NC Lewis Books in Order
Browse all NC Lewis books in order, with reading order for each mystery series, short summaries, background on the author and guidance on where to start.
Last updated: December 21, 2025
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Publication Order
25 books
Twisted Bones
by NC Lewis
2022
A call to a picturesque lookout turns into DI Fenella Sallow’s worst nightmare when the scene echoes the long‑ago disappearance of her sister. Under pressure from the public and her superiors, she hunts a murderer who seems determined to twist the past into the present.
Answered Bones
by NC Lewis
2022
At a team‑building event meant to boost morale, Fenella is summoned to examine a mummified body hidden in an apparently ordinary setting. The investigation exposes long‑buried jealousy and betrayal and forces her to confront how much truth she really wants uncovered.
Whispered Bones
by NC Lewis
2021
A corpse on a lonely footbridge near St Bees points toward an escaped serial killer known as Mr Shred. Fenella and her team follow a trail of taunts and escalating violence in a deadly contest that could cost far more than her career.
Spoken Bones
by NC Lewis
2021
When a retired artist’s body is found on the smoldering remains of a Bonfire Night blaze, DI Fenella Sallow takes the case. Haunted by an old missing‑girl investigation, she must stop a calculating killer before another fire burns out of control.
The Wuthering Hollow Mystery
by NC Lewis
2020
A raucous troupe of elderly actors arrives in Cromer to stage a show in the ruins of a medieval church, luring Uncle Tristan back to the stage and Maggie into assisting his magic act. When a body appears among the props, Maggie must separate theatrics from real danger.
The Copper Moon Mystery
by NC Lewis
2020
A yellowing diary tied to a seaside hospital sends Maggie and Tristan to the pretty village of Overstrand. There they find talk of witches, strange village legends and a new murder that suggests the past still casts a long shadow over the coast.
The Banker's Note Mystery
by NC Lewis
2020
Securing a bank loan should guarantee Uncle Tristan’s future, but on signing day everything falls apart. A death in the office, a judge’s gavel and a bag of gold coins pull Maggie into a mystery that suggests Cromer’s respectability is mostly for show.
The Bagington Hall Mystery
by NC Lewis
2019
Maggie Darling moves to Cromer to help her uncle run his nearly bankrupt staffing agency and is immediately swept into local drama. A farm strike, a quarrel with the local lord and a missing kitten are only the warm‑up act for a very inconvenient corpse.
Murder in Hidden Harbor
by NC Lewis
2019
Working with clients in the exclusive Hidden Harbor community should be a dream assignment for Amy’s small company. After a body is discovered, she finds herself sifting through neighborly gossip, financial worries and buried grudges to protect both her reputation and the town she loves.
Deadly Vestige
by NC Lewis
2019
Rumours of old scandals resurface in Skegness just as a new crime rocks the community, drawing Doris into an investigation that reaches back through decades of seaside history. Following those lingering traces, she must decide which pieces of the past are worth exposing.
Deadly Sayings
by NC Lewis
2019
In Skegness, gossip travels faster than the sea breeze, and Doris Cudlow knows words can wound. When cruel rumours swirl around a sudden death, she sifts truth from idle talk, discovering that someone is using the town’s habit of chatter to hide a darker crime.
Deadly Chapel
by NC Lewis
2019
Recovering journalist Doris Cudlow grudgingly attends her ex‑husband’s wedding in a seaside chapel, pushed along by her meddling landlady. A blackout, a vanished bride and a body on the shore leave Doris determined to prove her ex is not the killer the police expect.
Deadly Ashes
by NC Lewis
2019
A windswept walk on the beach leads Doris to the body of a woman she saw alive only days earlier. The victim is wife number three of a powerful local man whose previous spouses also died on the sand, and Doris refuses to believe it is coincidence.
Teddy Tumpin
by NC Lewis
2018
By the time of Teddy Tumpin, Ollie is juggling teaching, the event business and a growing circle of friends in Medlin Creek. Another sudden death pulls her back into investigation mode, drawing her into fresh secrets behind the town’s cheerful surface.
Murder under MoPac
by NC Lewis
2018
A new project tied to the busy MoPac corridor puts Amy much too close to another homicide. As rumors swirl and nervous clients start to back away, she and Nick race to untangle how the killing connects to her latest staging job.
Murder through the Window
by NC Lewis
2018
A celebrity photo shoot should give Amy’s staging business a boost, especially when she and her friend Danielle are invited to an Austin film star’s lavish party. A scream, a mysterious figure at the window and a body turn the job into another case.
Murder in the Bullock
by NC Lewis
2018
Amy’s latest contract at the Bullock, one of her most important Austin venues, is meant to showcase her growing business. When a guest turns up dead, she must balance demanding clients and police suspicion while tracing the tangle of motives behind the murder.
Murder in the Bookstore
by NC Lewis
2018
Fifty‑year‑old Amy King launches a home‑staging business in Austin, but her first event ends with an antiquarian bookseller dead. With her new venture on the line, Amy and her detective husband Nick must uncover who killed him.
Murder by the Clowns
by NC Lewis
2018
Amy is delighted to stage a birthday party for a prestigious Austin investment fund, until kilted clowns and bagpipes arrive and the company’s founder is shot. She and Nick scramble to piece together trampled clues before the killer strikes again.
