Jo Spain Books in Order
Explore all Jo Spain books in order, including Inspector Tom Reynolds and standalones, with summaries, series background, and guidance on where to start reading.
Last updated: June 7, 2026
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Publication Order
13 books
With Our Blessing
by Jo Spain
2015
Detective Tom Reynolds is called when an elderly nun is found tortured and posed in Dublin’s Phoenix Park. The trail leads to a remote former Magdalene Laundry, where snow closes in, secrets surface and a killer driven by old sins is still at large.
Beneath the Surface
by Jo Spain
2016
When government adviser Ryan Finnegan is found brutally murdered inside Leinster House, Inspector Tom Reynolds is pulled into Ireland’s most secure building. What looks like a political assassination soon exposes personal grudges, backroom deals and a lethal tangle of ambition and betrayal.
Sleeping Beauties
by Jo Spain
2017
After teenager Fiona Holland vanishes from a small Irish village, Tom Reynolds is called when multiple young women’s bodies are unearthed in the valley of Glendalough. Hunting a predator who targets the vulnerable, his team races to find Fiona before she becomes the next grave.
The Confession
by Jo Spain
2018
Disgraced banker Harry McNamara is savagely attacked in his own home while his wife watches, frozen. An apparent stranger calmly confesses, insisting it wasn’t planned. As police probe the case, the tangled truths of Harry’s marriage, money and past sins slowly surface.
The Darkest Place
by Jo Spain
2018
A mass grave uncovered at a shuttered island psychiatric hospital looks like history—until Tom Reynolds learns a long-missing doctor lies among the dead. On a windswept island cut off from the mainland, he must untangle decades of cruelty, cover-ups and fresh murder.
Dirty Little Secrets
by Jo Spain
2019
In an upscale gated enclave, Olive Collins’ body sits undiscovered in her cottage for three months while her neighbors pretend not to notice she’s gone. When police finally investigate, the perfect cul‑de‑sac fractures, revealing grudges, lies and six households with motives for her death.
The Boy Who Fell
by Jo Spain
2019
After popular teenager Luke Connolly is raped and pushed from an abandoned house during a party, local police quickly arrest a suspect. Promoted detective Tom Reynolds is asked to look again and uncovers a world of privilege, bullying and dangerous loyalties among Luke’s friends.
After the Fire
by Jo Spain
2020
On a busy Dublin afternoon, a young woman staggers onto the street, naked and burned, having escaped a deliberate house fire where others were trapped. Drawn back into frontline work, Tom Reynolds follows the trail into a hidden house of captives and a far‑reaching criminal web.
Six Wicked Reasons
by Jo Spain
2020
Ten years after twenty‑one‑year‑old Adam Lattimer vanishes off the Irish coast, his sudden return forces his fractured family back to their seaside home. As siblings reunite with their controlling father, buried betrayals and simmering rivalries build toward one carefully planned act of revenge.
The Perfect Lie
by Jo Spain
2021
Erin Kennedy’s life on Long Island shatters when her detective husband jumps from their fourth‑floor balcony just as colleagues arrive to arrest him. Eighteen months later, Erin is on trial for his murder, piecing together Danny’s secrets and a buried campus scandal to clear her name.
The Last to Disappear
by Jo Spain
2022
When Alex Evans is told his sister has drowned near the Arctic resort town where she worked, he travels to Lapland expecting a tragic accident. Teaming up with local detective Agatha Koskinen, he soon links Vicky’s death to a string of missing women and a town full of secrets.
Don't Look Back
by Jo Spain
2023
Luke Miller’s whirlwind marriage finally gets a honeymoon when his wife Rose whisks him to a Caribbean island. As their week ends, Rose confesses she killed a man who broke into their London flat, dragging Luke and a determined fixer into the dangerous secrets of her past.
The Trial
by Jo Spain
2024
Ten years after her boyfriend vanishes from elite St Edmunds college, Dani MacLochlainn returns to campus as an undercover detective and lecturer. Investigating a controversial Alzheimer’s drug trial, she must confront big‑pharma corruption, academic privilege and the mystery of what really happened to Theo.
Where should I start?
If you want to start with the main detective series: With Our Blessing → Beneath the Surface → Sleeping Beauties → The Darkest Place
If you like political and institutional intrigue: Beneath the Surface → The Boy Who Fell → After the Fire
If you prefer standalone psychological thrillers: The Confession → Dirty Little Secrets → Six Wicked Reasons
If you're after twisty international standalones: The Perfect Lie → The Last to Disappear → Don't Look Back → The Trial
Author bio
Jo Spain grew up on the north side of Dublin, in the Belcamp area near Coolock, in a working‑class family where money was tight but stories mattered.
Books were her first escape route.
As a child she tore through Enid Blyton adventures and anything she could borrow from teachers or the local library, using reading to block out the rougher edges of estate life and to imagine other places and futures.
Spain attended St John of God’s School in Artane and went on to study Politics and Philosophy at Trinity College Dublin, a leap that was unusual for someone from her neighbourhood. She supported herself with jobs in shops and bookmakers, learning at close range how class, power and money operate in modern Ireland.
After university she moved into journalism and then politics, working in Leinster House as a parliamentary and economic adviser. Writing speeches, policy papers and briefings honed her feel for how decisions are made behind closed doors and for the language people use to sell those decisions to the public.
Her father’s history — he was adopted from a mother‑and‑baby home — and her research into the Magdalene Laundries gave her the seed of a crime novel. While holding down a demanding day job and raising a young family, Spain wrote at night and on weekends; the manuscript that became With Our Blessing was shortlisted for the Richard and Judy Search for a Bestseller competition and secured her first book deal.
That debut introduced Garda detective Tom Reynolds and a series of procedurals that balance puzzle‑driven investigations with social commentary. Over six novels, from With Our Blessing and Beneath the Surface to Sleeping Beauties, The Darkest Place, The Boy Who Fell and After the Fire, Reynolds and his team confront murders rooted in church and state abuses, political corruption, serial predators and organised crime.
In parallel, Spain has built a strong list of stand‑alone thrillers. Books such as The Confession, Dirty Little Secrets, Six Wicked Reasons, The Perfect Lie, The Last to Disappear, Don't Look Back and The Trial move between gated communities, dysfunctional families, snowbound resorts, New York apartments and elite campuses, but they share an interest in privilege, guilt and the quiet damage people do to one another.
Her crime novels now appear regularly on Irish bestseller lists and have been translated into multiple languages, bringing a distinctly Irish blend of warmth, humour and darkness to readers around the world.
Spain also writes for television, co‑creating the crime drama Taken Down, co‑writing and executive producing the Dublin‑set series Harry Wild, and working on other European projects, including adapting her own Tom Reynolds books for the screen; she lives in Dublin with her husband, Martin, and their four children, and often works out new plots while running through the woods near home.
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