The Marlow Murder Club Books in Order

The Marlow Murder Club series moves Robert Thorogood's love of puzzle‑driven crime from a tropical island to the riverbanks of Buckinghamshire. Instead of a professional detective, the books centre on Judith Potts, a seventy‑something crossword setter who lives alone in a crumbling house beside the Thames.

Judith likes whisky, solitude and swimming in the river at odd hours, and she has little patience for anyone who underestimates her because of her age. When she witnesses what sounds like a murder during one of her evening swims in The Marlow Murder Club, the police are slow to take her seriously, so she starts investigating on her own.

Very quickly she picks up two partners: Suzie Harris, a straight‑talking dog‑walker with a van full of eccentric clients, and Becks Starling, the conscientious wife of the local vicar who is looking for something beyond coffee mornings and parish rotas. The three women have very different backgrounds, but their skills complement one another, and much of the pleasure of the series lies in watching their friendship deepen with each case.

This is cosy crime, but with a sharp edge.

Each book gives the trio a new, tightly clued mystery in and around the town of Marlow. There are locked‑room puzzles, baffling poisons and bodies that turn up in the most respectable corners of local life, from grand riverside houses to council chambers and pleasure cruisers on the Thames. Judith's love of cryptic crosswords shapes the way she approaches clues, while Suzie and Becks often spot the small human details that slip past the professionals.

The tone stays light and witty even as the stakes rise. Thorogood leans into village gossip, awkward family dinners and committee politics, but he also writes honestly about loneliness, ageing and the pressure of other people's expectations. Fans of traditional British mysteries will recognise the comfort of an enclosed community and fair‑play plotting, alongside the fresher feel of a heroine who is old enough not to care what anyone thinks.

The books tie closely to the television adaptation, which was also scripted by Thorogood, but the novels are the best place to meet Judith, Suzie and Becks in full. Read in order, the series tracks their personal lives as closely as the crimes they solve, turning a set of clever standalone cases into an ongoing story about friendship, second chances and making mischief in a small town.