Mary Feliz Books in Order

Start at the beginning: Address to Die For → Scheduled to Death → Dead Storage
If you like community-centered cases: Dead Storage → Disorderly Conduct → Cliff Hanger
If you want coastal California first: Cliff Hanger → Snowed Under
If you want the full Maggie McDonald run: Address to Die For → Scheduled to Death → Dead Storage → Disorderly Conduct → Cliff Hanger → Snowed Under

Mary Feliz came to fiction after years spent doing other kinds of writing and other kinds of work. She studied sociology at Smith College and later worked in corporate communications for Fortune 500 companies and nonprofits. That mix shows up in her novels, which pay close attention to how people behave, how communities hold together, and how ordinary life gets scrambled when something goes badly wrong.

The writing itch started early. As a child, she tried to write a book in the spirit of The Bobbsey Twins, but gave up after a page and a half of stiff dialogue. The impulse never really left. Years later, after learning to type and settling into a world of word processors instead of school notebooks, she came back to longer fiction with a lot more patience.

She did not break in on the first try.

Before the Maggie books, Feliz wrote a historical novel for young adults, found an agent, and sent the manuscript out widely. It did not sell, and she has spoken openly about what that near miss taught her. When she returned to fiction several years later, she chose mystery in part because she loved the form and in part because it gave her a clearer shelf, a clearer readership, and a stronger structure to build on.

That decision led to Maggie McDonald, the professional organizer at the center of Address to Die For, Scheduled to Death, Dead Storage, Cliff Hanger, and Snowed Under. Readers who click with the series usually like the same things: a capable amateur sleuth, warm family and friend dynamics, a sly sense of humor, and dogs who feel like real members of the cast. Maggie solves crimes, but she also has a business to run, kids to worry about, and a life that keeps getting interrupted by bodies.

The dogs matter here.

Feliz writes California as a lived-in place, not a postcard. Her books move through the San Francisco Bay Area, Silicon Valley, Monterey Bay, and Lake Tahoe, and the local details do real story work. A crumbling old house, a wildfire evacuation, a cliffside crash, or a snowed-in cabin is never just background. She is also a certified California Naturalist, and that love of landscape, animals, and weather gives the series some of its texture.

The books brought steady attention. Address to Die For was named a Best Book of 2017 by Kirkus Reviews, and Cliff Hanger and Snowed Under were later recognized by Suspense Magazine. Outside the novels, Feliz has also earned first-place recognition from SouthWest Writers for a young adult short story and finalist honors in contests run by Writer’s Digest, Pacific Northwest Writers, and the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators.

For many years, Northern California was home while she wrote the first six Maggie McDonald novels. In 2024, she moved with her husband and cat, Charlie, to the Pacific Northwest to be closer to family, including a grandbaby. She still sounds like someone who enjoys the odd details of ordinary life, and that may be the thread running through all her work: an eye for the small thing that turns out to matter.