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Elizabeth Fackler Books in Order

Browse Elizabeth Fackler books in order, from Seth Strummar westerns to Devon Gray mysteries, with short summaries, series notes, and where to start.

Last updated: July 11, 2026

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Elizabeth Fackler books in publication order

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18 books

Arson

by Elizabeth Fackler

1984

When reporter Frank James links a gun from the bottom of a lake to the decades-old murder of Shady Grove's richest family, an old case flares back to life. The deeper he digs, the more it seems the killer never really left town.

Barbed Wire

by Elizabeth Fackler

1986

Reporter Frank James returns to a small Texas town convinced that his old friend and former lover Arly Walbridge was murdered. Digging through local grudges and buried secrets, he finds suspicion waiting in every direction.

Blood Kin

by Elizabeth Fackler

1992

On the run from abuse, Johanna Devery escapes an El Paso brothel disguised as a boy and crosses paths with hired gun Seth Strummar. Together they head toward old enemies, revenge, and a dangerous kind of love.

Backtrail

by Elizabeth Fackler

1993

Seth Strummar fights off a relentless bounty hunter while trying to make amends with his pregnant, estranged wife. The chase is pure western action, but the real stakes are whether he can hold on to any kind of future.

Road From Betrayal

by Elizabeth Fackler

1994

Outlaw Seth Strummar takes responsibility for his young son and tries, uneasily, to turn toward family life. But old loyalties, buried cruelty, and the shadow of his former partner Ben Allister keep pulling him backward.

Billy the Kid

by Elizabeth Fackler

1995

Elizabeth Fackler follows Billy from restless youth into the Lincoln County War, where friendship, loyalty, and corruption turn him into legend. The result is part outlaw story, part grounded portrait of a violent New Mexico.

Badlands

by Elizabeth Fackler

1996

After years of killing, Seth Strummar settles in Arizona determined to build a safer life for his family. Then a woman from his past arrives to settle an old score and tears open the fragile peace he has made.

Texas Lily

by Elizabeth Fackler

1997

In 1870s New Mexico, young Lily Cassidy marries powerful rancher Emmett Moss to save her family and avenge her father's death. The bargain traps her inside a bitter world of cattle feuds, private cruelty, and long-brewing revenge.

Breaking Even

by Elizabeth Fackler

1998

Seth Strummar helps buy two sisters out of prostitution, then sets off a chain of jealousy, violence, and revenge. As scandal spreads and an old enemy returns, his friendship, marriage, and freedom all come under threat.

Patricide

by Elizabeth Fackler

2000

Detective Devon Gray investigates the murder of a man who abused his own daughter, only to find the case echoing trouble in his own family. As suspects close in, the line between professional duty and personal pain starts to blur.

When Kindness Fails

by Elizabeth Fackler

2003

El Paso detective Devon Gray tries to help his fiancée's ex-husband find a missing girlfriend, then lands in a murder case that hits close to home. The trail runs to the Mexican border and exposes ugly truths about power and abuse.

Endless River

by Elizabeth Fackler

2005

Spoiled teen Zeb Mulroney arranges the abduction and torture of a classmate after a romantic rejection. As his powerful family closes ranks, former detective Devon Gray becomes the one man still pushing for justice.

Bone Justice

by Elizabeth Fackler

2006

In 1875 Seth Strummar plans to quit outlaw life, but everything changes when he finds two captive women meant to be sold in Mexico. Protecting them means turning on his mentor and riding straight into danger.

Lucinda's Summer Vacation

by Elizabeth Fackler

2007

Lucinda Sterling expects a quiet New Mexico vacation with former detective Devon Gray, but wakes to murder next door and suspicion all around. As secrets spill from tapes and bedrooms alike, Devon investigates while trying to stay ahead of the law.

My Eyes Have a Cold Nose

by Elizabeth Fackler

2009

In Depression-era southeastern New Mexico, blind pianist Elizabeth Garrett refuses to let a missing girl case rest on rumor. With her seeing-eye dog Teene at her side, she follows small clues into the hidden lives of a small town.

