MJ Arlidge Books in Order

If you want Helen Grace from the beginning: Eeny Meeny → Pop Goes the Weasel → The Doll's House → Liar Liar
If you like intense character arcs: Little Boy Blue → Hide and Seek → Love Me Not
If you prefer full backstory in order: No Way Back → Running Blind → Eeny Meeny → Pop Goes the Weasel
If you want a standalone psychological thriller: The Last Rites
If you want the latest high stakes cases: Down to the Woods → All Fall Down → Truth or Dare → Cat And Mouse

M. J. Arlidge was born Matthew James Arlidge in London in 1974 and grew up in Hampstead, the youngest of four children, long before he started writing the dark crime novels that made his name.

As a boy he went to University College School in north London, then took a year out before university to teach in southern India and travel through places like Singapore and Australia. Back in Britain he studied English literature at St John’s College, Cambridge, winning a Shakespeare prize, and rounded things off with a year of film and television production at the University of Bristol.

His first career was behind the camera. Arlidge joined the team on the long running soap EastEnders as a storyliner and script editor, learning how to shape big emotional twists and long term plots on tight deadlines. He then moved to production company Ecosse Films, working on series such as Monarch of the Glen and helping to develop relationship drama Mistresses and the psychological thriller Cape Wrath for British television.

In 2007 he co founded the drama outfit TXTV, which went on to produce a string of crime focused shows. Through TXTV he executive produced and often helped shape series including Torn, The Little House and Undeniable, as well as writing episodes of the long running forensic drama Silent Witness. Two decades in television left him steeped in high stakes storytelling, sharp dialogue and the rhythm of cliff hangers.

The idea that finally pulled him into fiction came while he was still working as a producer, a what if about a killer who abducts people in pairs and forces them to choose who survives. Too dark for the TV commissioners he first pitched it to, the concept became his debut novel Eeny Meeny, published in 2014. The book, which introduced Southampton detective Helen Grace, turned into the United Kingdom’s bestselling crime debut of that year and was quickly picked for a major book club and sold into many languages.

Since then Arlidge has written a long running Helen Grace series that follows a driven, self contained detective inspector who rides a motorbike, carries heavy scars from a violent childhood and copes with her past through the controlled use of pain. Set in and around Southampton, the novels push her into cases that test both her body and her conscience, from the kill or be killed abductions of Eeny Meeny to the long term captivity in The Doll's House, the coordinated arson attacks of Liar Liar and the deeply personal sex club murders in Little Boy Blue and the prison locked room mystery of Hide and Seek.

Alongside Helen Grace he has written stand alone thrillers that push into slightly different territory. Under the title A Gift for Dying, also published as The Last Rites, he tells the story of Chicago forensic psychologist Adam Brandt and a teenage girl who insists she can see how people will die, mixing serial killer investigation with hints of the supernatural. More recently he has published Eye for an Eye and begun co writing other crime novels with fellow authors, extending his world beyond Southampton.

Arlidge continues to live in England, splitting his time between new thrillers on the page and further work for film and television, including plans to bring Helen Grace to the screen, and his TV roots still show in the short, sharp chapters readers race through.