Ross Greenwood Books in Order
This page brings together all Ross Greenwood books in order, with series lists, short summaries, background on his crime novels, and guidance on where to start.
Last updated: December 26, 2025
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Publication Order
22 books
Death on the Norfolk Express
by Ross Greenwood
2026
A man is seen strapped to the tracks of the North Norfolk Railway, and before the shock has faded another victim is discovered dead aboard a steam train. With fear spreading along the line, DI Ashley Knight races to uncover who is turning a nostalgic tourist route into a killing ground.
The Book Club Killer
by Ross Greenwood
2025
The annual December meeting of a small-town book club should be a friendly catch-up, until one of the members dies and DI Barton is called in. As he digs into long-held grudges and hidden affairs, he realises the killer may be hiding in plain sight among familiar faces.
Death at Horsey Mere
by Ross Greenwood
2025
When a teenage couple vanish and a body is found near a lonely Suffolk lighthouse, newly promoted DI Ashley Knight fears a tragic lovers' drama. As more young women go missing, she and Hector Fade uncover a people-smuggling network and a rogue predator who now kills simply for pleasure.
Death at Fakenham Races
by Ross Greenwood
2025
An anonymous tip sends DI Ashley Knight to Fakenham Racecourse, where a vicious attack drags her into the high-stakes world of jump racing. Among jockeys, trainers and bookmakers with fortunes to lose, she must separate lies from grudges before a ruthless killer strikes again.
The Village Killer
by Ross Greenwood
2024
After three years shuffling paperwork, DI John Barton jumps at the chance to rejoin Major Crimes when an attempted murder appears tied to a missing child. In the wealthy village of Castor, secrets behind gated homes quickly turn a quiet posting into a deadly hunt.
Death in Bacton Wood
by Ross Greenwood
2024
A terrified, mud-soaked man staggers out of Bacton Wood claiming he has been buried alive, and soon more men with links to the powerful Vialli family disappear. Ashley Knight and Hector Fade chase a trail from Norfolk to Eastern Europe while wondering if someone inside the department is sabotaging them.
Death on Cromer Beach
by Ross Greenwood
2023
A brutal double murder on the sands at Cromer shocks the Norfolk coast, and DS Ashley Knight is tasked with leading the case. With outspoken newcomer Hector Fade at her side, she follows a trail that shifts from organised crime to something far more personal and chilling.
Death at Paradise Park
by Ross Greenwood
2023
Alfie Hook sits down with fish and chips on the Hunstanton seafront and never gets up again. When a second body turns up at nearby Paradise Caravan Park, DS Ashley Knight and Hector Fade must untangle feuding residents, false alibis and holiday-park secrets to catch a determined killer.
The Santa Killer
by Ross Greenwood
2022
Two weeks before Christmas, a single mother is viciously attacked outside her home, witnessed only by her young daughter who draws a figure she calls Bad Santa. With panic spreading through Peterborough, DI Barton must unmask a predator hiding behind festive cheer.
The Fire Killer
by Ross Greenwood
2022
DI John Barton investigates what looks like a tragic but isolated house fire, only to uncover a trail of similar blazes stretching back years. As more buildings burn and suspects close ranks, he races to stop a calculating arsonist before the city ignites.
Jail Break
by Ross Greenwood
2022
After serving sixteen years for a terrible crime, Katie walks out of prison determined never to go back. Life on the outside, probation hostels and old temptations soon drag at her resolve, forcing her to confront buried memories and choose between revenge and redemption.
Chancer / Lazy Blood
by Ross Greenwood
2022
Four misfit boys meet at school and form a tight-knit group, backing each other in fights, parties and bad decisions. As tragedies mount and Darren's reckless schemes grow darker, Will must decide how far loyalty to his oldest friends can stretch.
Canaries in the Coal Mine
by Ross Greenwood
2022
After a man's death sends two young women into a brutal prison world, the narrator walks free while her best friend Angelica remains inside. Haunted by two promises she made to Angelica, she tracks down a predator who has destroyed countless lives and must decide whether to become a killer herself.
The Cold Killer
by Ross Greenwood
2021
An elderly prisoner dies quietly in his cell, but when his house is ransacked and burned and his widow vanishes, DI Barton suspects something far more sinister. As brutal murders follow, he hunts a killer obsessed with deciding who deserves to live or die.
Prisoner
by Ross Greenwood
2021
Jim Dalton, a seasoned officer on the men's side of HMP Peterborough, is transferred to the women's prison and thinks he has finally found an easier posting. Then he meets volatile young inmate Billie, and a routine job becomes a dangerous tangle of loyalty, manipulation and blurred boundaries.
