JR Ellis Books in Order

If you want to start from the beginning: The Body in the Dales / The Body in Jingling Pot → The Quartet Murders → The Murder at Redmire Hall
If you love locked-room tricks and stage magic: The Murder at Redmire Hall → The Royal Baths Murder → The Railway Murders
If you prefer atmospheric village and rural cases: The Nidderdale Murders → Murder at St Anne's
If you like coastal or gothic vibes: The Whitby Murders → Murder at St Anne's

J. R. Ellis has spent most of his life in Yorkshire, walking its hills, riding its trains and listening to the local stories that now feed into his crime fiction. He writes the Yorkshire Murder Mystery novels featuring DCI Jim Oldroyd, along with poetry, ghost stories and biography.

He grew up in a working class part of Huddersfield, where books and second hand paperbacks opened up other worlds. At school he failed the old 11 plus exam, but that early setback made him stubborn about proving what he could do.

Over time teachers and mentors encouraged his love of reading and language, and he eventually went on to study at Oxford University.

After university Ellis returned to Yorkshire and built a long career in further education, mainly in and around Leeds. He started writing in the 1970s, squeezing ghost stories, poems and early crime pieces into the gaps between classes, marking and family life.

His fascination with puzzling crimes began even earlier, watching old Sherlock Holmes films and television mysteries before devouring Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie and other classic detective stories. Later he discovered specialists in locked room and impossible crimes, as well as stage magicians and illusionists whose carefully planned deceptions showed him how much pleasure there can be in a well constructed trick.

Those influences show up strongly in the DCI Oldroyd books, which mix modern police work with seemingly impossible crimes that turn on tiny details. The novels are set across real Yorkshire landscapes, from dales and market towns to spa baths, coastal resorts and heritage railways, always with an eye on local history, dialect and humour.

Oldroyd himself is a thoughtful senior detective who enjoys music, good food and puzzles more than office politics, supported by younger colleagues Andy Carter and Steph Johnson. Ellis likes to put ordinary people in extraordinary situations, and though the murders are serious the tone stays closer to puzzle and character than to graphic violence.

In many of the books he threads in social issues, from harassment and abuse of power to rural tensions and prejudice, letting them emerge naturally from the plot. At the same time he keeps a strong sense of fair play, inviting readers to solve both the who and the how of each crime.

When he retired from teaching he finally had the time to write more seriously. Joining a writers group in Otley gave him regular feedback and encouragement, and during this period he completed the first Oldroyd novel set in the caves beneath the Yorkshire Dales. The books soon found readers well beyond Yorkshire and have since been translated for crime fans in other countries.

Ellis still lives in Yorkshire and continues to explore its villages, waterways and back roads in search of new stories. Away from the Oldroyd series he has worked on a screenplay about the poet Edward Thomas, written about his Irish mother in law's extraordinary life and is slowly shaping a memoir of growing up in 1950s and 1960s Huddersfield.