Nicola Upson Books in Order

In 1934, Josephine Tey travels to London to celebrate the final week of her smash‑hit play Richard of Bordeaux. A young fan she befriends on the train is murdered soon after, drawing Josephine and Inspector Archie Penrose into a backstage world of grudges and revenge.

Hoping for rest after earlier traumas, Josephine Tey accepts Archie Penrose’s invitation to his Cornish childhood home. A supposed riding accident, a missing young man and a fatal fall at the cliff‑top Minack Theatre reveal that the past in this village is anything but peaceful.

Researching a novel about real‑life baby‑farmers Amelia Sach and Annie Walters, Josephine Tey spends time with dressmakers and actresses preparing a charity gala. When a young seamstress is found murdered, secrets from Edwardian executions bleed into a modern‑day hunt for a sadistic killer.

Josephine Tey, Archie Penrose and Alfred Hitchcock converge on Portmeirion in 1936 for a birthday celebration and film discussions. What should be a glamorous weekend turns nightmarish as staged scares give way to very real murders that will echo decades later.

Josephine Tey inherits a dilapidated cottage in Suffolk from an actress godmother, along with a strange condition that a woman named Lucy Kyte may claim whatever she needs from the house. Sorting through diaries tied to the notorious Red Barn murder, Josephine uncovers new danger close to home.

On the eve of George VI’s coronation, Josephine Tey visits BBC headquarters to watch a radio adaptation of one of her plays. When Britain’s star newsreader is shot live on air and a second body soon follows, Archie Penrose must find the killer in a building full of microphones and secrets.

A church organist is found buried alive in a Hampstead grave, a photograph and cryptic note beside him. The trail leads Archie Penrose to Cambridge, where a series of assaults on women and echoes of M. R. James’s ghost stories pull Josephine Tey into a chilling case.

A newspaper article forces Josephine Tey to revisit the summer of 1915, when a girl died at a Sussex horticultural college where she briefly taught. Accusations of a cover‑up and forbidden love drag old fears into the open as Josephine and Archie probe a tragedy decades in the making.

After the First World War, housemaid Elsie Munday joins artist Stanley Spencer's household while he paints a memorial chapel. This historical novel follows her involvement with his family as artistic ambition, love, and obsession strain their lives.

In December 1938, Josephine Tey and Archie Penrose spend Christmas at a castle on St Michael’s Mount, where a gala is raising funds for Jewish refugees. Cut off by storm seas and snow, the guests face two brutal deaths and a murderer who could be one of their own.

On 1 September 1939, London children arrive in the Suffolk village where Josephine Tey has a cottage, part of the mass wartime evacuation. When a little girl vanishes, the community’s welcome curdles into suspicion, and Archie Penrose races to find both child and culprit.

Josephine Tey visits Hollywood as war begins, encountering turmoil on Hitchcock’s Rebecca set. A violent incident draws her and Archie Penrose toward an English house connected to Daphne du Maurier, exposing a history of jealousy and obsession.

Anthony and Elva Pratt arrive at a country hotel to host a Christmas murder game in 1943. Discovering a real victim turns their festive plans into an investigation, with snowbound guests and a threatened military takeover complicating the search for a killer.

While artworks are moved into Welsh slate mines during the Blitz, a collapsed roof reveals a woman’s grave. Archie Penrose and vacationing Josephine Tey investigate a decades-old mystery as another death threatens the surrounding community.