The Soul Killer
by Ross Greenwood
2020
A string of deaths staged as suicides and accidents tears one family apart, and DI Barton can find no clear suspect. When human remains are uncovered, the trail points to a devout killer who sees murder as a rehearsal for eternity, and even after an arrest the deaths do not stop.
The Ice Killer
by Ross Greenwood
2020
Haunted by family secrets, Ellen Toole goes digging into her past just as a kidnap case and two murders land on DI Barton's desk. In a freezing Peterborough winter, he must connect Ellen's search to a ruthless killer who leaves no witnesses alive.
The Snow Killer
by Ross Greenwood
2019
A childhood massacre in a snowstorm leaves one child alive, and three years later the first revenge killing creates a legend, the Snow Killer. Decades on, as bodies start to appear whenever it snows, DI Barton must link old sins to new murders before the next flurry falls.
Shadows of Regret
by Ross Greenwood
2019
Katie has spent sixteen years in prison for a crime she can barely talk about. Released into a world that has moved on without her, she struggles to rebuild a life while facing the truth about what happened and deciding whether to forgive, forget or take revenge.
The Boy Inside / Lifer
by Ross Greenwood
2018
Ben grows up in a loving but fragile home, then loses his father to illness and watches his mother slide into alcoholism. Drawn into petty crime and then serious offending, he is in and out of prison before twenty and must decide whether he is doomed to be a lifer.
Abel's Revenge / Hunter
by Ross Greenwood
2018
In a city on edge, a serial killer called Abel escalates from suspicious deaths to gruesome murders that grip the news. As fear rises, struggling couple Dan and Olivia are pulled into the case, and Dan must fight to protect his family from a killer who seems to be closing in.
Fifty Years of Fear / Survivor
by Ross Greenwood
2017
Vinnie cannot remember his early childhood after a terrible accident and has always relied on his older brother Frank to navigate bullies, feuds and a chaotic home. Spanning decades, his story follows a gentle man repeatedly caught up in violence until buried family secrets finally surface in court.
Where should I start?
If you want a gripping police procedural arc: The Snow Killer → The Soul Killer → The Ice Killer → The Cold Killer
If you like darker, character-led crime from the streets: Fifty Years of Fear → The Boy Inside → Chancer
If coastal mysteries appeal most: Death on Cromer Beach → Death at Paradise Park → Death in Bacton Wood
If you prefer prison-set standalones: Prisoner → Shadows of Regret → Canaries in the Coal Mine
Author bio
Ross Greenwood was born in 1973 in Peterborough, Cambridgeshire, and lived there until he was twenty, attending The King's School and getting to know the streets and estates that would one day fill his crime novels.
In his twenties and thirties he led a fairly nomadic life, moving around the United Kingdom and abroad and working a long list of jobs, from insurance and sales management to video-store manager, data entry clerk, betting-shop cashier and call-centre supervisor.
All the while he read constantly, especially horror and crime, and quietly wondered what it might be like to write the sort of stories he devoured on the bus home.
After years behind a desk he wanted something more hands-on, so he joined the prison service and spent four demanding years as an officer at HMP Peterborough, a busy local jail holding everyone from petty thieves to people convicted of serious violence.
Working understaffed wings and long shifts, he saw first-hand how addiction, poverty, mental illness and bad luck could push people toward crime, but he also saw flashes of humour, loyalty and kindness in places most readers never get to see.
He began his first novel while juggling night feeds and shift work, writing in the early hours when he could not get back to sleep, and the draft that started life as Lazy Blood slowly grew into a finished book.
That story, later republished as Chancer, won a Raven Award for mystery and suspense in 2017 and helped launch the Dark Lives books, including Fifty Years of Fear (also known as Survivor) and The Boy Inside (later Lifer), which follow working-class Peterborough characters as they grow up, make bad choices and try to find some dignity in the middle of chaos.
From there Greenwood moved into police procedurals with The Snow Killer, the first DI Barton novel, introducing John Barton, a weary but committed family man working out of Thorpe Wood police station and facing killers whose methods are as unsettling as their motives.
Alongside the Barton books he has written standalones such as Prisoner, Jail Break and Canaries in the Coal Mine, which lean into his experience of women’s prisons and life after release, and he has also shifted east to the Norfolk coast in the DS Ashley Knight, or Norfolk Murders, novels beginning with Death on Cromer Beach.
He now writes full time from the Peterborough area, where he lives with his partner, their two children and a dog, fitting in school runs and research trips between drafts and still sounding faintly surprised that those early-morning pages have turned into a career.
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