Julianne Holmes Books in Order

If you want the full series arc: Just Killing Time → Clock and Dagger → Chime and Punishment
If you want Ruth Clagan's origin story: Just Killing Time
If you like small-town rivalries and shop drama: Just Killing Time → Clock and Dagger
If you want the clock tower storyline: Clock and Dagger → Chime and Punishment

Julianne Holmes is the pen name Julie Hennrikus used for her Clock Shop Mysteries, and it fits a writer who clearly enjoys puzzles, useful skills, and the strange little frictions of small-town life. She came to crime fiction as a serious reader before she came to it as a writer. As a young reader, she moved from Encyclopedia Brown and Nancy Drew to Agatha Christie, then kept following that trail into classic mystery fiction. That love of the puzzle still sits right at the center of her books.

At Boston University, Hennrikus studied advertising, but theater turned out to be the real turning point. She got involved with Stage Troupe, discovered she loved the work that happens offstage, and soon found herself pulled toward arts administration. After a brief start in advertising, she moved into theater work and built a long career in the arts, including jobs with Harvard's Memorial Hall and Emerson Stage.

She spent years helping creative organizations run, teach, and keep the lights on.

Writing was there the whole time. She took workshops, wrote stories, and slowly figured out what kind of fiction actually excited her. The big shift came when someone in a class pointed out the obvious, the books she talked about most were mysteries, so why wasn't she writing one? She leaned into that question, added murder to the mix, and found the form that clicked.

Community mattered, too. Hennrikus became involved with Sisters in Crime more than twenty years ago, and that network gave her the kind of encouragement many writers need early on, people who took the work seriously before a contract ever showed up. She published short stories first, and one of her early milestones was seeing that work appear in anthology form. Around the same time, she was also setting big goals for herself, including finishing a thesis on Agatha Christie's use of point of view and finally writing a novel.

Then came the break that became Julianne Holmes. In 2013, she had the chance to pitch a mystery series about a clockmaker in western Massachusetts. The proposal sold, the Clock Shop books were born, and she chose a pen name with a family backstory, her mother had once considered giving her Julianne Holmes as part of her real name.

Just Killing Time introduced Ruth Clagan, a clockmaker who returns to Orchard, Massachusetts, inherits her grandfather's shop, and gets pulled into murder and local politics. Readers who like cozy mysteries tend to respond to the balance in these books, the craft details feel specific, the town feels lived in, and Ruth has just enough stubbornness to keep everything moving. Clock and Dagger and Chime and Punishment continue that mix of murder puzzle, old loyalties, and second chances. Just Killing Time was nominated for an Agatha Award for Best First Novel.

She didn't stop with one name.

As J.A. Hennrikus, she writes the Theater Cop mysteries, starting with A Christmas Peril, which puts her theater knowledge to work on the page. As Julia Henry, she wrote the Garden Squad books, beginning with Pruning the Dead. Across those different names, some patterns stay the same, New England settings, close-knit communities, and people trying to restore order after something has gone badly wrong. These days she lives in Somerville, Massachusetts, serves as the executive director of Sisters in Crime, hosts the Sisters in Crime Writers' Podcast, and continues to teach arts management. Her books may involve murder, but what really keeps them ticking is her interest in work, friendship, and the communities people choose to build.