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Wycliffe (WJ Burley) Books in Order

Part ofWJ Burley Books in Order

Follow the Wycliffe books by W.J. Burley in order, with case summaries, series context, reading order, and help choosing your first mystery.

Last updated: July 7, 2026

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Wycliffe (WJ Burley) books in publication order

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23 books

1

Wycliffe and the Three Toed Pussy

by WJ Burley

1968

A young woman is shot in the quiet Cornish village of Kergwyns, with her shoe and stocking removed to expose a deformed foot. Wycliffe follows crossword clues and local lies toward a carefully staged murder.

2

Wycliffe and How to Kill a Cat

by WJ Burley

1970

Wycliffe is meant to be on holiday when a young woman is found strangled in a shabby dockside hotel. Her expensive belongings and hidden cash point to a life far stranger than the room suggests.

3

Wycliffe and the Guilt Edged Alibi

by WJ Burley

1971

When Caroline Bryce is pulled from the river at Treen, Wycliffe finds a scandal wrapped in family pride. Was she killed over love, resentment, or a feud that had been waiting to break?

4

Wycliffe and Death in a Salubrious Place

by WJ Burley

1973

A young woman is brutally murdered in the Scilly Isles, and frightened villagers quickly blame a visiting pop star. Wycliffe looks past the easy suspect and finds fear and guilt running beneath the island calm.

5

Wycliffe and Death in Stanley Street

by WJ Burley

1974

Lily Painter is found strangled in a grim West Country street, dismissed as another sex-crime victim. Wycliffe sees a more complicated life behind the labels, with links to property deals, smuggling, and danger.

6

Wycliffe and the Pea Green Boat

by WJ Burley

1975

Cedric Tremain is accused of killing his father with a booby-trapped fishing boat, and the evidence looks strong. Wycliffe is not convinced, especially when the case echoes a murder from twenty years earlier.

7

Wycliffe and the School Bullies

by WJ Burley

1976

A pair of murders sends the press hunting for a psychopath, but Wycliffe suspects an older wound. His search links a nurse, a nightclub singer, and a lonely student humiliated years before.

8

Wycliffe and the Schoolgirls

by WJ Burley

1976

Two women, a nightclub singer and a nurse, are strangled in similar attacks within a week. Wycliffe doubts the simple serial-killer theory and traces the violence back to a cruel school trip.

9

Wycliffe and the Scapegoat

by WJ Burley

1978

A Halloween cliff ritual turns sinister when a local builder and undertaker disappears, apparently echoing the old scapegoat legend. Wycliffe follows the village’s secrets toward a solution as strange as the crime.

10

Wycliffe in Paul's Court

by WJ Burley

1980

Two violent deaths unsettle the quiet community of Paul’s Court: a doll’s-house maker found hanging and a teenage girl strangled near the churchyard. Wycliffe must untangle grudges hiding behind neighbourly silence.

11

Wycliffe's Wild Goose Chase

by WJ Burley

1982

A Sunday walk gives Wycliffe a fired service revolver and the start of a case on his own doorstep. Art thefts, crooked dealers, a missing yacht, and a doubtful suicide all pull together.

12

Wycliffe and the Beales

by WJ Burley

1983

A village murder seems unrelated to the reclusive Beales of Ashill House, but Wycliffe is not satisfied. The family’s odd habits and old tensions soon turn the Dartmoor edge into dangerous ground.

13

Wycliffe and the Four Jacks

by WJ Burley

1985

Writer David Cleeve has been receiving Jack of Diamonds cards as warnings, then one arrives torn in half and murder follows. Wycliffe’s holiday becomes a case of old crimes, arson, and deadly games.

14

Wycliffe and the Quiet Virgin

by WJ Burley

1986

Wycliffe expects a bleak Christmas at a remote Penzance household, but a girl from the local nativity play disappears. Her neighbours’ indifference makes the search colder, stranger, and much more serious.

15

Wycliffe and the Winsor Blue

by WJ Burley

1987

After Edwin Garland’s funeral, his son is shot dead and Wycliffe is left with a motive no one can see. The clue lies in an artist’s pigment and an old friendship with a painter.

