Liz Evans Books in Order

Liz Evans was born in Highgate, north London, and went to school in nearby Barnet. She later attended college in London. Biographical notes place her in Hertfordshire, giving her a long connection to the wider London area that appears in both her modern crime writing and her wartime novels.

Before publishing fiction, Evans worked a notably varied run of jobs. Her working life included plastic-moulding manufacturers, Japanese banks, film production and BBC Radio. She also worked as a secretary and later as a contracts manager for a computer company. It is a practical, people-facing background, and her books have room for office frustrations, odd clients, small-town gossip and the ways people behave when money or fear gets involved.

Then came the books.

Evans first published as Patricia Grey. Her 1994 debut, Junction Cut, begins a World War II mystery sequence set in London and featuring Detective Chief Inspector Jack Stamford and Sergeant Sarah McNeill. The pair return in Balaclava Row, Good Hope Station and Cutter's Wharf. These novels use the pressure of wartime life, close-knit streets and docks, and the fact that a crime rarely stays private for long.

The historical books take their time with neighborhoods, families and the day-to-day work of police officers. Junction Cut begins with the murder of a teenage girl in Kentish Town during the Phoney War. Balaclava Row moves to another North London community, while the later novels continue to place personal loyalties and secrets alongside the disruptions of war.

In 1997, Evans published Who Killed Marilyn Monroe? under her own name and introduced Grace Smith. Grace is a former police officer now working as a private investigator in the fictional south-coast town of Seatoun. The title's Marilyn Monroe is a donkey, which tells readers something useful about the series from the start: the cases can be strange, the danger is real, and Grace is not above taking an odd job when she needs the money.

Grace's investigations continue through JFK Is Missing!, Don't Mess With Mrs In Between!, Barking!, Sick as a Parrot and Cue the Easter Bunny. Readers who enjoy the series tend to find a mix of private-eye puzzles, messy personal lives and dry jokes. Grace works with missing-person cases, old crimes, threatening letters and murders, while the recurring people around her make Seatoun feel both familiar and slightly chaotic.

She doesn't get neat cases or quiet colleagues.

Some Grace Smith books later appeared in digital editions with different titles. JFK Is Missing! was also issued as Blindsided, Barking! as The Coldest Case, Don't Mess With Mrs In Between! as Heir Apparent, and Cue the Easter Bunny as Caught in the Act. The change can be confusing for readers building a complete reading list, but the original publication order remains the simplest way in.

Evans has also written Taboo as Patricia Grey, introducing DS Bailey. Her crime writing received recognition along the way: she was shortlisted for the Crime Writers' Association Dagger in the Library in 2002, and Cue the Easter Bunny was nominated for a Lefty Award for humorous mystery in 2006. Across both names, her books favor capable investigators, crowded communities and trouble that starts close to home.