Joan Hess Books in Order

Claire Malloy throws a bookstore party for a friend's steamy new novel and winds up with a corpse on her hands. The victim's romantic fiction may hide the clue to a very real killer.

Claire Malloy and her daughter head to a mock-murder weekend at a country inn, ready for harmless detective games. Then the fake victim turns up truly dead, and Claire has to solve a murder among amateur sleuths.

Retired bachelor Theo Bloomer travels to Israel to retrieve his wayward niece and winds up in the middle of a murder mystery. Family duty, travel discomfort, and reluctant sleuthing make for a neat change of pace.

Claire Malloy goes undercover at Farberville High after a respected teacher is accused of embezzlement. Then the principal dies, the teacher disappears, and school gossip turns into a real murder case.

This early young adult novel leaves murder behind for teenage romance and growing pains. Hess focuses on first love, changing plans, and the uneasy feeling that one big decision can reshape the future.

Arly Hanks comes back to sleepy Maggody after a bad divorce, hoping life will be simpler. Then an escaped convict and a missing sewage specialist land in her lap, and the town's quiet surface cracks wide open.

Chosen to play with an international youth orchestra in New York, violinist Lydia expects music and excitement. Instead she falls for a handsome Russian boy and stumbles into a dash of international intrigue.

When her friend is sidelined, Claire Malloy gets stuck running a beauty pageant and talent contest. Someone is already trying to kill the reigning queen, and soon Claire is chasing a murderer through sequins and bad manners.

A slick televangelist rolls into Maggody promising revival, prosperity, and a Christian theme park. Arly Hanks smells a swindle, and when a basketball coach is murdered, she has to prove faith is not the only thing being sold.

Arly Hanks returns from vacation to find Maggody overrun with a doom-spouting psychic, hippies, and fresh trouble. Then Robin Buchanon is found dead in a booby-trapped marijuana field, and the town's craziness gets serious.

Theo Bloomer is dragged to a Jamaican resort with his niece and her privileged friends, hoping only to endure the trip. Instead he gets kidnapping, extortion, drug smuggling, and murder in a brisk comic mystery.

Claire Malloy tries to help unhappy heiress Maribeth Galleston get her life back on track through a fancy diet program. Then a fatal accident and a murder at a fitness club make it look like Maribeth may be the real target.

A bank fire and a suspicious death turn one more Maggody uproar into serious business. Arly Hanks has to work through money troubles, local politics, and plenty of nonsense before the truth burns away.

This anthology gathers crime stories about beauty, bodies, and appearances, including Hess's award-winning title piece. It is a sharp, witty sampler of women-centered mysteries with humor, bite, and more than one nasty little surprise.

A supermarket grand opening ends in disaster when poisoned tamales sicken dozens and leave one person dead. Arly Hanks has to dig into business rivalries and backwoods grudges before Maggody loses what little sense it has left.

A sleazy film crew comes to Maggody to shoot on location and throws the whole town off balance. Arly Hanks expects foolishness, but once actors start vanishing and bodies appear, the circus turns deadly.

Claire Malloy agrees to pet-sit two pampered basset hounds, then promptly loses them to a dognapper. Her search leads to stolen animals, a dead black-market dealer, and a case that gets nastier the closer she gets.

Claire Malloy dreads a trip to her late husband's Louisiana relatives, and the bayou manor does nothing to calm her nerves. When the family matriarch dies, the reunion turns into a swampy, suspicious inheritance case.

Ruby Bee wins a trip to New York for a cooking contest, then promptly winds up in jail. Arly Hanks heads to Manhattan to bail her out and finds dead bodies, bad recipes, and a hotel full of trouble.

This short Henrie O outing gives Hart's seasoned reporter another chance to test her instincts away from routine. It is a compact holiday mystery with travel, tension, and a quick investigative payoff.

Christmas arrives in Maggody with its usual mix of sentiment, gossip, and chaos. When a hometown celebration stirs up old tensions and deadly trouble, Arly Hanks has to keep the holiday season from turning murderous.

Claire's daughter gets involved with a cosmetics company through a nearby sorority, and the makeover craze quickly turns ugly. After a deadly hit-and-run and more suspicious incidents, Claire starts probing the beauty business.

Crop circles appear in Maggody and suddenly every crank, reporter, and UFO hunter wants a piece of the town. Arly Hanks is already losing patience when the extraterrestrial frenzy is interrupted by a very earthly murder.

Claire Malloy agrees to look into her friend Luanne's unsettling new suitor, a dentist whose past wives died under dark clouds. The deeper Claire digs, the less certain she is about who the real danger is.

