Wyatt Investigation Mysteries Books in Order

This series opens with one of Sarah Fox's funniest setups. Emersyn Gray is broke, newly single, and raising her niece after her ex-boyfriend steals her life savings. A fake private investigator scheme is supposed to scare the ex into giving the money back. Instead, the made-up agency, Wyatt Investigations, gets dragged into a real murder case.

That premise gives these books a different feel from Fox's food-heavy village cozies. They are still puzzle-driven and character-focused, but the tone is faster, flirtier, and a little more chaotic. Emersyn is not settling into postcard small-town life or trying to save a beloved café. She is scrambling to hold her life together in a seniors-only apartment complex that was simply the cheapest place she could live in.

Then Wyatt enters the picture. He is the handsome stranger who steps in to play detective, and the push and pull between him and Emersyn becomes one of the series' main engines. There is chemistry, obviously, but there is also mistrust. Emersyn has too much on her plate to hand out easy faith, and that helps the books. The romance adds spark without swallowing the mystery.

Definitely Maybe Not a Detective starts with the death of the apartment building superintendent and a group of neighbors who are perfectly happy to believe Wyatt Investigations is a real business. That gives the first book both its humor and its stakes. We Are Never Ever Solving This Murder shows where the series can go from there, with Emersyn and Wyatt taking on a client's request to investigate her brother's death and finding something much darker behind it. What begins as improvisation starts to look a lot like actual detective work.

Under the jokes, these books know that starting over can be scary.

Emersyn works well as a lead because she is funny without being glib. She is tired, worried about money, protective of her niece, and still willing to keep going. That makes the lighter rom-com energy feel earned instead of weightless. The mystery plots also benefit from her emotional stake in the work. She is not sleuthing for sport. She is trying to prove, to herself as much as anyone else, that she can build a stable future out of a very shaky beginning.

If you want Sarah Fox with more banter and a more contemporary rhythm, this is a great place to start. Begin with Definitely Maybe Not a Detective for the fake-agency setup, then follow Emersyn and Wyatt as pretending turns into a real profession.