Loretta Ross Books in Order

If you want the true starting point: Death & the Redheaded Woman → Death & the Brewmaster's Widow → Death & the Gravedigger's Angel → Death & the Viking's Daughter
If you like history-rich mysteries: Death & the Redheaded Woman → Death & the Gravedigger's Angel → Death & the Viking's Daughter
If you want the full Wren and Death relationship arc: Death & the Redheaded Woman → Death & the Brewmaster's Widow → Death & the Viking's Daughter
If you want the heaviest personal stakes: Death & the Brewmaster's Widow → Death & the Gravedigger's Angel

Loretta Ross was born in Springfield, Oregon, and she lives and works in rural Missouri. She is both a historian and a mystery writer, which is a good clue to what makes her fiction tick. Her books are full of old houses, local stories, and the feeling that the past never stays quietly in the past.

Before publishing fiction, Ross studied at Cottey College and later earned a BA in archaeology from the University of Missouri, Columbia. That background gives her mysteries a grounded texture. She notices buildings, objects, scraps of paper, and the small human traces that other writers might hurry past.

She also grew up going to auctions, something she has said she started doing as a child. That early fascination became the backbone of her best-known series, because auctions bring together family history, abandoned belongings, half-forgotten rumors, and all kinds of secrets.

It was a smart fit.

Ross has loved mysteries since she first learned to read. Wanting to write professionally, though, took longer. In one interview she said she spent years without the confidence to really chase that dream, and that supportive friends helped nudge her toward publication.

She has also spoken warmly about cozy mysteries as a form that lets readers spend time with recurring characters without leaning too hard on graphic violence. She likes series for exactly that reason. Finish one book, and you do not have to say goodbye yet.

That sense of refuge matters.

Her debut novel, Death & the Redheaded Woman, arrived in 2015 and introduced auctioneer Wren Morgan and private investigator Death Bogart, whose name is pronounced Deeth. Wren works in the auction world, Death is a disabled Marine combat veteran turned investigator, and together they give the books both warmth and momentum. In Death & the Redheaded Woman, Ross opens with a corpse in a mansion and a trail of missing jewels. Death & the Brewmaster's Widow turns toward grief, family history, and an old brewery in St. Louis, while Death & the Gravedigger's Angel and Death & the Viking's Daughter keep widening the canvas with older local stories, strange objects, and present-day danger.

The past is rarely just background in her work. Again and again, Ross ties current trouble to older stories, whether that means lost jewels, brewing history, wartime echoes, missing keepsakes, or long-buried family questions. She has said she is especially drawn to general history and Missouri history, and to the ordinary people who lived before us.

There is also a slightly eerie streak running through her interests. Ross has said she has long been fascinated by true ghost stories, and she has written beyond the strict borders of cozy mystery. She wrote poetry when she was younger, and later published the standalone mystery Julia's Heart, a book with a more openly paranormal premise. Even there, the appeal feels familiar, hidden histories, unsettled emotions, and the question of what the dead still leave behind.

She has said one of her favorite parts of being an author is that research gives her permission to ask odd questions and dig into anything that catches her interest. That curiosity suits her perfectly. Her fiction depends on old objects, local lore, and the odd detail that suddenly turns out to matter.

These days, Ross still presents herself in a refreshingly plainspoken way. She is a mystery writer, a self-described cat servant, and, by her own joke, an occasional raccoon scolder. That small note of humor feels very on brand. Her fiction likes human mess, strange details, and people who keep looking when the easy answer does not feel true.