Elizabeth Gunn Books in Order

An early standalone novel from Elizabeth Gunn, first published in 1978. It comes from well before her later crime series and shows another side of her writing.

Jessica Gore, a novelist with an overactive imagination, starts turning her own unhappy life into melodrama. As jealousy and self-invention blur together, she has to reckon with the gap between the story she tells and the life she actually has.

Two bodies left on softball fields give Jake Hines and his Rutherford crew their first major murder case in this series opener. It's a grounded police procedural with humor, sharp observation, and a strong feel for small-town Minnesota.

Newly promoted Chief of Detectives Jake Hines barely reaches his office before a robbery, a kidnapping, and a shocking double murder pull him back out. Peaceful Rutherford is starting to look a lot less peaceful.

A nearly naked trucker is found frozen near a highway overpass, and his missing rig only deepens the mystery. Jake Hines works through blizzard conditions, bad luck, and a widening trail of violence.

In a bitter Minnesota winter, a schoolboy is found shot and another crisis hits the department at the same time. Jake Hines and his team follow thin clues through a case that keeps widening as the cold settles in.

A gang of grifters rolls into Rutherford just when Jake Hines is hoping for a quieter season. Chasing scam artists may sound almost comic, but the damage they leave behind is anything but harmless.

After a notorious defendant walks free, he turns up dead, and Jake Hines has to sort anger, rumor, and vigilante temptation from fact. Missing witnesses and local secrets make this Rutherford case especially tricky.

Sarah Burke is juggling a painful divorce, a grudge-holding boss, and trouble in her family when a neatly dressed stabbing victim turns up in a parking lot. Then her young niece is swept into danger, and the case turns urgent.

While Rutherford reels from credit-card fraud and a violent purse snatcher, Jake Hines tries to keep two busy divisions moving at once. Property crime and personal crime begin to overlap in ways that make the whole city feel off balance.

A double murder in one of Tucson's wealthiest neighborhoods leaves a teenage girl traumatized and her father missing. As Sarah Burke digs into the family, private grief and public respectability start to come apart.

A wealthy Tucson couple are found shot in their beautiful home, but Sarah Burke does not buy the easy murder-suicide story. Then a chopped-up body turns up across town, and the case gets far stranger.

A corpse in a suburban meth lab sends Jake Hines into a tangle of false identities, drug crime, and immigrant connections. Small clues hint that the dead man was not who he seemed.

This short, bittersweet piece looks back at a father-daughter relationship in a family full of talent, affection, and familiar bad habits. It is intimate, reflective, and not a mystery.

After a railway disaster rocks a small western town, rebuilding brings strangers and fresh complications. One capable outsider helps steady the chaos, then starts troubles of his own.

A compact collection of six stories about crime, love, disappointment, and the odd turns everyday life can take. It also includes a brief memoir piece, giving the book a more personal note.

When Rutherford's department store Santa disappears, a child's excited shout points police toward a body hidden in the Christmas tree. Jake Hines gets a holiday case that's both grim and darkly funny.

A bloody home invasion scene in Tucson gets stranger when one of the supposed corpses wakes up, attacks an escort, and escapes. Sarah Burke has a live suspect, a baffling crime scene, and every reason to think more violence is coming.

A fight over farmland and sand mining turns deadly in rural Minnesota. Jake Hines faces a case shaped by family loyalties, environmental fear, and the hard question of what people will do for money or for land.

A biochemist dies at his desk just as Rutherford's new science businesses are bringing fresh money and fresh trouble to town. Jake Hines and his team have to sort murder, corporate pressure, and a department stretched in two directions.

A rookie cop's shooting and the apparent suicide of an ex-cop pull Sarah Burke into a family shadowed by three strange deaths in three years. What looks straightforward quickly turns into a deeper, more personal puzzle.

During a Fourth of July parade, a brutal killing in an ordinary Tucson neighborhood exposes cash, false identities, and cartel money. Sarah Burke follows the trail into a murky money-laundering case that starts to hit uncomfortably close to home.

Retired teacher Alice Adams joins her nephew at a small Montana newspaper just as a mountain wildfire explodes into the town's biggest story. When crews find a charred body in the ashes, their reporting turns into a murder investigation.

A gun attack on a senior living center van leaves a beloved driver dead and sends Sarah Burke and rookie Bogey into a case of drugs, mistaken identity, and dangerous secrets. The answers could cost Sarah her career, or more.