Howie Rook Mystery Books in Order

The Howie Rook books are Stuart Palmer taking a step away from Hildegarde Withers without leaving mystery behind. There are only two novels in the series, but they have their own shape and mood. Instead of a schoolteacher with an umbrella, the lead here is Howard, or Howie, Rook, a former newspaperman turned private investigator who knows crime from years of watching, clipping, and complaining about it.

Howie is not a glamorous detective. He is middle-aged, rumpled, stubborn, and much more comfortable criticizing police work than doing it himself. He collects newspaper clippings, writes cranky letters, and has the air of a man who has spent a long time forming opinions in public. That makes him funny right away, because Palmer clearly enjoys dropping this armchair expert into real danger and making him prove he can do more than talk.

He is not the cool guy in the room.

The first novel, Unhappy Hooligan, gives him a case that fits Palmer perfectly. A wealthy man with a taste for the circus is found dead in his locked apartment, dressed in clown makeup. The police think suicide is possible, but the dead man's estranged wife is not buying it, and Howie gets pulled in. The investigation takes him under the big top, where Palmer uses his own old experience as a circus clown to give the whole book a lived-in feeling. The circus is not just decoration. It shapes the suspects, the secrets, and the rhythm of the case.

The second book, Rook Takes Knight, shifts to Southern California and a more domestic kind of trouble. An abusive, wealthy husband is killed in a hit-and-run while walking his dog, and suspicion lands fast on his younger wife. Howie starts digging and finds what he usually finds best, a messy human tangle. Old romances, money, fear, jealousy, and misplaced loyalty all matter more than tough-guy posturing. The case has a harder edge than the circus book, but the series still keeps Palmer's taste for irony and offbeat detail.

That is the main thing to expect from Howie Rook. These are not stripped-down hard-boiled novels. They are playful, character-first mysteries that borrow some private-eye furniture but use it in Palmer's own way. Howie may be a detective, but he is still a man who thinks, argues, second-guesses himself, and learns that real investigations are rarely as neat as the theories in his clipping file.

Because the series is so short, it is easy to read in order. Start with Unhappy Hooligan, then move to Rook Takes Knight. If you already know Palmer from Miss Withers, these books show a different side of him, more masculine in voice, more West Coast in mood, but still drawn to eccentric settings, oddball suspects, and murder plots that move fast once they click into place.

Short series, different flavor, same appetite for an offbeat case.