LB Hathaway Books in Order

If you want the full Posie Parker story: Murder Offstage → The Tomb of the Honey Bee → Murder at Maypole Manor
If you like winter mysteries and old secrets: The Vanishing of Dr Winter → A Christmas Case
If you want glamour and travel: Murder of a Movie Star → Murder in Venice → Murder in Tuscany
If you want a strong later run: The Saltwater Murder → Murder on the White Cliffs → Marriage is Murder?

L.B. Hathaway is a British-born, Cambridge-educated writer who came to fiction by a route that was not especially tidy. Before she wrote full time, she spent almost a decade working as a lawyer at Lincoln's Inn in London.

That part matters, because her books often feel both well-built and slightly mischievous. She clearly enjoys puzzles, motive, and the way secrets work on people. Just as important, she brings a long-standing love of English history and Golden Age detective fiction to everything she writes.

History seems to be the steady thread through her work. Alongside crime fiction, she has written the Tudor-set Blood and Stars books, and she has also contributed to history magazines and websites. She writes like someone who enjoys the texture of the past, not only the big events, but the rooms, clothes, manners, jobs, and travel of it all.

Then came Posie Parker.

The Posie Parker mysteries are the books most readers know first, and it is easy to see why. Murder Offstage opens in 1921 London with a new detective, a stolen diamond, and a friend in serious trouble. From there the series keeps widening without losing its core. The Tomb of the Honey Bee turns into a fast-moving search that travels far beyond England. The Vanishing of Dr Winter leans into winter atmosphere, war memories, and family pain. Murder in Venice brings in masks, canals, and political tension. The appeal is easy to spot, classic whodunit structure, recurring friendships, a little romance, and enough movement to keep the books from feeling too polite or too still.

She likes movement.

Her mysteries sit in a nice space between cozy crime and historical adventure. There is usually a central puzzle, a closed circle of suspects, and a satisfying amount of clue-following. But there is also glamour, travel, and real emotional fallout. The 1920s are not just wallpaper in these books. They are full of postwar shadows, social change, bright surfaces, and the feeling that old rules are starting to wobble.

That contrast seems to suit Hathaway. One scene might give you a country house, Christmas lights, or a carefully poured cup of tea. The next might bring blackmail, a stalker, a missing guest, or a body in the wrong place. She has a taste for old houses, dramatic settings, and people who are not telling the whole truth, which is a very solid recipe for this kind of series.

Her other interests include fast downhill skiing, theatre-going, strong tea, Tudor history, and exploring castles. It is hard not to see the link. Speed, drama, old stones, and a fascination with the past all turn up again in the mood of her fiction.

What makes Hathaway interesting is that she did not come to novels from one single lane. She studied at Cambridge, worked in law, wrote about history, and built stories out of the things she clearly loves reading herself. If you start with Murder Offstage, you get the full Posie Parker run from the beginning. If you start later, you still get the same pleasures, period detail, brisk plotting, and a heroine who keeps asking one more question.