Part mystery story and part puzzle game, this oddball experiment invites readers to solve a suspicious death themselves. Read the clues, work the case, and use the jigsaw element to uncover the answer.

Avant-garde artist Zeno Gorgias scandalizes Farberville with a coffin-centered yard installation and a talent for provoking enemies. When a body turns up inside the coffin, Claire Malloy has to decide who hated performance art enough to kill over it.

Claire Malloy gets a shocking call from a cousin she believed died decades ago after a murder in Mexico. What starts as a blackmail case soon spirals into kidnappings, false identities, and bodies across state lines.

A winter solstice gathering among Farberville's neo-pagans sounds like an odd holiday distraction for Claire Malloy. Then a wealthy benefactor is shot, and her seasonal snooping turns into a Christmas murder investigation.

A right-wing militia camps out behind a new pawnshop and turns Maggody into a powder keg. Arly Hanks sees trouble coming long before the first shot, then has to stop the town's madness from ending in murder.

Ruby Bee and the Maggody faithful head to Graceland for an Elvis pilgrimage, hoping for pure kitschy fun. Instead, one of the travelers ends up dead, and Arly Hanks has to investigate a murder far from home.

Farberville hosts a mystery convention, and Claire Malloy expects good business and literary chaos. Instead she gets a hospitalized organizer, a missing cat, vanished guests, and a death that proves the convention is all too real.

The internet arrives in Maggody, and Arly Hanks expects disaster long before the first crime. When a newcomer is murdered and the town's computers start spitting out digital mischief, she has to solve a very modern small-town case.

While chaperoning a youth trip, Arly Hanks thinks rowdy teenagers will be her biggest problem. Then a body turns up in a white robe, and Maggody's police chief gets stuck between a strange cult and a very real murder.

This collection shows Joan Hess in short form, mixing comic crime, revenge, and neatly turned mystery setups. It is a good sampler of her humor, her bite, and her taste for trouble.

Claire Malloy juggles a tree-sitting protest, a baby left on her doorstep, and a tidal wave of gossip. When the baby's young mother is arrested for killing her own father, Claire starts digging for the real story.

A lively collection of offbeat crime stories, this one leans into Hess's taste for rural absurdity and sudden disaster. Expect sharp twists, strange situations, and a strong undercurrent of wicked humor.

This story collection gathers Hess's shorter work in one place, pairing clever crimes with comic disasters and dark turns. It is a fast way to sample the range behind her longer mystery series.

Another outbreak of Maggody foolishness pulls Arly Hanks into a case that starts messy and gets worse fast. As outsiders, rumors, and local grudges collide, she has to separate backwoods theater from real danger.

Forced out of her apartment for repairs, Claire Malloy accepts a customer's offer to stay in a grand house. Then shady visitors arrive, the owner seems to be lying, and a dead body appears, disappears, and returns.

Arly Hanks comes home to find Maggody buzzing over a secretive new rehab center behind locked gates. When a young receptionist is found drowned, she has to cut through gossip, outsiders, and local secrets to find the killer.

Farberville's Renaissance Fair sounds harmless until one of the volunteers dies in an arson fire. Claire Malloy digs into the fair's strange little power struggles and finds murder hiding beneath the pageantry.

Claire Malloy's honeymoon in Luxor is supposed to mean sightseeing and peace, not crime. But kidnappings, shadowy pursuers, and strange behavior in Egypt force her to investigate before the trip becomes far more dangerous.

A Maggody golf event meant to raise money brings in pros, egos, and trouble. When the celebration turns deadly, Arly Hanks has to sort through local grudges and small-town scheming before somebody else winds up on the wrong side of the rough.

Claire Malloy goes house hunting and finds the perfect property, complete with a missing real estate agent and a suspicious old death. When another body falls at her feet, getting her dream home starts to look murderous.

Newly married and briefly at loose ends, Claire Malloy volunteers as an ESL tutor and lands in a troubled nonprofit. When a difficult student is murdered, Claire is pulled into embezzlement, vandalism, and a very tangled case.

Completed by Joan Hess from Elizabeth Peters's unfinished manuscript, this Amelia Peabody novel returns the Emerson family to Egypt. A beautiful ancient image, a sudden death, and missing antiquities point to danger far beyond the dig.

Humiliated during jury duty, Claire Malloy decides to get even by helping a woman accused of killing her husband. The case grows more complicated by the minute, and Claire's dreadful mother-in-law is on her way.

These short tales play with deception, bad bargains, and the kind of trouble people talk themselves into. It is a compact collection of Hess at her briskest, funniest, and most mischievous.