Magic Mumbles
by NC Lewis
2018
Strange mishaps and nervous whispers begin to plague Ollie Stratford’s Texas event center just as a new booking comes to town. When a guest dies, she has to decide which so‑called accidents matter and who has been quietly steering events toward murder.
Double Dimple
by NC Lewis
2018
Serving as a teacher, animal‑rescue volunteer and part‑time event‑center owner keeps widowed Ollie Stratford busy enough. The discovery of a dead woman in a local building turns her routine upside down and forces her to dig into rivalries no one wants to discuss.
Angry Arrow
by NC Lewis
2018
Strange incidents at Medlin Creek Community College start as pranks and quickly feel more sinister. When tensions on campus boil over into murder, Ollie must read the signs correctly before whoever is pulling the strings decides she is in the way.
Texas Troubles
by NC Lewis
2017
Professor Ollie Stratford moves to Medlin Creek, Texas, expecting quiet classes and a slow renovation of an old event center. Instead she faces chaotic neighbours, a dwindling bank account and a murder that forces her to turn accidental sleuth with a motley crew of allies.
Creek Crisis
by NC Lewis
2017
A glamorous film project brings television and movie stars to Ollie’s events venue, along with clashing egos and brewing feuds. When one of the divas ends up dead and the sheriff is out of town, Ollie has no choice but to untangle the mess herself.
Bitter Bones
by NC Lewis
2017
Ollie hopes drilling an old oil well on her property will solve her money problems. The plan collapses when workers unearth the remains of beloved local Garrick Markovich, and Ollie must chip away at small‑town silence to learn who wanted him buried for good.
Where should I start?
If you want modern British police procedurals: Spoken Bones → Whispered Bones → Twisted Bones → Answered Bones.
If you enjoy Austin‑set cozy mysteries: Murder in the Bookstore → Murder by the Clowns → Murder through the Window.
If you like small‑town Texas humor: Texas Troubles → Creek Crisis → Bitter Bones → Magic Mumbles.
If you prefer British seaside cozies: Deadly Chapel → Deadly Sayings → Deadly Ashes → Deadly Vestige.
If you love historical village mysteries: The Bagington Hall Mystery → The Wuthering Hollow Mystery → The Banker's Note Mystery → The Copper Moon Mystery.
Author bio
NC Lewis writes crime stories set everywhere from sun‑baked Texas Hill Country to windswept corners of the British coast, mixing classic whodunits with modern police procedurals. Her books move quickly, but they always leave room for humor and heart.
She lives and works in the Texas Hill Country, a place packed with wedding venues, live music and creative people. That landscape of small towns, back roads and big personalities feeds directly into the Texas cozies she writes.
Her first novel, Texas Troubles, introduced readers to Ollie Stratford, a middle‑aged college professor who escapes the city for what she thinks will be a quieter life. Instead, she lands in the town of Medlin Creek, where a new teaching job, a run‑down event center and a suspicious death collide almost at once.
In the Ollie Stratford books, Lewis leans hard into oddball side characters: a dreadlocked lawyer, an eager but eccentric reporter, a martial‑arts‑teaching grandmother and a stray dog named Bodie who tends to be in the right place at the wrong time. The mysteries are light on gore but full of small‑town gossip, feuds and second chances.
From there she slipped down the highway to Austin for the Capital of Texas and Amy King mysteries. Amy is a fifty‑something entrepreneur who starts a home‑staging business just as murder keeps crashing her events, beginning with the death of an antiquarian bookseller in Murder in the Bookstore. Working alongside her detective husband Nick, she solves cases that tangle together business deals, family drama and the city’s fast‑changing skyline.
Both the Ollie and Amy series share a quiet thread of reinvention. Lewis writes about characters who are not in their twenties anymore, who are starting over in midlife and trying to build new work, new friendships and new courage while bodies inconveniently turn up around them.
At the same time, she has a clear affection for Britain. In the Skegness Seaside mysteries, featuring reporter Doris Cudlow, Lewis trades Texas sunshine for chilly winds off the North Sea. Doris, newly divorced and trying to rebuild her career, moves to a faded seaside town where ex‑husbands, missing brides and suspicious deaths keep her far busier than the doughnut‑frying night shift she accepts to pay the bills.
The Maggie Darling books step back into 1920s England. Maggie leaves a pie‑and‑mash shop in London for the coastal village of Cromer and ends up helping her uncle run a small staffing agency. Between farm strikes, eccentric theatricals in ruined churches and village scandals involving gold coins and old diaries, Maggie keeps stumbling over bodies while trying to make a simple life.
Lewis takes a darker turn with the DI Fenella Sallow crime thrillers, set along the dramatic coast of Cumbria. Fenella is a fifty‑something detective inspector still haunted by the unsolved disappearance of a girl from her past. In books like Spoken Bones, Whispered Bones, Twisted Bones and Answered Bones, she investigates bonfire‑night deaths, bodies left on lonely bridges and mummified remains that surface years after the fact, all while wrestling with the old case she cannot forget.
When she is not drafting another mystery, Lewis is said to be tinkering with a simple portable keyboard device, reading everything from horror to space adventure to cozy crime, or trading recipes for barbecue ribs and fried rice. She likes tools she can carry anywhere so she can write in snatches of time, whether she is at home in the Hill Country or traveling.
Across all of these series, her stories stay grounded: ordinary people pushed into extraordinary situations, clear puzzles to solve and a steady stream of twists. Readers who enjoy clean, fast‑moving mysteries with a strong sense of place tend to find a comfortable home inside her books.
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