Gooden and Knight Mystery Books in Order

Gooden and Knight is where Monette Michaels lets her legal background and her taste for the paranormal share the same room. She once described the series as woo-woo meets Perry Mason, and that is a pretty fair map. The books follow Abigail Gooden, an Austin lawyer from old Texas money who also happens to be a witch, and Lucan Knight, the shapeshifter private investigator who becomes her investigative partner and romantic match.

The basic hook is easy to love. If vampires, witches, or other preternatural people have a legal problem, they do not want to explain it to a regular attorney. They go to Abbie. That gives the series a built-in case-of-the-book structure while also opening the door to a whole hidden community operating alongside ordinary city life. Austin works well as the backdrop, too. It has nightlife, money, old families, odd corners, and enough modern energy to make the supernatural feel like it might be hiding in plain sight.

In The Virtuous Vampire, Abbie is hired to help a vampire gentleman's club owner who has been framed for murder. The setup mixes courtroom logic with paranormal rules and a murder investigation that quickly grows more dangerous. Luc is there because he has been hired as a private investigator, but his role goes beyond that fast. He and Abbie are both sharp, both used to being good at what they do, and both thrown into close contact by a case that keeps getting messier.

The Deadly Séance keeps the same blend of magic, mystery, and danger. A murder at a séance sends Abbie and Luc back to work, this time with a tighter suspect list and fresh links to Abbie's past. That is another thing the series does well. The books are not just puzzle boxes. The cases press on the characters personally, which gives the mysteries a little more weight than a simple supernatural caper.

At heart, these are paranormal mysteries with a romantic suspense edge. There is humor, but the stakes are not fluffy. People really do die. Magic has rules. And Abbie and Luc have to balance attraction with the practical fact that somebody usually wants to stop their investigation.

It is a short series, at least for now.

Start with The Virtuous Vampire and go forward. The fun is watching a witch lawyer, a shapeshifter detective, and a very particular supernatural client list turn Austin into a much stranger place than it first appears.