Valerie VM Burns Books in Order

If you want a bookish cozy with two mysteries in one: The Plot Is Murder → Read Herring Hunt → The Novel Art of Murder
If you like dogs, fresh starts, and small town sleuthing: In the Dog House → The Puppy Who Knew Too Much → Bark If It's Murder
If you want a police mystery with strong community ties: Travellin' Shoes → Motherless Child → Steal Away
If travel and reader culture sound fun: Bookmarked for Murder → A Tourist's Guide to Murder → Bookclubbed to Death

Valerie Burns writes under both Valerie Burns and V.M. Burns, and her mysteries show a clear love of community, clever puzzles, and dogs. She was born and raised in northwestern Indiana, with South Bend often named as home base, and she later spent years in southwestern Michigan along Lake Michigan. She now lives in North Georgia with her two poodles.

She was a mystery reader long before she was a mystery writer.

Burns has said that as a reader she was always mentally revising stories, changing endings, imagining sequels, and wondering how a plot could work better. In college at Northwestern University, a friend studying screenwriting finally told her the obvious thing: if she had that many ideas, maybe she should write them herself. Burns started with screenplays, and a trip to the Maui Writers Conference in 2007 pushed her toward fiction in a more serious way.

After that, she was hooked.

She later earned a master's degree from the University of Notre Dame and an MFA in Writing Popular Fiction from Seton Hill University. Travellin' Shoes, the first RJ Franklin novel, began as her thesis project at Seton Hill, even though it was not the first book she sold. The program clearly mattered to her. Burns has said it gave her craft training, confidence, and a community of genre writers who understood exactly what she wanted to do. She has since come full circle as an adjunct professor and mentor in Seton Hill's Writing Popular Fiction MFA program.

Her breakout novel, The Plot Is Murder, introduced Samantha Washington, a recent widow who opens a mystery bookstore in North Harbor, Michigan while writing a British historical whodunit on the side. Readers who enjoy books about books, small town gossip, and older side characters with strong opinions tend to click with that series quickly. The novel was a finalist for the Agatha Award for Best First Novel, which helped bring Burns to the attention of a lot of cozy readers.

What makes her bibliography especially fun is how easily she shifts between different kinds of mystery without losing her voice. In In the Dog House, Lilly Echosby is rebuilding her life in Tennessee with a toy poodle and a lively dog club nearby. In Travellin' Shoes, Burns moves into police procedural territory, but keeps the warmth, humor, and strong community feel that cozy readers often want. RJ Franklin is a homicide detective, Mama B is his sharp godmother, and the cases are rooted in church life, neighborhood history, and local politics. All of the RJ Franklin titles come from Negro spirituals, and the books include soul food recipes, a small detail that says a lot about how closely Burns ties mystery to place.

Burns is open about the writers she grew up loving, especially Agatha Christie, along with Rex Stout, Victoria Thompson, Patricia Wentworth, Jill Churchill, and Emily Brightwell. You can feel those influences in her fondness for puzzle plots, recurring ensembles, and settings where meals, manners, and motives all matter. She also writes short fiction, and her story The Vermeer Conspiracy was a finalist for both the Anthony and Edgar Awards.

What readers often come back for is not just the mystery, but the company. Burns writes people who meddle, feed one another, hold grudges, and keep showing up. Whether the setting is a Michigan bookshop, a Tennessee dog club, or an Indiana police department, her stories feel like they know the neighborhood.