Josie Welford Books in Order

Josie Welford gives Judith Cutler room to do something slightly different. These books are still crime novels, but they come at mystery through food, village life, and the sharp eye of a middle-aged woman who has little patience for nonsense. Josie is funny, practical, and more than capable of reading a room, which in a mystery series turns out to be a very useful skill.

The series starts with The Food Detective, a book that grew into Josie's story even though the original idea was built around food inspector Nick Thomas, a former policeman badly shaken by past trauma. That tells you something important straight away. Josie has presence. Once she steps into the foreground, the books belong to her.

She is quick-tongued, curious, and very good on human appetite, in every sense.

Food is more than decoration here. It is part of how people gather, gossip, judge, comfort, and lie. Josie moves through kitchens, pubs, restaurants, and parish spaces, so the stories feel full of daily life. But Cutler does not treat rural England as a postcard. Devon and the village settings in these books have warmth, yes, but they also have suspicion, division, bad choices, and the occasional nasty surprise.

That becomes especially clear in The Chinese Takeout. By then Josie's world is fuller and her confidence as an investigator stronger. A young Chinese asylum seeker taking refuge in a church sounds like the start of a gentle village puzzle, but the novel uses that setup to dig into fear, loyalty, and how communities decide who belongs.

The tone is lighter than in some of Cutler's police series, but not weightless. Josie is funny because she notices absurdity, not because the stakes are low. She is also one of Cutler's most companionable leads. Readers who like spending time with a character, not just solving the puzzle, usually get on well with her.

This is a short series, only two books, which makes it easy to try. If you want crime fiction with food, social observation, and a heroine who feels seasoned rather than shiny, Josie Welford is a very appealing place to land.