Gerritt De Graaf Books in Order

The Gerritt De Graaf books are Barbara D'Amato's early mysteries, and they lean into the pleasure of a carefully built puzzle. De Graaf is a Chicago forensic pathologist, so he approaches a death through evidence first. A wound, a fingerprint, a medical detail, or the timing of a witness statement can matter as much as a suspect's alibi.

These are compact, traditional mysteries rather than action-heavy thrillers.

In The Hands of Healing Murder, a doctor is killed while sitting in a room full of bridge players. Nobody claims to have gone near him, and the circumstances make the murder look impossible. De Graaf has to work through the physical facts while the case also raises uneasy questions about medical judgment and responsibility.

The Eyes on Utopia Murders moves to Young Lake, an adult community that advertises itself as peaceful. Small incidents between residents and local children turn frightening, then deadly. De Graaf faces a suspect pool that is easy to underestimate, which is exactly what makes the setting effective. Behind the calm routines and polite social life, fear and resentment have been growing.

The two books are connected by De Graaf's method more than by a large continuing storyline. He is not a flashy detective. He listens, studies what the body can reveal, and keeps returning to the facts everyone else has dismissed. That makes the series a good fit for readers who like fair-play mysteries, locked-room setups, and investigations where the solution depends on close observation.

Chicago and its nearby communities give the stories a grounded feel, but the mysteries don't require deep knowledge of the city. Each novel has its own closed circle of suspects and its own social world, from a private gathering to a planned retirement community.

Start with The Hands of Healing Murder. It introduces De Graaf and sets the tone for the series: medical knowledge, an apparently impossible death, and a puzzle that rewards paying attention. Then read The Eyes on Utopia Murders for a darker community mystery that gives him a very different group of suspects.