John Pickett Mysteries Books in Order

John Pickett's first big case begins with a dead viscount, a vanished butler, and a widow who looks very much like the obvious suspect. John is not convinced, and his refusal to settle for the easy answer changes his life.

Julia escapes to Yorkshire after scandal, only to find a country house humming with tension. When the local vicar dies after dinner, John comes north disguised as her footman to investigate murder, secrets, and old resentments.

In Scotland, Julia and her nephews find an unconscious woman who may be a laird's daughter missing for fifteen years. When the family patriarch dies just after changing his will, John and Julia have another knotty case on their hands.

A London dinner party ends with one guest shot dead, and John arrives to investigate at the worst possible moment. He and Julia are also dealing with the fallout from learning their recent masquerade as husband and wife was legally binding.

Before Bow Street, John Pickett was a hungry fourteen-year-old thief with a transported father and no future worth naming. This prequel follows the lucky arrest that put him in Patrick Colquhoun's path and changed everything.

Jewel thefts at Drury Lane send John undercover as a gentleman, with Julia along to keep him from embarrassing himself. Then the theatre catches fire, and the investigation suddenly turns personal.

While John and Julia wait for their accidental marriage to be untangled, a robbery at a Piccadilly linen draper's shop gives him something else to think about. The case is small, but it shows how sharp he already is.

John's honeymoon in Somersetshire turns into a trial by family when he meets Julia's disapproving parents and hears rumors of a long-lost sister's ghost. Then a groom is murdered, and the past refuses to stay buried.

Newly married and touchy about living on Julia's money, John takes a case from a countess who thinks her husband wants her dead. A masked ball, class tensions, and a very uneasy marriage make this one cut close to home.

An anonymous letter draws John and Julia to the Lake District, where his contact is killed before he can explain anything. Since Julia witnessed the murder, the couple quickly realize the killer may not be finished.

A fresh case sends John west with fellow runner Harry Carson, but the real danger begins when Julia is abducted. The pursuit races through England, Wales, and Ireland, with old grief and revenge close behind.

A child fleeing a botched robbery looks uncannily like John Pickett, and the clue leads him to a ten-year-old half-brother in the London slums. To save the boy from a criminal gang and the gallows, John has to move fast.

With his private inquiry business going nowhere, John Pickett is low enough to wonder whether the world would be better without him. One knock on the head drops him into a strange alternate life where he was never there at all.

After leaving Bow Street, John Pickett takes a risky job rescuing a young woman from a private asylum for opium-eaters. Getting inside is easy. Getting back out, and sorting truth from deception, is much harder.

John finally has a respectable home life, a growing business, and a baby on the way when his father returns from Botany Bay. Less than a day later the old rogue is dead, and family business turns into murder.