Backlash

by Elizabeth Fackler

2017

Trying to leave violence behind, Seth risks everything to rescue a wealthy girl held for ransom. The job tempts him back toward old pleasures and an old reputation, and getting out may cost him the life he was trying to build.

Lone Justice

by Elizabeth Fackler

2017

After committing a terrible wrong against his family, Seth slips back into outlaw life in shame. A bank-robbing scheme and a woman posing as Ben Allister's widow force him to face the past he cannot outrun.

Wild Bull

by Elizabeth Fackler

2017

Drawn to the Wild Bull Saloon and the allure of Isabella, Seth Strummar walks into a brewing range war. As he tries to stop the bloodshed, old trouble from Austin catches up with him and reshapes his future.

Where to start with Elizabeth Fackler

If you want the Seth Strummar saga from the beginning: Bone JusticeWild BullBacklashLone Justice
If you prefer the classic published run: Blood KinBacktrailRoad From BetrayalBadlandsBreaking Even
If you want New Mexico history and legend: Billy the KidTexas LilyMy Eyes Have a Cold Nose
If you want crime fiction first: PatricideWhen Kindness FailsEndless RiverLucinda's Summer Vacation

Elizabeth Fackler sub-series and character series

Seth Strummar books in order

Explore this series
  1. Book cover for "Blood Kin"

    Blood Kin

    by Elizabeth Fackler

    1992Seth Strummar, Book 1
  2. Book cover for "Backtrail"

    Backtrail

    by Elizabeth Fackler

    1993Seth Strummar, Book 2
  3. Book cover for "Road From Betrayal"

    Road From Betrayal

    by Elizabeth Fackler

    1994Seth Strummar, Book 3
  4. Book cover for "Badlands"

    Badlands

    by Elizabeth Fackler

    1996Seth Strummar, Book 4
  5. Book cover for "Breaking Even"

    Breaking Even

    by Elizabeth Fackler

    1998Seth Strummar, Book 5
  6. Book cover for "Bone Justice"

    Bone Justice

    by Elizabeth Fackler

    2006Seth Strummar, Book 6
  7. Book cover for "Backlash"

    Backlash

    by Elizabeth Fackler

    2017Seth Strummar, Book 8
  8. Book cover for "Lone Justice"

    Lone Justice

    by Elizabeth Fackler

    2017Seth Strummar, Book 9
  9. Book cover for "Wild Bull"

    Wild Bull

    by Elizabeth Fackler

    2017Seth Strummar, Book 7

Seth Strummar books in chronological order

  1. Book cover for "Blood Kin"

    Blood Kin

    by Elizabeth Fackler

    1992Seth Strummar, Book 1
  2. Book cover for "Backtrail"

    Backtrail

    by Elizabeth Fackler

    1993Seth Strummar, Book 2
  3. Book cover for "Road From Betrayal"

    Road From Betrayal

    by Elizabeth Fackler

    1994Seth Strummar, Book 3
  4. Book cover for "Badlands"

    Badlands

    by Elizabeth Fackler

    1996Seth Strummar, Book 4
  5. Book cover for "Breaking Even"

    Breaking Even

    by Elizabeth Fackler

    1998Seth Strummar, Book 5
  6. Book cover for "Bone Justice"

    Bone Justice

    by Elizabeth Fackler

    2006Seth Strummar, Book 6
  7. Book cover for "Wild Bull"

    Wild Bull

    by Elizabeth Fackler

    2017Seth Strummar, Book 7
  8. Book cover for "Backlash"

    Backlash

    by Elizabeth Fackler

    2017Seth Strummar, Book 8
  9. Book cover for "Lone Justice"

    Lone Justice

    by Elizabeth Fackler

    2017Seth Strummar, Book 9

Standalone Elizabeth Fackler books

  1. Book cover for "Arson"

    Arson

    by Elizabeth Fackler

    1984
  2. Book cover for "Barbed Wire"

