DS Cross Chronicles Books in Order

Under the DS Cross Chronicles banner, Tim Sullivan collects shorter cases that share the same world as the main George Cross novels but play out in novella or short story form. They are chances to see Cross between big investigations, or to follow side characters who might only get a few pages in the novels.

These stories keep the same Bristol and West Country setting, the same mix of meticulous procedure and awkward humour, but they work on a tighter canvas. Cross still pores over timelines and inconsistencies, yet the focus often falls on a single household, a care home corridor or a stretch of winter hedgerow rather than a sprawling city wide inquiry.

In The Lost Boys, the spotlight shifts to Cross's father Raymond, who takes an annual stay in a local care home for the company. A new resident insists that one of the older men, confused and living with dementia, is the person who killed his father decades earlier. Staff dismiss the claim, but when Cross looks closer he finds an unsolved murder that might match the story and has to work out how much weight to give fading memories.

The Ex-Wife starts in a courtroom, with Cross watching a man convicted of murdering his fiancee. A casual smile from the defendant nags at him. The case file shows that an earlier partner also died in suspicious circumstances, but her body was cremated long ago. The story becomes a study in how to investigate a crime when almost all of the physical evidence has gone.

In The Hunter, a Christmas visit from Cross's estranged mother collides with a puzzling death in the countryside. A young man is found tangled in a hedgerow as if he tried to force his way through in a panic. Frost has wiped away footprints, the nearby houses offer little, and Cross has to rely on tiny traces and character judgments while also navigating unwanted family drama.

The Cross Chronicles stories share many of the series' recurring themes, especially justice for people who are easy to overlook, but they allow Sullivan to experiment with structure and tone. Some lean into the melancholy of aging and memory, others into the puzzle of a neat locked room style problem.

For readers, they are flexible entry points. You can sample George Cross in a single sitting, or slot the stories between the full length novels using this page's reading order to see how his relationships with Raymond, his colleagues and his own past evolve over time.