Janet Finsilver Books in Order

If you want to start at the beginning: Murder at Redwood Cove → Murder at the Mansion → Murder at the Fortune Teller's Table
If you read cozies for the dogs: Murder at Redwood Cove → Murder at the Mansion → Murder at the Fortune Teller's Table
If you like festivals, food, and local color: Murder at the Mushroom Festival → Murder at the Marina → Murder in the Wine Country
If you want Kelly fully settled in Redwood Cove: Murder at the Mushroom Festival → Murder at the Marina → Murder in the Wine Country

Janet Finsilver writes cozy mysteries with a strong sense of place, a busy small-town cast, and dogs that are more than window dressing. She is best known for the Kelly Jackson books, a Northern California series that mixes community festivals, amateur sleuthing, and a warm bed-and-breakfast setting. After many years working in education as a teacher, program administrator, and workshop presenter, she built a second career in fiction.

Mysteries hooked her early.

Finsilver has said she was an avid reader all her life and got deep into crime fiction in high school, especially the work of Agatha Christie, Rex Stout, and Dorothy Sayers. At some point the reading turned into a challenge: could she write a mystery of her own? That question eventually became a series.

Her path to publication was practical and persistent. She majored in English, earned a Master's Degree in Education, and later researched agents through a writing conference where she set up pitch appointments, sent out her manuscript, and signed with an agent. Kensington went on to publish her debut, Murder at Redwood Cove, in 2015.

That book set the template.

The fictional town of Redwood Cove grew out of her love of Mendocino on the Northern California coast. In Murder at Redwood Cove, Kelly Jackson arrives to manage the local bed-and-breakfast and quickly lands in a suspicious death investigation. Later books like Murder at the Mansion and Murder at the Fortune Teller's Table keep the same cozy frame but widen the town's history, friendships, and secrets.

What readers often like about Finsilver's work is the mix. The mysteries stay clean and puzzle-driven, but the books also make room for food events, local traditions, working friendships, and the odd little details that make a place feel lived in. The Silver Sentinels, a group of senior citizen sleuths, give the series much of its charm, and each novel brings in a dog with a special skill, from a cancer-sniffing basset hound to search-savvy companions that help nudge the story along.

She clearly enjoys the research.

That shows in books like Murder at the Mushroom Festival, with its foraging and food focus, and Murder in the Wine Country, which brings together local wineries, wild edible plants, and a fundraiser for veterans. Her stories return again and again to animals, community ties, and the ways small towns remember everything. Even when the crimes are serious, the mood stays welcoming rather than grim.

Away from the page, Finsilver lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband and their dogs, Kylie and Ellie. She has ridden western style since childhood, spent time in the National Ski Patrol, and has said that touching whales in San Ignacio Lagoon was one of the highlights of her life. She also likes cooking, has joked about owning too many cookbooks, and, as you might expect, is a big reader. Those interests fit neatly with fiction that never strays far from food, travel, animals, and outdoor life.