell
2007
Rap star Lord Tribulation is caught between a firebombing blamed on his music and the murder of his father. His search for answers leads back to 1976 Notting Hill, where music and politics collide.
Running Hot
by Dreda Say Mitchell
2004
Elijah Schoolboy Campbell has seven days to leave Hackney and the underworld behind. A chance encounter with a dead body looks like easy money, until dangerous people start hunting what he has taken.
Where should I start?
For East End gangland sagas: Geezer Girls → Gangster Girl → Hit Girls
For the Miller family story: Blood Sister → Blood Mother → Blood Daughter → Blood Secrets
For police and undercover thrills: Vendetta → Snatched → Death Trap
For psychological standalones: Spare Room → Trap Door → Say Her Name → Believe Me
For Big Mo's rise: Dirty Tricks → Fight Dirty → Wicked Women
Author bio
Dreda Say Mitchell was born in London in 1965 as Louise Emma Joseph, and grew up on a housing estate in the East End. Her parents came from Grenada, and the family did not have shelves full of books at home. What they did have was Whitechapel Library nearby, and that opened a door.
That library mattered.
Mitchell studied African history at the School of Oriental and African Studies, then trained as a teacher. She worked in secondary and primary schools, became a deputy headteacher, and later moved into education consultancy. That background still runs through her work. She writes about people who are boxed in by class, money, race, bad luck, and bad choices, but she rarely treats them as simple victims.
Then writing pulled up a chair.
Her first novel, Running Hot, began after creative writing courses in London and grew out of the streets, language, and pressure points she knew well. The book follows Elijah Schoolboy Campbell as he tries to escape Hackney and the criminal world closing around him. It won the Crime Writers' Association John Creasey Dagger in 2005, making Mitchell the first Black British author to receive that award.
She followed it with Killer Tune, which mixes music, politics, and murder, then moved into the Gangland Girls books, including Geezer Girls, Gangster Girl, and Hit Girls. Readers often come to those books for the speed and danger, but stay for the women at the centre of the trouble. Mitchell is especially good at writing women who have learned to survive in places that give them very few soft landings.
Her East End crime sagas widened with the Flesh and Blood books, which follow the Miller family across decades on Essex Lane Estate, known to locals as The Devil. In Blood Sister, Blood Mother, Blood Daughter, and Blood Secrets, family loyalty is never neat. Money, shame, old violence, and ambition all come home to roost.
In recent years, Mitchell has also written psychological thrillers, many with her husband and writing partner Tony Mason, who writes as Ryan Carter. Spare Room turns a rented room into a trap full of old questions. Say Her Name follows a woman searching for her birth family and finding a darker story about missing Black women. Believe Me, Girl, Missing, Gone, and Watching You Fall continue that interest in grief, identity, and secrets that refuse to stay buried.
Mitchell remains closely tied to the East End and to education. She has worked with young people and in prisons, has been an ambassador for reading, and received an MBE in 2020 for services to literature and education work in prisons. She also appears on radio and television as a commentator and broadcaster. The books may be full of danger, but the engine underneath them is practical and human: who gets a chance, who gets ignored, and what happens when people fight back.
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