Lauren Carr Books in Order

Widowed former Navy JAG Joshua Thornton moves back to Chester, West Virginia with his five children and finds an old letter about a hidden body. The questions it raises pull him into a decades-old mystery that powerful people would rather keep quiet.

A journalist's book project reopens the long-ago death of cheerleader Tricia Wheeler, and another young woman soon winds up dead. Prosecutor Joshua Thornton must sort through old feelings, old lies, and a killer who thought the case was buried.

On the day his divorce collapses, former homicide detective Mac Faraday learns he has inherited a fortune, an estate, and a new family in Spencer, Maryland. He arrives to find a neighbor's murder unsolved and the whole gated community bristling with secrets.

Mac is settling into his inheritance at Spencer Manor when his ex-wife arrives wanting another chance. Before he can send her away, she and her lover are murdered in his penthouse suite, leaving Mac to clear his own name.

On Christmas Day, Gnarly lands in the doghouse after stealing the holiday feast, then hears a cry for help from a tiny neighbor dog. This short tale lets Mac Faraday's unruly German shepherd play hero in a festive home-invasion mystery.

Cameron Gates investigates the murder of Cherry Pickens, a porn star found in an abandoned freezer, and the case hits close to home when the freezer belongs to Joshua Thornton's cousin. The deeper they dig, the more this fatal homecoming exposes buried local ties.

A lost masterpiece resurfaces years after artist Ilysa Ramsay was murdered, and Mac Faraday cannot resist the mystery behind it. At the same time, Joshua Thornton and Cameron Gates pursue a killing that does not fit a convicted serial killer's pattern.

Archie Monday becomes the target of a mob boss who comes to Spencer to finish the job himself. Mac expects a protection detail, but soon bodies are dropping and the whole town is heating up.

Fame-hungry Khloe Everest returns to Spencer after years of chasing publicity, only to be murdered before she can stage her next grand entrance. Mac's investigation leads into celebrity obsession, politics, and an old enemy he thought was gone.

Told to stay away from his own locked-up mountain property, Mac does the opposite and finds Astaire Castle waiting with its long list of suicides, disappearances, and murders. A quick look around becomes a deadly investigation full of eerie rumors and stranger-than-usual suspects.

Mac and Archie finally decide to elope, only to have Gnarly discover a corpse in the church office before the vows. The hunt for a killer among seemingly kind churchgoers puts romance on hold yet again.

This collection follows prosecutor Joshua Thornton and detective Cameron Gates through linked mysteries and shorter pieces that mix romance, danger, and small-town secrets. It works well as a sampler of Carr's Lovers in Crime world.

Cameron Gates is warned not to take seriously an elderly neighbor's tale about one of her girls being murdered. After Dolly is killed and Joshua Thornton uncovers a missing deputy's secret case, their two investigations collide in a long-hidden scandal.

When two people are slaughtered at their Deep Creek lake house, washed-up teen idol Lenny Frost takes hostages and demands that Mac Faraday find the real killer. Mac has less than twelve hours to solve the case and get everyone out alive.

Five women are found murdered in a Washington, DC townhome, and Lieutenant Murphy Thornton believes the answer lies in what connected them. The case turns personal when one victim links back to Cameron Gates and her first husband's old hit-and-run death.

A strange phone call from a missing young woman draws Mac Faraday into a five-year-old cold case just as Deep Creek Lake prepares for a glittering charity ball. Someone has gathered the victim's friends and enemies in one place, and murder is on the guest list.

With only three days left until Mac and Archie's New Year's Eve wedding, armed killers crash Spencer Manor. As guests pour into Deep Creek Lake, Mac and his friends race to untangle the secret that could turn the celebration into a funeral.

Days before David O'Callaghan's wedding, he learns he is still legally married to his first wife. What should be a quick trip to fix the paperwork turns into murder, and Mac has only days to save the ceremony.

What begins as a joke campaign to make Gnarly mayor of Spencer becomes deadly when a human candidate is murdered. Mac and the gang must survive dirty politics, old grudges, and a race where even the dog is a suspect.

J.J. Thornton comes home after law school and stirs up old family tension when he rekindles a romance with older rock star Suellen Russell. When murder follows, Joshua and Cameron have to save their son before he lands in the killer's sights.

Jessica Faraday's nightmares point back to a slaughter near a Virginia winery that she may have witnessed as a child. She and Murphy Thornton return with reporter Dallas Walker to face buried trauma, family secrets, and a killer still lurking in the story.

Carr splits the action between a fishing trip gone wrong and a murder writers conference that turns all too real. Mac, Archie, Jessica, and Murphy each end up chasing separate killers in a lively crossover packed with family banter.

Mac Faraday reunites with members of his old homicide squad at a wedding, but the gathering revives an unsolved double murder from years ago. When a new investigator is killed, Mac has no choice but to dig into the past of his own friends.

Decades after Sandy Lipton and her unborn child disappeared, retired FBI agent Chris Matheson returns home still shadowed by suspicion. With the Geezer Squad, he starts reopening the cold case that nearly ruined his life.

Date night turns deadly when Jessica Faraday and Murphy Thornton take a cooking class at the Stepford Kitchen Studio. After the glamorous chef is murdered and Murphy disappears, Jessica has to crack the polished facade before time runs out.

This collection pairs the Chris Matheson novella Spring Thaw with shorter mysteries featuring Mac Faraday, Joshua Thornton, Cameron Gates, and Gnarly. It is a quick way to sample Carr's mix of murder, humor, and recurring characters.

As a boy, Chris Matheson heard novelist Mercedes Livingston say she was working on her greatest mystery, then watched her vanish forever. Decades later, a signed book and a letter reopen the case and send the Geezer Squad after a very patient killer.

A businessman's murder looks open and shut when the weapon is found with his estranged son-in-law. But when J.J. Thornton takes the defense and a missing husband surfaces, Cameron Gates realizes the truth is rooted in much older lies.

Chris Matheson spots Blair, the wife he was told died years ago, alive on a city street. His search for answers pulls the Geezer Squad into a tangled case of false deaths, missing operatives, and an international killer.

Investigative journalist Nikki Bryant returns to Pine Grove with her boxer Elmo and immediately finds her childhood rival dead. The case may connect to the explosive story Ashleigh Addison was teasing, and to Nikki's father's unsolved murder.

At a wedding reception, Murphy Thornton hears about a manuscript tracking witnesses who died after an attempted presidential assassination. Two days later the writer is dead, and Murphy is left following a conspiracy that may still be killing.

True crime blogger Erica Hart survives a plunge into Deep Creek Lake, then a body turns up at Mac Faraday's son's new house. With David on paternity leave, Deputy Chief Dusty O'Meara must solve a murder while Erica chases the truth on her own.

Twenty years after Jodi Gibbons was suspected of killing her mother, Nikki Bryant finally gets a chance to hear her side. When Jodi is murdered before the interview, Nikki digs into the secret someone has been desperate to bury.

Everyone is stunned when Chris Matheson's body is found in the woods near an international airport, especially Chris himself. The dead man is carrying Chris's federal badge, and the Geezer Squad has to figure out who he is and who wanted him dead.

Four years after Bryce Greyson's cheating husband was gunned down, the remains of her former roommate are uncovered at her alma mater. Branded the obvious suspect, Bryce hires ex-K-9 officer Sam MacKade to prove the neat answer is the wrong one.

A DNA test blows apart Helen Clarke-Matheson's understanding of her own family history. As Chris Matheson and the Geezer Squad dig into decades of disappearances and lies, the past starts to look a lot like murder.