Georgia Xenakis Books in Order

The Georgia Xenakis series consists of one novel, Dead Letters, a later mystery from Jane Haddam. It introduces Georgia Xenakis, a woman who has spent years caring for her ill mother while working at a college job that offers little respect or security. She is frustrated, underused, and close to losing the work she has.

Then a stray dog leads her to a body.

The dead man is one of the town's most notorious residents, and the discovery gives Georgia an unexpected route back toward the kind of writing she wants to do. Friends from New York offer her the chance to write an exclusive account of the case. At first, the town seems to have the murder already solved in its own collective mind. Everyone appears to know what happened and who did it.

The new police chief is less convinced. Georgia is, too.

As she follows the story, Georgia finds that the local version leaves out a great deal. The case opens onto fraud, theft, illicit relationships, personal grudges, and further violence. Like the Gregor Demarkian books, Dead Letters is interested in the way a community tells stories about itself, especially when that story protects the wrong people.

Georgia is not a professional detective. Her point of entry is curiosity, reporting, and a refusal to accept a neat explanation just because it is convenient. That makes the novel a good fit for readers who enjoy an amateur sleuth working through a socially tangled small-town case rather than relying on official authority alone.

Because there is only one Georgia Xenakis novel, there is no complicated reading order. Start with Dead Letters. It introduces Georgia, sets up her personal crossroads, and delivers a complete mystery while leaving room for readers to imagine what she might have investigated next.