PJ Parrish Books in Order

For the full Louis Kincaid arc: Dark of the Moon → Dead of Winter → Paint It Black
If you want snowy Michigan suspense: Dead of Winter → An Unquiet Grave → Heart of Ice
If you want Florida noir: Island of Bones → A Killing Rain → The Little Death
If you want Joe Frye at the center: A Thousand Bones → South of Hell
If you want standalones first: The Killing Song → She's Not There

PJ Parrish is the shared pen name of sisters Kristy Montee and Kelly Nichols, two Detroit-born writers who turned a family bond into a long-running crime fiction partnership. They grew up in Michigan, and that background still shows in their books, even when the stories head south to Mississippi or Florida.

They were writing long before they were publishing.

As girls, Kelly wrote a story called The Kill and Kristy wrote one called The Cat Who Understood, which tells you something about how early the bug hit. As adults, they took very different routes. Kristy earned a degree in education from Eastern Michigan University, worked as a reporter in Michigan, and later became a newspaper editor and dance critic in Fort Lauderdale. Kelly attended Northern Michigan University, then worked as a blackjack dealer and later in casino human resources.

Before the sisters teamed up, Kristy had already published four novels on her own. Kelly had been trying to write mystery fiction but had not quite found the right shape for it. When the market for Kristy's earlier fiction cooled, the two decided to try suspense together. It was Kristy's husband who first suggested the collaboration, and once the sisters started talking plots, the idea stuck.

The pen name came later. Their publisher wanted something that fit the tougher feel of the books, and the sisters came up with a version of Paris while traveling in Europe. Their agent adjusted it to Parrish, and the initials stayed because they sounded right. The work itself has always been shared, from plotting over long phone calls to swapping chapters and rewriting until the seams disappear.

Dark of the Moon introduced readers to Louis Kincaid, a biracial cop whose cases are never just puzzles. In that first novel he returns to Mississippi, faces the town's buried racial history, and starts the personal journey that threads through the whole series. Books like Dead of Winter, Paint It Black, Island of Bones, and The Little Death show what Parrish does so well: tense investigations, vivid settings, and a hero whose moral compass keeps getting tested.

Place matters in these books.

The Louis Kincaid novels move through small-town Mississippi, frozen Michigan, the Florida Gulf Coast, the Everglades, Palm Beach, and Mackinac Island. The settings are never just scenery. They shape the crimes and the people, whether the story is about old bones in the woods, a serial killer stalking black men, or the secrets inside a wealthy summer community. Joe Frye, who first appears in A Killing Rain, became important enough to lead A Thousand Bones and remains one of the key forces in Louis's life.

The sisters have also stepped outside the series with standalones like The Killing Song, about a reporter hunting his sister's killer across Europe, and She's Not There, which opens with an injured woman who has lost her memory and cannot trust anyone around her. Their books have landed on bestseller lists and won major mystery prizes, including Shamus Awards for An Unquiet Grave and Heart of Ice. These days, Kristy splits her time between Florida and Traverse City, Michigan, Kelly lives in Traverse City, and the two keep doing what they have done from the start, talking, drafting, and rewriting their way toward the next dark turn.