Nancy Lynn Jarvis Books in Order

Nancy Lynn Jarvis came to mystery writing after trying several very different kinds of work. She earned a degree in behavioral science from San Jose State University, then worked in advertising at the San Jose Mercury News. After moving to Santa Cruz, she also worked as a librarian, a photo archivist, and the business manager for Shakespeare/Santa Cruz.

She has said that people should try something radically different every few years. Her own work history makes a convincing case for it.

Real estate became the job that gave her fiction its everyday texture. Jarvis spent more than twenty years as a Santa Cruz Realtor, learning the practical details of listings, buyers, sellers, contracts, and the occasional difficult person on the other side of a deal. She wrote her first novel, The Death Contingency, while she was still working in the business.

That book introduced Regan McHenry, a Santa Cruz real estate agent whose work keeps placing her close to murder. In the books that followed, including Backyard Bones, Buying Murder, The Widow's Walk League, The Murder House, and The Two-Faced Triplex, real estate is more than background. A listing, an inherited home, a buyer, or a hidden problem in a property can set the whole mystery in motion.

Jarvis let her real estate license lapse in 2013 after twenty-five years in the profession. Writing had become the work she wanted to keep doing. Her experience still shows up in the sharp, sometimes funny observations about homes, neighborhoods, and the people attached to them.

Her stories stay close to Santa Cruz County, including Bonny Doon and its redwood roads, beach cottages, and communities where everyone seems to know a little more than they are saying. The mysteries are cozy in spirit, but the stakes are real. Regan relies on her husband Tom and her friend Dave as she follows clues that the police may not be able to prioritize.

Jarvis also likes a premise with a little mischief. Mags and the AARP Gang follows a group of octogenarians planning a bank robbery to save their mobile home park. It is a caper about friendship, housing, and what can happen when people underestimate older adults.

Later, she began the PIP Inc. Mysteries with The Glass House. Its lead, Pat Pirard, is a downsized law librarian who turns her research skills toward private investigation. The Funeral Murder gives Pat another tangled case, this time involving an estate, a suspicious death, and a dangerous search for the truth.

Jarvis has also worked as an editor. She put together Cozy Food, a recipe collection featuring contributions from 128 cozy mystery writers, and helped create the Santa Cruz-set anthology Santa Cruz Weird. Her nonfiction book The Truth About Hosting Airbnb grew from notes she took during her first year hosting guests.

Across the mysteries, capers, recipes, and local stories, Jarvis returns to people figuring things out. Often they have a home, a friend, or a hard-won bit of independence on the line.