Elizabeth Blake Books in Order

Elizabeth Blake is one of the pen names used by Carole Buggé, a writer who also publishes as C. E. Lawrence and Carole Lawrence. The different names help readers find the kind of mystery they are after, from darker psychological suspense to historical investigations and lighter, bookish cozies.

Her career has never stayed in one lane. Buggé has written novels, novellas, short stories, poetry, plays, and musicals, and she has also worked as an actor and improviser. That mix shows up in her fiction, which often has a sharp sense of scene, lively dialogue, and a cast of people carrying more baggage than they first admit.

She studied English and German at Duke University.

Under the C. E. Lawrence name, she wrote the Lee Campbell novels, beginning with Silent Screams. Those books follow a psychologist and criminal profiler through cases with an unsettling edge. Readers who like crime stories that spend time on motive, behavior, and the pressure of an investigation will likely find that side of her work a good fit.

As Carole Lawrence, she turned to historical mysteries. Edinburgh Twilight introduces Detective Inspector Ian Hamilton in 1880s Scotland, where a divided city, old grief, and violent crime make for a much darker setting. The story continues in Edinburgh Dusk and Edinburgh Midnight, with Hamilton facing new cases while the questions around his own past remain close at hand.

Then there is Cleopatra's Dagger, set in 1880 New York. Its main character, Elizabeth van den Broek, is a reporter trying to move beyond society-page assignments when a murder tied to Egyptian imagery opens a far more dangerous story. It is another example of Buggé's interest in people pushing against the limits placed on them by their time and place.

The Elizabeth Blake name gives that range a warmer, cozier shape. Pride, Prejudice and Poison and Death and Sensibility follow antiquarian bookseller Erin Coleridge, whose local Jane Austen Society keeps putting her near feuds, secrets, and suspicious deaths. The books have village gossip, literary references, awkward romances, and real crimes that need sorting out.

Murder, manners, and a good deal of tea.

Buggé has also brought her interest in science to the stage, including the play Strings. She has taught writing at New York University and at writers' conferences, while continuing to work across forms and genres. Her varied bibliography makes the pen names useful, but the through line is easy to spot: curious people, complicated communities, and a mystery that disrupts the room.