Savannah (Tom Turner) Books in Order

The Savannah books trade cops for private investigators and immediately get a different kind of energy. At the center are Jackie and Ryder Farrell, sisters who start out doing the low-glamour end of PI work, the kind with cheating husbands and cheap motels, and keep stumbling into much larger messes. From the opening pages of The Savannah Madam, it is clear that these are not genteel tea-and-cookies mysteries. They are fast, funny, and happy to follow trouble into dark corners.

The sisters are the hook.

Jackie and Ryder work because they are close enough to bicker, brave enough to push too far, and different enough to keep the books moving. Turner gives them cases that test both their instincts and their nerve. In The Savannah Madam, they get pulled into a world of crooked cops, small-time thugs, and high-end brothels. In Savannah Road Kill, the murder of a celebrity tennis star sends them on a road trip that runs from Savannah to Nashville and Miami. By Dying for a Cocktail, the sisters have opened a branch in Charleston, where murder, a missing college student, bad marriages, and a meeting with detective Nick Janzek start to expand the series beyond one city.

Savannah itself matters a lot here. The beauty of the place, the squares, the old houses, and the sense of history give the books a nice counterweight to the danger underneath. Turner likes that contrast. The city can feel dreamy one minute and shady the next. That makes the Farrell sisters good guides because they are not overawed by the scenery. They notice the charm, but they also keep moving toward the lies hiding behind it.

This is also the lightest-footed of Turner's series. Not light in stakes, because people still end up dead, missing, or badly threatened, but lighter in rhythm. There is more flirtation, more sisterly friction, and more room for movement. These books can swing from Savannah society to a rough strip-mall lead, then onto the road, and still keep their balance.

The cases keep getting bigger.

What stays the same is the core promise: you are following two smart, stubborn women through elegant Southern settings that are nowhere near as civilized as they look. If you want a Tom Turner series with private-eye energy, family dynamics, travel, romance creeping in at the edges, and mysteries that move quickly, this is a good place to go. Start with The Savannah Madam and let the Farrell sisters do the rest.