16

Wycliffe and the Tangled Web

by WJ Burley

1988

A pregnant schoolgirl vanishes from a Cornish village, drawing Wycliffe into jealousies and rivalries around her family. When a body appears, it only deepens the question of how many crimes are connected.

17

Wycliffe and the Cycle of Death

by WJ Burley

1990

Bookseller Matthew Glynn is murdered, and every branch of his family seems to carry a grievance. Wycliffe finds old grudges, missing documents, and a vanished wife before another death raises the stakes.

18

Wycliffe and the Dead Flautist

by WJ Burley

1991

The death of amateur flautist Tony Mills looks like suicide on a quiet Cornish estate, until details refuse to fit. Wycliffe’s inquiry uncovers a missing maid, family feuds, and another body.

19

Wycliffe and the Last Rites

by WJ Burley

1992

On Easter morning, a vicar finds a woman’s body on the chancel steps of a Cornish church. Wycliffe suspects the killing is not ritual but hatred, and another murder tightens the net.

20

Wycliffe and the Dunes Mystery

by WJ Burley

1994

Cochran Wilder vanished fifteen years ago, and now his body has been found in the dunes. Wycliffe’s suspects are respectable people tied to an old illicit weekend, until a second murder forces urgency.

21

Wycliffe and the House of Fear

by WJ Burley

1995

While holidaying in Cornwall, Wycliffe meets the troubled Kemp family at their decaying home. When Roger Kemp’s wealthy second wife vanishes, old grief, missing wives, and family damage pull him into the case.

22

Wycliffe and the Redhead

by WJ Burley

1997

Antiquarian bookseller Simon Meagor lets Morwenna, the daughter of a man ruined by his evidence, into his shop and life. When she is found dead in a quarry, Wycliffe must reopen old guilt.

23

Wycliffe and the Guild of Nine

by WJ Burley

2000

At an artists’ colony near St Ives, Francine arrives with money to invest and soon dies from a blocked gas-heater flue. Wycliffe finds that astrology is not the only hidden force at work.

Wycliffe (WJ Burley) books in chronological order

  1. Book cover for "Wycliffe and the Three Toed Pussy"

    Wycliffe and the Three Toed Pussy

    by WJ Burley

    1968Wycliffe, Book 1
  2. Book cover for "Wycliffe and How to Kill a Cat"

    Wycliffe and How to Kill a Cat

    by WJ Burley

    1970Wycliffe, Book 2
  3. Book cover for "Wycliffe and the Guilt Edged Alibi"

    Wycliffe and the Guilt Edged Alibi

    by WJ Burley

    1971Wycliffe, Book 3
  4. Book cover for "Wycliffe and Death in a Salubrious Place"

    Wycliffe and Death in a Salubrious Place

    by WJ Burley

    1973Wycliffe, Book 4
  5. Book cover for "Wycliffe and Death in Stanley Street"

    Wycliffe and Death in Stanley Street

    by WJ Burley

    1974Wycliffe, Book 5
  6. Book cover for "Wycliffe and the Pea Green Boat"

    Wycliffe and the Pea Green Boat

    by WJ Burley

    1975Wycliffe, Book 6
  7. Book cover for "Wycliffe and the Schoolgirls"

    Wycliffe and the Schoolgirls

    by WJ Burley

    1976Wycliffe, Book 7
  8. Book cover for "Wycliffe and the School Bullies"

    Wycliffe and the School Bullies

    by WJ Burley

    1976Wycliffe, Book 8
  9. Book cover for "Wycliffe and the Scapegoat"

    Wycliffe and the Scapegoat

    by WJ Burley

    1978Wycliffe, Book 9
  10. Book cover for "Wycliffe in Paul's Court"

    Wycliffe in Paul's Court

    by WJ Burley

    1980Wycliffe, Book 10
  11. Book cover for "Wycliffe's Wild Goose Chase"

    Wycliffe's Wild Goose Chase

    by WJ Burley

    1982Wycliffe, Book 11
  12. Book cover for "Wycliffe and the Beales"

