Mystery Writer's Mystery Books in Order

The Mystery Writer's Mystery series stars Charlemagne "Charlee" Russo, a Denver mystery author whose fictional crimes keep colliding with very real ones. Charlee would prefer to stay at her desk, meet deadlines, and worry about the usual writer problems, such as royalties, reviews, and whether anybody will show up to an event. Instead, she repeatedly gets drawn into investigations where her own future may be at stake.

The first book, Fiction Can Be Murder, gives the series its central joke and its central problem. Charlee's literary agent is found dead in a way that closely matches a murder in Charlee's unpublished manuscript. The police have good reason to look at Charlee, especially because her career and finances are already under strain. To clear her name, she has to look closely at the people who had access to her work, including the members of her writing circle.

Writing is dangerous business here.

Charlee is a thirty-something midlist author, not a polished crime-solving machine. She is anxious, funny, and often convinced that she is not brave enough for the situation in front of her. That makes her a fitting sleuth for this series. She knows how stories work, but real people do not always behave according to a neat outline.

The books also enjoy the backstage world of publishing. Charlee deals with critique groups, authors, agents, writers' conferences, public events, literary ambitions, and the messy friendships that grow around creative work. Her boyfriend Ozzi, her police officer brother Lance, and her college friend Viv are part of the continuing cast, along with an assortment of writers and locals who can make even a simple plan complicated.

Each installment places Charlee in a new kind of public disaster. Foul Play on Words sends her to a Portland writers' conference that has been double-booked with a dog show while her friend Viv searches for a missing daughter. In Metaphor for Murder, the disappearance of a famous author threatens Charlee's own literary event, and a kidnapped pug makes the deadline much more urgent. Police Navidad moves the action into a Christmas pageant fundraiser, where the man playing Santa dies at rehearsal.

The series is built as a cozy mystery, with off-page violence, plenty of suspects, and humor mixed into the tension.

Readers who enjoy bookish settings will find a lot to like, but the books are not only for writers. At heart, they are about someone who keeps trying to get back to her regular work while life hands her another impossible plot. Charlee can be reluctant, frazzled, and out of her depth, yet she keeps asking questions until the clues finally begin to fit.