Mr. Hardy Investigates Books in Order

Retired coachman James Hardy encounters a murder investigation after a fugitive leaps onto his buggy. Mistaken for a former Scotland Yard detective, he agrees to help solve the killing of a young housemaid in nineteenth-century New Zealand.

James Hardy investigates a Scandinavian child who speaks only Māori while police examine a body found in the marshes near Napier. Following the boy’s history into the bush may reveal a connection between the two mysteries.

After a race-walking champion is forced from a cliff, James Hardy and Constable Foster enter an undercover race to expose the killer. Their journey through New Zealand’s ranges leads toward danger among the Hot Lakes’ geysers and mud pools.

A strangled body found in a wrecked boat implicates Constable Foster, whose fiancée believes he has been replaced by an impostor. James Hardy joins her search for answers as an Irish conspiracy threatens their lives.

Attempts on Constable Foster’s life and a woman’s body in a steamer trunk bring James Hardy to Wellington. Investigating the docks’ expanding frozen-meat trade draws him into several connected mysteries while his family confronts a kidnapping.