Maddie Cochere Books in Order

If you want Susan's story from the beginning: Sunshine Hunter → Big Apple Hunter → Sin City Hunter
If you want small-town sleuthing and family chaos: Murder Under Construction → Murder Is Where the Heart Is → Murder Welcomes You to Buxley
If you want the crossover between both series: Buckeye Hunter → Murder Welcomes You to Buxley
If you want a standalone with romance and suspense: Stanley Pearl

Maddie Cochere came to fiction later than most writers, and that late start is part of what makes her story memorable. On February 8, 2012, at 11:00 at night in Ohio, she opened Microsoft Word for the first time and decided to see if she could write a story. She was 57, had no long plan to become a novelist, and began more out of curiosity than career strategy. A Nook Tablet had recently introduced her to indie books, and one character name, Susan, was enough to get her moving.

Then she took off.

Her first novel, Sunshine Hunter, appeared in 2012, and more Susan Hunter books followed fast. Before fiction, Cochere had spent years conducting training classes and writing manuals for a weight loss company. That work taught her to value clear, simple language, and it shows. Her books move quickly, keep the prose plainspoken, and leave room for humor, romance, and everyday embarrassment.

A lot of her fiction came straight from life. She worked in weight loss during the day and played racquetball at night, and those details became the bones of the Susan Hunter series. Susan works at Slimmers Weight Loss, loves racquetball, and keeps finding far more trouble than anyone should. Cochere has also said that Big Apple Hunter pulled from her own trips to New York City, and that Susan's best friend Darby was modeled on her real-life racquetball partner.

Real life keeps sneaking into the books.

That was also true when she created her second series. The idea for Murder Under Construction came while she was waiting for her sister at a doctor's office and scribbling in a notebook in the car. From there came Jo Ravens, Pepper, Jackie, and the small-town chaos of Two Sisters and a Journalist. Cochere has written that the family in those books was shaped by her own, and readers in her family immediately recognized her mother in the series' eccentric Mama.

Her best known books show the range of what she likes to do. Sunshine Hunter mixes stalking, danger, and a romantic thread. Murder Under Construction turns an unhappy accident into the start of an unlikely sleuthing career. Murder Is Where the Heart Is and Murder Welcomes You to Buxley lean more into small-town investigation. Then Stanley Pearl steps outside the series format with an accountant and single dad who gets pulled into suspense, crime, and the possibility of a new relationship.

What ties the books together is the kind of world she likes to build. Her characters are usually ordinary people trying to work, date, travel, eat, and manage family, only to have murder crash the day. Friends bicker. Mothers embarrass their grown children. Trips go sideways. Someone is always carrying groceries, chasing a clue, or walking into a mess they did not plan for. Even when the stakes rise, the tone stays friendly and conversational.

The name Maddie Cochere is a pen name, and even that has a personal backstory. Maddie came from her granddaughter's name. Cochere grew out of a French word she typed while writing Sin City Hunter. She has also written that she is seventh-generation French on her father's side, so the name stuck for more than one reason.

Cochere has long been based in Ohio, including the Akron-Canton area, and she still sounds closely tied to home. In recent years she has written about getting back to steady work on books after a long interruption, and about having multiple projects underway again. That feels fitting. Her writing career may have started almost on a whim, but once she found her lane, she kept it.