Truman Kicklighter Books in Order

Long before she became a household name as the "Queen of the Beach Reads," Mary Kay Andrews was writing gritty, humorous mysteries under her real name, Kathy Hogan Trocheck. While her Callahan Garrity series often gets the spotlight when looking at her backlist, she also penned a delightful, shorter trilogy that deserves just as much attention.

This represents the Truman Kicklighter series.

The books introduce us to an unlikely amateur sleuth. Truman Kicklighter is a retired reporter who spent decades working for the Associated Press. He isn't the type to spend his golden years quietly fishing off a pier or dozing in front of the television. He is cynical, restless, and possesses a sharp wit that hasn't dulled with age. After a lifetime of chasing headlines and meeting deadlines, he finds that his curiosity is impossible to turn off just because he is no longer on the payroll.

Truman hangs his hat at the Fountain of Youth Residential Hotel in St. Petersburg, Florida. The setting is one of the series' strongest assets. This isn't the modern, polished Florida of high-rise condos and luxury resorts. This is "Old Florida" in all its fading glory.

It is a world of shuffleboard courts, early bird specials, and humid afternoons. The hotel itself serves as a brilliant backdrop, filled with a quirky cast of elderly residents who are barely scraping by. These neighbors provide plenty of comic relief, but they also ground the story in the reality of senior living. Truman often finds himself acting as a reluctant champion for his friends, standing up for the little guy when the system fails them.

The mysteries themselves—Lickety-Split, Crash Course, and Midnight Clear—are driven by Truman’s old-school journalistic instincts. He doesn't rely on high-tech gadgets or forensic labs. Instead, he solves crimes the way he used to write stories. He asks uncomfortable questions, digs through public records, and pesters people until they slip up.

There is something undeniably charming about a protagonist who uses a notepad and a rotary phone to outsmart criminals half his age.

The series captures a very specific moment in time. It portrays St. Pete before gentrification fully took hold, blending nostalgia with a clear-eyed look at the Sunshine State's seedy underbelly. You get the sense of a city in transition, much like Truman himself.

Although the series was short-lived, spanning only three books in the 1990s, it remains a testament to the author's versatility. It showcases her ability to write dialogue that snaps and characters that feel like real people. For fans who only know the breeze of her contemporary fiction, Truman Kicklighter offers a fascinating, slightly grittier look at where it all began.