Jemima Shore Books in Order
Part ofAntonia Fraser Books in OrderThis page lists the Jemima Shore mysteries by Antonia Fraser in order, with short summaries, series background, and where to start reading.
Last updated: June 7, 2026
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Publication Order
10 books
Quiet as a Nun
by Antonia Fraser
1977
Jemima Shore returns to her old convent school after a nun, once a wealthy schoolfriend, dies in a locked tower. An inheritance, a second will, and a ghostly legend complicate the truth.
The Wild Island
by Antonia Fraser
1978
Jemima Shore travels to a remote Scottish island hoping for rest, but finds death, land feuds, and a family full of secrets. The landscape is beautiful, and not at all safe.
A Splash of Red
by Antonia Fraser
1981
Jemima Shore expects quiet research time in London, but novelist Chloe Fontaine’s disappearance leaves her in a Bloomsbury penthouse full of jealous lovers, strange calls, and murder.
Cool Repentance
by Antonia Fraser
1982
Jemima Shore enters the theatre world while covering a celebrated actress’s comeback. Old scandal, a dead lover, and a suspicious drowning make the stage feel more dangerous than glamorous.
Oxford Blood
by Antonia Fraser
1985
While filming a documentary on privileged Oxford students, Jemima Shore hears a dying midwife’s secret about Lord Saffron’s birth. A campus murder and attacks on Saffron turn gossip into danger.
Jemima Shore's First Case
by Antonia Fraser
1986
This collection reveals Jemima’s teenage first brush with detection at a Catholic boarding school, then follows her into later odd, sharp cases. Other stories add macabre twists beyond the series.
Your Royal Hostage
by Antonia Fraser
1987
Jemima Shore covers the wedding of Princess Amy to a minor European prince, only for royal romance to become a hostage crisis. Ceremony, media glare, and danger collide.
The Cavalier Case
by Antonia Fraser
1990
Jemima Shore begins with research into a ghost story and ends up among aristocratic secrets, old family history, and murder. Seventeenth-century romance casts a long shadow over the present.
Jemima Shore at the Sunny Grave
by Antonia Fraser
1991
This story collection sends Jemima Shore and other Fraser characters into murder, black comedy, and uneasy holiday settings. The title tale turns a Caribbean assignment into a family mystery.
Political Death
by Antonia Fraser
1994
Jemima Shore is drawn into old diaries, a vanished journalist, and a 1960s political scandal that threatens a modern election. Blackmail and murder soon make the past impossible to manage.
Series background & context
The Jemima Shore mysteries are Antonia Fraser’s crime novels about a television investigative reporter who keeps getting pulled into murder, secrets, and social unease. Jemima is stylish, observant, and well connected, but she is not a police officer. Her access comes from journalism, charm, curiosity, and the fact that people often underestimate her.
The series begins with Quiet as a Nun in 1977. Jemima returns to the convent school where she was educated after the suspicious death of Sister Miriam, once known as Rosabelle Powerstock. The setting gives the book its signature mix: enclosed community, old loyalties, money, religion, and a touch of Gothic menace.
It is a classic mystery setup with a television-age heroine.
Across the books, Fraser moves Jemima through a range of closed or semi-closed worlds. The Wild Island takes her to a remote Scottish island marked by family conflict and land obsession. A Splash of Red brings danger into a London literary circle after novelist Chloe Fontaine disappears. Cool Repentance moves behind the scenes of theatre and celebrity. Oxford Blood uses university privilege, inheritance, and a disputed bloodline to turn a documentary assignment into something much darker.
The later books widen the social map. Your Royal Hostage involves a royal wedding and a kidnapping. The Cavalier Case mixes an old house, ghost-story research, family history, and murder. Political Death sends Jemima into the dangerous afterlife of a 1960s political scandal. The two short story collections, Jemima Shore’s First Case and Jemima Shore at the Sunny Grave, add smaller cases and darker comic pieces, some starring Jemima and some not.
The tone is urbane rather than hard-boiled. These are mysteries with convents, islands, aristocrats, actors, politicians, journalists, writers, and people with old secrets they would rather keep buried. Fraser often uses the crime plot to poke around class, reputation, women’s independence, and the public performance of private life.
Jemima also reached television. Quiet as a Nun was adapted as a serial, and later stories inspired Jemima Shore Investigates.
If you are new, begin with Quiet as a Nun. It introduces Jemima, her world, and Fraser’s taste for a mystery where the setting is almost as important as the culprit.
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