    Barbed Wire

    by Elizabeth Fackler

    1986
  3. Book cover for "Billy the Kid"

    Billy the Kid

    by Elizabeth Fackler

    1995
  4. Book cover for "Texas Lily"

    Texas Lily

    by Elizabeth Fackler

    1997
  5. Book cover for "Patricide"

    Patricide

    by Elizabeth Fackler

    2000
  6. Book cover for "When Kindness Fails"

    When Kindness Fails

    by Elizabeth Fackler

    2003
  7. Book cover for "Endless River"

    Endless River

    by Elizabeth Fackler

    2005
  8. Book cover for "Lucinda's Summer Vacation"

    Lucinda's Summer Vacation

    by Elizabeth Fackler

    2007
  9. Book cover for "My Eyes Have a Cold Nose"

    My Eyes Have a Cold Nose

    by Elizabeth Fackler

    2009

Author bio

Elizabeth Fackler was born in Lansing, Michigan, in 1947 and grew up in California. She studied at the University of California, San Diego, before settling into the kind of working life that would feed her fiction for years to come.

The Southwest became her real writing country.

In the early 1980s she worked as a librarian at the Santa Fe Reporter, and not long after that she was publishing fiction of her own. That background helps explain something steady in her books. She likes records, local history, and the feel of a place under your boots. Even when the plot turns violent, there is usually a strong sense that she has paid attention to how people lived, talked, traveled, and survived.

A lot of readers first meet her through the westerns. Billy the Kid: The Legend of El Chivato and Texas Lily both return to nineteenth-century New Mexico, but they do more than retell familiar frontier stories. Fackler is interested in the pressure behind the legends, family bargains, political grudges, land fights, and the personal cost of living in a violent country. Her version of Billy is charming and dangerous at once, and Lily Cassidy has the grit to carry a long, hard family saga.

Her Seth Strummar books push that interest in damaged people even further. In novels such as Bone Justice, Blood Kin, and Road from Betrayal, Seth is a gunfighter, thief, lover, father, and sometimes a brutal man trying, unevenly, to become something better. Fackler has said that she wanted to show a gunfighter as he might really have been in private life, especially with women, and to trace the slow change from moral wreck to responsible member of a community. That idea gives the whole series its engine.

She does not write tidy heroes.

Fackler also built a strong second lane in crime fiction with her Devon Gray mysteries, beginning with Patricide and continuing through When Kindness Fails, Endless River, and Lucinda's Summer Vacation. These books bring the action to El Paso and New Mexico and trade frontier gunfights for murders, family secrets, sexual violence, and cases that cut too close to the investigator's own life. What carries over from the westerns is her feel for moral mess. Her detectives and suspects are rarely clean types. They are people under strain, making bad choices and then living with them.

My Eyes Have a Cold Nose shows another side of her range. Set in Depression-era southeastern New Mexico, it follows blind pianist Elizabeth Garrett as she investigates a disappearance with the help of her seeing-eye dog. The book won the New Mexico Book Award for best historical fiction. A few years earlier, Bone Justice was a finalist in the same awards program, and later her memoir Grand River Highway was also recognized there.

She has written poetry and memoir as well as novels, which makes sense once you have read her fiction. Her books like story, but they also like memory, voice, and the half-buried feeling a place can hold. She returns again and again to borderlands, lonely towns, compromised men, and women forced to think fast in hard circumstances.

Fackler has long been associated with New Mexico and the wider Southwest. Later author listings place her in southern Colorado with her husband, Michael Sinkovitz. By now her body of work stretches across westerns, mysteries, memoir, and shorter work, but the core appeal stays much the same: close attention to people, sharp regional texture, and a refusal to make violence look cleaner than it is.

Edited by

Richard Reis

Software engineer whose passion for tracking book recommendations from podcasts inspired the creation of MRB.

Anurag Ramdasan

Lead investor at 3one4 Capital whose startup expertise and love for books helped shaped MRB and its growth.

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