Jackman and Evans Books in Order
Part ofJoy Ellis Books in OrderExplore the Jackman and Evans series by Joy Ellis with every book in order, concise plot summaries, character background on the Fenland team and tips on the best reading order.
Last updated: December 19, 2025
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Publication Order
11 books
Black Notice
by Joy Ellis
2025
A bloodstained man with a handcuff still on his wrist begs a retired detective for help, then vanishes into the Fens. A stylish woman reports her ex‑con husband missing, and five skeletons are found in a wartime pillbox. Jackman’s Black Notice request uncovers links none of them expected.
The River's Edge
by Joy Ellis
2023
A man’s body is pulled from the river, slicked with oil; soon another victim is found the same way. While Jackman and Evans hunt a sadistic killer staging these scenes, a long‑time enemy plots revenge from inside a high‑security prison, turning the case into a deadly trap.
Solace House
by Joy Ellis
2022
Holly Stewart moves her family into Solace House hoping for a fresh start, despite its violent history. Soon jobs are lost, the children are bullied and someone prowls the garden at night. As Jackman and Evans investigate linked dismemberment murders, the house’s past and present collide.
The Night Thief
by Joy Ellis
2021
While families sleep, someone breaks into their homes and steals only one thing: photographs of their children. After an elderly woman falls to her death confronting a prowler, Jackman and Evans track a night visitor whose obsession with other people’s memories is turning deadly.
They Disappeared
by Joy Ellis
2020
IT genius Orla “Orac” Cracken vanishes, and at the same time urban explorers start going missing from abandoned sites on the Fens. When two bodies are found hanging in an ancient church, Jackman and Evans race to stop a killer tied to Orla’s dangerous past.
The Patient Man
by Joy Ellis
2019
Serial killer Alistair Ashcroft returns to taunt Jackman’s team, sending chilling messages while a sniper begins executing local men. As rural thefts, old grudges and police targets collide, Jackman and Evans must outthink a patient enemy who has nothing to lose.
The Stolen Boys
by Joy Ellis
2018
A crime wave hits town as teenagers are mugged and homes burgled for a wildly expensive streetwear brand. When young men start dying and steroids flood the estates, Jackman and Evans go after a shadowy leader called Darke — while still haunted by an uncaught serial killer.
The Guilty Ones
by Joy Ellis
2018
Jackman’s sister‑in‑law appears to take her own life in a London river, then another woman dies the same way. Old witness statements and a decades‑old crime resurface, and Jackman and Evans hunt a manipulative predator who drives victims to despair from the shadows.
Their Lost Daughters
by Joy Ellis
2017
Two teenage girls go to a late‑night party on the Fens; only one staggers back, drugged and terrified, talking about a friend no one can trace. As Jackman and Evans investigate, they uncover a hidden trade in vulnerable girls and long‑buried secrets.
The Fourth Friend
by Joy Ellis
2017
Detective Carter McLean survives the plane crash that kills his four closest friends and is consumed by guilt. While he secretly tackles the unfinished business they left behind, Jackman and Evans juggle a stalker case and a missing wife that may push him over the edge.
The Murderer's Son
by Joy Ellis
2014
Twenty years after a brutal double murder on Gibbet Fen, a local woman is stabbed in her kitchen and a disturbed man calmly confesses. Jackman and Evans must probe his missing childhood to learn whether he’s a killer or a victim.
Series background & context
The Jackman and Evans novels follow DI Rowan Jackman and DS Marie Evans, a close‑knit investigative duo working for Fenland Constabulary. Their patch is a mix of small towns, isolated villages and endless marshland, where a body or a secret can stay hidden for a very long time.
Jackman is the calm centre of the team: sharp, patient and quietly ambitious for good work rather than flashy headlines. Marie Evans is more openly emotional, loyal to a fault and still carrying grief for her husband, who died in a motorbike accident. Together they balance each other out, and their solid partnership is one of the pleasures of the series.
The books usually start with a single disturbing incident, then widen out into something far more tangled. In The Murderer’s Son a disturbed man confesses to a brutal stabbing and claims to be the child of an infamous serial killer, forcing Jackman and Evans to question everything they think they know about an old case. Their Lost Daughters spins out from a party on the Fens where only one girl comes home, opening up a much larger story about missing teenagers and those who profit from them.
As the series grows, the investigations take in missing children, long‑buried bodies, organised thefts and attacks that seem to come from nowhere. The Fourth Friend deals with survivor’s guilt and an officer who walked away from a plane crash that killed his closest mates. The Stolen Boys dives into violent street crime centred on a must‑have brand of clothing. Across several books, a charismatic and chilling serial killer, Alistair Ashcroft, slips in and out of view, turning the detectives themselves into targets in The Patient Man.
Later stories push the team into even stranger corners. In Solace House a family moves into a home with a terrible history just as a grim old murder begins to stir again. The River’s Edge brings bodies washed in oil and the sense that someone behind bars is still pulling strings. In Black Notice, unidentified skeletons in a wartime pillbox force Jackman to look beyond the local area and ask for international help, even as a desperate man vanishes into the marshes.
Throughout, the Lincolnshire Fens are more than a backdrop. Flat fields, misted droves and abandoned pillboxes create a sense of openness and claustrophobia at the same time. The team spend as much time on lonely lanes and farm tracks as they do in incident rooms, and the landscape often dictates how the crimes unfold.
Readers who enjoy modern British police procedurals with a strongly developed ensemble will find a lot to like here. Each book offers a complete, twisty investigation, but relationships, old enemies and personal lives carry on from story to story, making the series particularly satisfying to read in order.
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