Lucy Burdette Books in Order
Find Lucy Burdette books in order, from the Key West mysteries to her standalones, with short summaries, series guides, and easy where-to-start help.
Last updated: June 9, 2026
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Publication Order
28 books
Six Strokes Under
by Lucy Burdette
2002
Cassie Burdette is fighting for a place on the LPGA tour when a star golfer's psychiatrist is murdered. Under pressure on and off the course, she has to protect her game and clear her own name.
A Buried Lie
by Lucy Burdette
2003
Fresh off qualifying school, Cassie lands in a pro-am with four doctors from a pharmaceutical company and more ego than she can stand. When one of them turns up dead, sponsorship, medicine, and ambition collide.
Putt to Death
by Lucy Burdette
2004
Cassie hopes a job at a Connecticut country club will steady her game and her life. Then an unpopular member is killed, and the club's polished manners start hiding some very ugly motives.
Fairway to Heaven
by Lucy Burdette
2005
At a team tournament in Pinehurst, Cassie is already juggling impossible teammates and maid-of-honor duties. When the bride's father disappears, the week spirals into secrets, pressure, and danger off the fairway.
Disturbance in the Field
by Lucy Burdette
2006
In this tight short mystery, a therapist's professional boundaries are tested when a troubled case takes a frightening turn. Lucy Burdette packs unease, character, and danger into just a few pages.
Final Fore
by Lucy Burdette
2006
Cassie arrives at the U.S. Women's Open rattled by a missing caddie and fresh controversy around her career. When a rival dies, the most prestigious event in women's golf becomes a high-stakes murder case.
Deadly Advice
by Lucy Burdette
2007
Psychologist and advice columnist Rebecca Butterman is reeling from betrayal when her next-door neighbor dies under suspicious circumstances. Her search for answers takes her into the dating world, where bad advice can turn deadly.
Preaching to the Corpse
by Lucy Burdette
2007
Rebecca is drawn into a Christmas season killing when her minister calls for help after finding a parishioner dead. Church politics, divided loyalties, and her own tangled feelings make the case even harder to read.
Asking For Murder
by Lucy Burdette
2008
When therapist Annabelle Hart is found beaten and left for dead, Rebecca refuses to stay out of it. Filling in for Annabelle's patients leads her into buried tensions, cryptic clues, and a killer who may strike again.
The Itinerary
by Lucy Burdette
2011
Detective Jack Meigs heads to Key West for what should be a forced vacation, not a case. When a cruise passenger goes missing, the island getaway turns into a compact, clever mystery.
An Appetite for Murder
by Lucy Burdette
2012
After moving to Key West, Hayley Snow applies for a food critic job and discovers her prospective boss is the woman who stole her boyfriend. When that boss dies from poisoned key lime pie and Hayley becomes a suspect, she has to find the real killer.
Death in Four Courses
by Lucy Burdette
2012
A splashy Key West conference brings celebrity food writers, sharp egos, and plenty of gossip to town. When superstar critic Jonah Barrows is found dead, Hayley Snow has to sort through grudges, secrets, and hungry ambition.
Topped Chef
by Lucy Burdette
2013
Hayley is drafted onto the judging panel for a televised cooking contest, where rivalries are already boiling over. When one of the judges is murdered, she starts digging before the killer cuts the competition down again.
Death with All the Trimmings
by Lucy Burdette
2014
Christmas in Key West turns messy when chef Edel Waugh confides that someone is sabotaging her new restaurant. After a fire and a body in the ruins, Hayley has to untangle arson, ambition, and holiday stress.
Murder with Ganache
by Lucy Burdette
2014
While baking cupcakes for a friend's wedding, Hayley is pulled into family chaos when her teenage stepbrother vanishes into the Key West party scene. A dead girl and a stolen jet ski turn the search into a murder case.
Fatal Reservations
by Lucy Burdette
2015
A new floating restaurant stirs up local fights, and Hayley heads to a city meeting expecting arguments, not murder. When her tarot-reading friend Lorenzo is blamed for killing a longtime rival, she sets out to clear his name.
Killer Takeout
by Lucy Burdette
2016
Fantasy Fest fills Key West with costumes, street food, and trouble. While covering the island's grab-and-go eats, Hayley investigates a killing that could ruin her friend Danielle's turn as Queen of Fantasy Fest.
Death on the Menu
by Lucy Burdette
2018
Working a high-profile conference at the Truman Little White House, Hayley expects food, politics, and literary chatter. Instead she gets a stolen Hemingway medal, a missing busboy, and a murder that touches people she cares about.
A Deadly Feast
by Lucy Burdette
2019
Days before Thanksgiving and her wedding, Hayley joins a seafood tasting tour for an article. When a guest drops dead and her friend's business is on the line, she has to squeeze a murder investigation into an already impossible week.
The Key Lime Crime
by Lucy Burdette
2020
A much-hyped Key lime pie contest brings fierce bakers and big egos to Key West. When a pastry chef ends up dead, Hayley has to cut through family tension and culinary rivalry to find the killer.
