Julie Smith Books in Order

Rebecca Schwartz spends one strange night at a feminist bordello, gets caught in a police raid, and comes home to a corpse on her floor. To clear her boyfriend, she has to solve the murder herself.

A famous sourdough starter is headed for auction, and suddenly bakers, rivals, and business sharks all have reasons to fight dirty. When murder follows, Rebecca Schwartz's law partner lands in the middle of the mess.

Paul MacDonald is a former reporter and struggling novelist doing odd jobs for a private investigator. When his boss is murdered, Paul is pulled into the kind of dangerous plot he has always wanted to write.

Rebecca Schwartz's morning at an Easter sunrise service turns ugly when a body appears nailed to a landmark cross. Then a killer seems to declare war on San Francisco's tourist trade, and Rebecca is in the middle of it.

Paul MacDonald suddenly finds himself guarding what may be the missing manuscript of Huckleberry Finn. When the woman connected to it is murdered, he is surrounded by collectors, obsessives, and suspects who want it badly.

During Mardi Gras, the King of Carnival is shot by someone dressed as Dolly Parton. Rookie cop Skip Langdon, born to the city's upper crust but uneasy in it, has to untangle family secrets, public scandal, and murder.

When a woman is found murdered in the Monterey Bay Aquarium's kelp forest, Rebecca Schwartz's friend Marty looks terribly guilty. Rebecca digs into jealousy, rumors, and a second murder that makes the whole case much more dangerous.

A killer borrowing the Axeman legend is hunting victims inside New Orleans recovery groups. Skip Langdon joins the task force and has to move through meetings where anonymity is supposed to keep people safe.

On the eve of JazzFest, beloved producer Ham Brocato is found stabbed in his own kitchen. Skip Langdon suspects his missing teenage sister may be either the killer or the next victim.

Rebecca Schwartz's law partner becomes a prime suspect in the death of an arts critic, but refuses to explain her alibi. To save her friend, Rebecca has to dig through secret lives and the skeletons people hide best.

A young man dies after posting online about seeing his father murdered, and Skip Langdon is left sorting through rumors, family secrets, and one of the earliest virtual communities. The internet is new, but human cruelty is not.

A prominent restaurateur is murdered, and much of his family vanishes in the aftermath, including his daughter and baby grandchild. Skip Langdon has to solve the killing while finding the missing heirs before the case gets worse.

On leave from the force and struggling to steady herself, Skip Langdon is drawn toward a preacher with a saintly public image and something far darker underneath. The deeper she looks, the more dangerous he becomes.

After a respected New Orleans police chief is gunned down, a vigilante group called the Jury starts handing out its own justice. Skip Langdon sees the hand of her old nemesis behind the chaos and goes after him.

Trying to track down the doctor who saddled her with a terrible birth name, Talba Wallis stumbles into a missing-person case and a murder. Skip Langdon and Talba circle the same corruption scandal from very different angles.

This short story collection gathers dark, funny, and unsettling crime tales, including appearances by Rebecca Schwartz and Skip Langdon. The stories look past the crime scene and into the private rooms where trouble starts.

Talba Wallis takes a job with private investigator Eddie Valentino and gets more than office work. A dangerous case involving a vulnerable girl pulls Talba into real detective work while stirring painful questions about her own family.

Talba Wallis refuses to believe her friend Babalu died by suicide or overdose. Her search leads into old family secrets, small-town racism, and the kind of buried history that can still get people killed.

Skip Langdon's old enemy, Errol Jacomine, is back in a new and even slipperier form. While she investigates cemetery thefts, the case turns personal as Jacomine starts aiming at her friends, her lover, and Skip herself.

A glamorous arts patron is found shot dead in her pool, and Talba Wallis's half sister is the leading suspect. Talba and Eddie dive into literary egos, old lies, and a victim who was easier to hate than to understand.

When Eddie Valentino's lawyer daughter is framed on a drug charge, Talba Wallis goes after the judge she blames. Her undercover job inside his troubled household uncovers corruption, family poison, and then murder.

Teen burglar Reeno is sent to a strange school while her beloved sister is dying of an unexplained illness. There she joins a band of young psychics and a telepathic cat in a race against an ancient Mayan curse.

Smith's nonfiction guide is aimed at novelists who want practical help, not rigid rules. She focuses on finding your own process, sharpening voice and plot, and getting those crucial opening pages to work.

Diva Delish, drag queen, bartender, and part-time detective, takes a case from a gutterpunk in the Faubourg Marigny. What follows is a quick, funny New Orleans mystery full of local voices and sharp one-liners.

Rebecca Schwartz gets a strange legal question from someone she has not heard from in years, then learns he is dead the next day. The call points her toward a dark, baffling murder with more menace than she expected.

What should have been a simple move turns grim when Rebecca Schwartz finds a prospective roommate digging what looks very much like a grave. The mystery is short, dark, and sharper than her usual outings.

When the heir to a great New Orleans jazz legacy is gunned down and the writer on his obituary dies soon after, singer Queenie Feran smells a cover-up. She sends Talba Wallis looking for the truth.

These caper stories follow dim but ambitious crooks Roy and Forest as they chase bigger scores than they can safely handle. Their plans keep colliding with greed, bad timing, and a very dangerous woman named Heidi.

This sampler gathers one Skip Langdon novel, one Rebecca Schwartz novel, one Talba Wallis novel, and the short story Private Chick. It is a lively cross-section of Julie Smith's San Francisco and New Orleans mysteries.

A serial killer is using short-term rentals to stage murders, and a teenage runaway may be the only witness who got away. Skip Langdon races through New Orleans to find the girl before the killer does.

In the chaos after Hurricane Katrina, Skip Langdon is told to keep the peace in a city with no phones, no power, and almost no rules. When she stumbles onto a possible homicide and rumors of police killings, survival and justice collide.