    Wycliffe and the Beales

    by WJ Burley

    1983Wycliffe, Book 12
  13. Book cover for "Wycliffe and the Four Jacks"

    Wycliffe and the Four Jacks

    by WJ Burley

    1985Wycliffe, Book 13
  14. Book cover for "Wycliffe and the Quiet Virgin"

    Wycliffe and the Quiet Virgin

    by WJ Burley

    1986Wycliffe, Book 14
  15. Book cover for "Wycliffe and the Winsor Blue"

    Wycliffe and the Winsor Blue

    by WJ Burley

    1987Wycliffe, Book 15
  16. Book cover for "Wycliffe and the Tangled Web"

    Wycliffe and the Tangled Web

    by WJ Burley

    1988Wycliffe, Book 16
  17. Book cover for "Wycliffe and the Cycle of Death"

    Wycliffe and the Cycle of Death

    by WJ Burley

    1990Wycliffe, Book 17
  18. Book cover for "Wycliffe and the Dead Flautist"

    Wycliffe and the Dead Flautist

    by WJ Burley

    1991Wycliffe, Book 18
  19. Book cover for "Wycliffe and the Last Rites"

    Wycliffe and the Last Rites

    by WJ Burley

    1992Wycliffe, Book 19
  20. Book cover for "Wycliffe and the Dunes Mystery"

    Wycliffe and the Dunes Mystery

    by WJ Burley

    1994Wycliffe, Book 20
  21. Book cover for "Wycliffe and the House of Fear"

    Wycliffe and the House of Fear

    by WJ Burley

    1995Wycliffe, Book 21
  22. Book cover for "Wycliffe and the Redhead"

    Wycliffe and the Redhead

    by WJ Burley

    1997Wycliffe, Book 22
  23. Book cover for "Wycliffe and the Guild of Nine"

    Wycliffe and the Guild of Nine

    by WJ Burley

    2000Wycliffe, Book 23

Series background & context

Wycliffe is W.J. Burley’s long-running Cornwall crime series, and it is the part of his work most readers meet first. The central figure is Charles Wycliffe, a West Country police detective who prefers patient questioning to grand gestures. He notices awkward pauses, old grudges, and the small social details that other people step around. He is thoughtful rather than theatrical, and that steadiness gives the books much of their shape.

The books are police procedurals, but they do not feel mechanical.

Burley had a sharp eye for closed worlds. In one book the setting may be a quiet village. In another it may be a port, an island community, a school circle, a family estate, a bookshop, or an artists’ colony on the moor. Wherever Wycliffe goes, the case usually opens into a hidden pattern of loyalty, resentment, desire, and fear. The murders are shocking, but the motives are often painfully ordinary. This makes the series less about procedure for its own sake and more about the pressure inside a room, a family, or a village when no one can keep pretending.

The series begins with Wycliffe and the Three Toed Pussy and runs through Wycliffe and the Guild of Nine. Along the way, Wycliffe is pulled into cases involving staged clues, old convictions, anonymous threats, missing girls, uncertain suicides, buried bodies, and families that have spent years not saying the one thing that matters. You can read many of the novels as standalones, but the publication order gives the clearest sense of Burley’s range. It also shows how the books shift from puzzle-led cases into deeper studies of damaged groups.

What links the books is Wycliffe himself. He is compassionate without being soft, skeptical without being showy, and aware that a solved case does not always leave people healed. Burley’s background as a biology teacher seems to show in the way Wycliffe studies human behaviour. He watches the group as well as the individual, and he pays attention to how pressure changes people.

The result is a steady, low-key mystery series with strong local atmosphere. It suits readers who like classic British crime, but who also want the landscape and the psychology to matter. The cases move at a measured pace, then tighten as Wycliffe finds the weak point in a carefully maintained lie. The appeal is quiet, but it lasts. It is a patient kind of suspense.

Edited by

Richard Reis

Software engineer whose passion for tracking book recommendations from podcasts inspired the creation of MRB.

Anurag Ramdasan

Lead investor at 3one4 Capital whose startup expertise and love for books helped shaped MRB and its growth.

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