A Scone of Contention
by Lucy Burdette
2021
Hayley and Nathan head to Scotland for their delayed honeymoon, only to pick up a crowd of relatives and fresh trouble. A suspected poisoning and a shocking death turn the trip into a very unromantic investigation.
Unsafe Haven
by Lucy Burdette
2021
A runaway teen disappears into the New Jersey night after thrusting a baby into a stranger's arms on the subway. Elizabeth Brown's attempt to help becomes a dangerous chase involving predators, lies, and impossible choices.
A Dish to Die For
by Lucy Burdette
2022
An afternoon off turns ugly when Hayley follows a barking dog and finds a body half buried near the beach. The victim had plenty of enemies, and an old Key West cookbook may hold clues to the truth.
A Clue in the Crumbs
by Lucy Burdette
2023
The Scottish Scone Sisters arrive in Key West to launch a baking competition, and Hayley is ready for fun, not arson. When a bed-and-breakfast burns and a body is found, the clues start pointing in dangerous directions.
The Ingredients of Happiness
by Lucy Burdette
2023
Psychology professor Cooper Hunziker teaches happiness for a living, yet her own life is quietly falling apart. As career pressure, a plagiarism accusation, and painful old wounds close in, she has to figure out what a good life really means.
A Poisonous Palate
by Lucy Burdette
2024
A writer researching Hemingway's wives draws Hayley into the decades-old disappearance of a young woman on Big Pine Key. As they question old residents and revisit 1970s secrets, the past starts feeling far too alive.
The Mango Murders
by Lucy Burdette
2025
A mango themed cocktail cruise for Key Zest should be a glittering Key West showcase. Instead an explosion kills a local culinary entrepreneur, and Hayley has to navigate politics, grudges, and fierce competition on shore.
A Delicious Deception
by Lucy Burdette
2026
Nine months pregnant and supposed to be taking it easy, Hayley agrees to help with a custody exchange at the sheriff's office. When the mother vanishes and a body turns up, she is pulled into a desperate search.
Where should I start?
If you want the classic Key West mysteries: An Appetite for Murder → Death in Four Courses → Topped Chef
If you want her psychology-driven mysteries: Deadly Advice → Preaching to the Corpse → Asking For Murder
If you want the golf series: Six Strokes Under → A Buried Lie → Putt to Death
If you want darker suspense: Unsafe Haven
If you want contemporary fiction instead of mystery: The Ingredients of Happiness
Author bio
Lucy Burdette is the pen name Roberta Isleib uses for the books that made many readers think of Key West, key lime pie, and murder in the same breath. She was born in New Jersey, trained as a psychologist, and spent years working with patients before fiction took over.
School was a big part of her early life. She studied at Princeton, then went on to graduate work at Tennessee, Florida, and Yale, later serving on staff at Yale University Health Services and keeping a private psychotherapy practice.
Her first road to fiction ran through golf.
After her future husband introduced her to the game in the early 1990s, she started writing articles about golf psychology. A friend suggested she fold golf, suspense, and her professional background into a novel, and that idea became Six Strokes Under, the first Cassie Burdette mystery. The book picked up Agatha and Anthony nominations and gave her a clear reason to keep going.
Writing under her own name, she followed with the Golf Lover's mysteries and then the Advice Column books, featuring psychologist Dr. Rebecca Butterman. Those novels, including Deadly Advice and Preaching to the Corpse, let her use what she knew about therapy rooms, family baggage, and the messy ways people hide things from each other.
Then Key West got involved.
After falling for the island's food, weather, history, and glorious weirdness, she created Hayley Snow, the food critic at the center of the Key West Food Critic mysteries. Starting with An Appetite for Murder, the series mixes restaurant openings, cooking contests, literary conferences, holiday chaos, and island politics with a steady supply of bodies. Readers come for the mysteries, but also for the food writing, the houseboats, and Hayley's circle of family and friends.
The Lucy Burdette name came from her grandmother. It fit the warmer, cozier feel of the Key West books, though the work behind them is still grounded in research. She has talked with chefs, attended food events, and paid close attention to how Key West really works, from its restaurants and festivals to its local tensions and everyday routines.
She has not stayed in one lane. Unsafe Haven is a darker suspense novel about a runaway teen, a baby, and one terrible split-second decision. The Ingredients of Happiness shifts again, following a Yale psychologist whose life looks perfect from the outside and feels anything but from the inside.
Across all these books, you can see what keeps pulling her back to the page: smart women under pressure, close communities, work lives that shape the story, and the psychology behind everyday choices. She also knows how much setting matters. Connecticut, golf courses, and especially Key West are not just scenery in her fiction, they are part of the engine.
Her books and stories have been shortlisted for Agatha, Anthony, and Macavity awards, and A Clue in the Crumbs won the Florida Book Award gold medal for popular fiction. A Dish to Die For and The Key Lime Crime also picked up Florida Book Award bronze medals. She has served as president of Sisters in Crime and led the Friends of the Key West Library.
These days, she is still writing, still active in the mystery world, and still closely tied to both Connecticut and Key West. That mix of psychology, community, and good food continues to shape the work.
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