Frank Mitchell and Don Packham Books in Order

Mat Coward’s Frank Mitchell and Don Packham novels are crime stories with a strong feel for local life. The series takes place in Cowden, a fictional patch of north London where an allotment, a pub, a library, or a neighbourhood campaign can become the centre of a murder investigation.

Detective Inspector Don Packham is the senior officer, impatient, outspoken, and prone to saying exactly what he thinks. Frank Mitchell, a Police Constable when the series begins, is younger and more inward-looking. Their approaches do not always match, which gives the investigations some friction as well as much of their humour. They are an unlikely partnership, but they pay attention to one another when it counts.

The opening novel, Up and Down, starts with a body found on an allotment. In and Out moves to the world of pub darts, where a team celebration ends with a killing. Each case uses an ordinary setting that Coward knows how to make specific: the routines, rivalries, gossip, and small grudges of people who live and work close together.

Nothing stays ordinary for long.

Later books keep the focus on the pair and their Cowden beat. Over and Under brings them back for another investigation, while Open and Closed puts a body in a public library during an overnight protest against closure. That final setup captures one of the series’ recurring strengths. The crime is serious, but the social setting is full of personalities, causes, jokes, bad ideas, and conflicting versions of what is important.

These are police procedurals, but they are not built around grimness for its own sake. Coward gives the cases real stakes while leaving space for sharp dialogue and a little exasperation about institutions, politics, and human behaviour. The books are interested in how a community works, and in how quickly a community can split into sides when something goes wrong.

The mysteries can be read on their own, since each novel has a complete case. Reading in publication order is still the best choice because it lets the Packham and Mitchell partnership develop naturally: Up and Down, In and Out, Over and Under, then Open and Closed. Start with the allotment murder, and let Cowden get stranger from there.