Jeffrey B Burton Books in Order

If you want cadaver dogs and Chicago suspense: The Finders → The Keepers → The Lost
If you want a sibling detective duo: The Dead Years → The Second Grave → The Boy in the Wall
If you want FBI cases and political intrigue: The Chessman → The Lynchpin → The Eulogist
If you want his earlier, darker work: Shadow Play → Sleuth Slayer

Jeffrey B. Burton was born in Long Beach, California, but he grew up in St. Paul, Minnesota, after his family moved there when he was two. He later earned a BA in journalism from the University of Minnesota. That background fits his fiction pretty well. His books are cleanly built, fast on their feet, and interested in how ordinary lives get shoved into extraordinary trouble.

His reading life started early.

Burton has said his grandfather's stash of Louis L'Amour paperbacks helped turn him into a lifelong bookworm. Later, reading Stephen King as a kid made writing feel like a real possibility. He began with short stories and moved across horror, science fiction, mystery, and other corners of genre fiction. The first stories that sold quickly were often the horror ones, which gave him a good place to practice tension, pacing, and the art of making something unlikely feel believable.

Crime fiction was the long game.

For full-length books, mysteries and thrillers became his home base. He has also said that during a rough stretch at work, when a salary dispute and demotion left life feeling pretty bleak, he disappeared into Vince Flynn's Mitch Rapp novels for escape. That experience seems to have stuck with him. Burton's novels are built to entertain, move fast, and keep readers off balance, but they also leave room for humor and human connection.

His early books show that range. Shadow Play collected his darker short fiction. Sleuth Slayer, written with his father, Bruce W. Burton, takes a knowing swing at the mystery world itself as prominent mystery writers begin turning up dead. After that came the Drew Cady novels, The Chessman, The Lynchpin, and The Eulogist. Those books follow an FBI man who keeps getting pulled toward serial killers, political pressure, espionage, and cases that grow bigger every time he thinks he understands them.

A wider group of readers found Burton through the Mace Reid books. Starting with The Finders and continuing through The Keepers and The Lost, the series pairs Chicago area dog trainer Mace Reid with cadaver dogs, especially the golden retriever Vira. These novels are dark enough to satisfy thriller readers, but they also have warmth, wit, and a real affection for working dogs. The Finders won the Salt Lake County Library Services 2021 Reader's Choice Award.

He has kept that canine thread going in his newer Chicago K-9 novels, The Dead Years, The Second Grave, and The Boy in the Wall. This series shifts the focus to siblings Cory and Crystal Pratt, along with cadaver dogs Alice and Rex. The setup lets Burton do what he does well, mix brisk investigations with family strain, old secrets, and the practical details of search work.

Short fiction still matters to him too. His stories have appeared in dozens of magazines and anthologies, and his short story Liza appeared in The Twisted Book of Shadows, the anthology that won the 2019 Shirley Jackson Award for Edited Anthology. He is also active in Mystery Writers of America, International Thriller Writers, and the Horror Writers Association.

Burton lives in St. Paul with his wife, Cindy, and their dogs. That feels about right for a writer whose books are full of danger, bad timing, and very good noses.