Ryburn Dobbs Books in Order

Ryburn Dobbs writes crime novels shaped by a working knowledge of forensic anthropology and homicide investigation. He was born in Southern California, then built a career that took him from college classrooms to death investigations and unsolved cases.

Before turning to fiction, Dobbs taught biological anthropology and forensic anthropology at several colleges in the San Francisco Bay Area. He later spent ten years as a forensic anthropologist, working on dozens of death investigations. He also worked as an investigative analyst focused on homicides and unsolved cases.

That work gave him plenty to write from.

Dobbs used those experiences as the starting point for the Sebastien Grey novels, a mystery series set around the Black Hills of South Dakota. The books follow Dr. Sebastien Grey, a forensic anthropologist whose sharp eye for physical evidence is matched by serious social anxiety. Grey is pulled into local investigations by his estranged brother, Sergeant Hank LeGris, and gradually finds a place in the close-knit world he has long tried to avoid.

The series began with The Comfort of Distance in 2020. In it, scattered human remains and rumors of a dangerous mountain lion bring Sebastien to Custer County, where he must work alongside Hank and Detective Tiffany Reese. The case lets Dobbs bring forensic reasoning into the story without treating it like magic, while also making room for family friction, awkward humor, and Sebastien's uneasy attempts to connect with people.

The Boxwood Torso followed in 2021. It sends Sebastien and Tiffany into a cold case involving remains found decades apart, and it pushes their professional partnership forward. The third novel, Where the Blood is Made, arrived in 2022 and centers on a missing-person case that Sebastien believes was really a homicide. A separate, suspicious request for his expertise adds pressure to an already difficult investigation.

Across these books, Dobbs returns to the patient work of noticing what others miss. Bones, old files, missing details, and strained relationships all matter. The mysteries have police-procedural stakes, but the series also follows Sebastien as he learns to manage anxiety, rebuild family ties, and trust a small circle of people.

The Black Hills setting is an important part of the appeal. Its forests, small communities, and wide-open distances give the cases room to grow, while the Custer County Sheriff's Office keeps the action rooted in local relationships rather than anonymous big-city crime.

Public author information from 2022 placed Dobbs in Arkansas with his wife, Robyn. His fiction continues to draw on the real methods and limits of forensic work, while keeping the focus on the people caught up in each case.