Trixie Dolan & Evangeline Sinclair Mystery Books in Order

The Trixie Dolan and Evangeline Sinclair books follow two former actresses who are well past their first flush of fame and not especially interested in fading quietly into the background. Trixie is the warmer, more flustered half of the pair. Evangeline is grander, sharper, and usually more certain that she still deserves top billing. Together they move through London flats, rehearsal rooms, film sets, borrowed houses, and other temporary arrangements where murder has an annoying way of appearing.

The series begins with Reel Murder, when a London film retrospective brings Evangeline back into view and puts both women in a house full of aspiring actors, fans, and very bad decisions. That opening tells you a lot about the books. These are mysteries, but they are also comedies of temperament. Babson gets plenty of mileage from vanity, old grudges, theatrical language, and the simple fact that Trixie and Evangeline rarely see the same situation in quite the same way.

They bicker constantly, and that is half the fun.

Even when the plots change shape, the series stays rooted in performance. Encore Murder turns on memoir wars and ancient rivalries. Shadows in Their Blood throws the pair into a wintry Dracula film in Whitby, where gothic atmosphere and human nonsense mix freely. In Even Yuppies Die, they land in Docklands among unfinished property dreams and struggling professionals. Break a Leg, Darlings sends them hunting for work in pub theatres, where friendship, ambition, and a stray wolfhound make life messier than usual.

Later books lean even harder into Babson's fondness for cats and crowded domestic setups. The Cat Who Wasn't a Dog begins with a trip connected to a dead Pekingese and quickly swerves into a body, a fire, and a rescued Japanese bobtail named Cho-Cho-San. By No Cooperation from the Cat, the actresses are wrapped up in cookbook deadlines, surprise houseguests, and yet another death that arrives at exactly the wrong moment. The cat is not just decoration. Like many Babson cats, he changes the whole rhythm of the room.

What carries the series from book to book is not police procedure or a grand conspiracy. It is company. Trixie and Evangeline are amateur sleuths mostly because they are curious, stubborn, and already standing in the middle of the trouble. The murders matter, but the pair's chemistry matters more.

If you want polished detectives and neat order, this may not be your corner of crime fiction. If you want theatrical British mysteries with squabbling old pros, odd living arrangements, sharp dialogue, and a warm spot for cats, this series is a very good place to settle in. The books connect loosely, so they work on their own, but reading them in order lets you enjoy the running jokes, the accumulating history, and the way these two women never really stop trying to steal the scene.