Gwendoline Butler Books in Order

76 books are credited to Gwendoline Butler, published between 1956 and 2023; 2 of them appeared after Gwendoline Butler's death in 2013. The first book is Receipt for Murder (1956) and the newest is Hand in Glove (As: Jennie Melville) (2023). Publication order is the reading order below.

Gwendoline Butler also publishes as Jennie Melville.

Books: 76
Published: 1956–2023
Pages on record: 11,928 in 51 of 76 books
Reading time: 199–298 hours

Reading time is an estimate, not a recorded figure: 11,928 pages at 300 words a page, read at 200–300 words a minute, covering the 51 of 76 titles with a page count on record.

See all 76 books in order Printable Gwendoline Butler checklist

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Gwendoline Butler, who lived from 1922 to 2013, was a British writer of mysteries and romances who also published as Jennie Melville. Butler is credited with inventing the woman's police procedural. Her two main sequences are the Inspector John Coffin novels and the Charmian Daniels books, the latter issued under the Melville name. The catalogue holds 76 titles from Receipt for Murder in 1956 onward, taking in Victorian mysteries, gothic tales and romantic novels as well as contemporary detection.

Source: Wikidata

How many Gwendoline Butler books are there?

Gwendoline Butler has 76 books, released between 1956 and 2023. 2 of them were published after Gwendoline Butler's death in 2013. They include 3 series and 18 titles listed outside any series.

Gwendoline Butler books grouped by series

Each title below is a row in the publication-order table above. None of these groups has a reading-order page of its own on this site.

John Coffin Mystery in order

33 books

1. Receipt for Murder
2. Dead in a Row
3. The Dull Dead
4. The murdering Kind
5. The Interloper
6. Death Lives Next Door / Dine and Be Dead
7. Make Me a Murderer
8. Coffin in Oxford
9. Coffin For Baby
10. Coffin Waiting
11. Coffin In Malta
12. A Nameless Coffin
and 21 more in the table above

Charmian Daniels in order

22 books

1. Come Home and Be Killed
2. Burning Is a Substitute for Loving
3. Murderers' Houses
4. There Lies Your Love
5. A New Kind of Killer, an Old Kind of Death
6. Murder Has a Pretty Face
7. Murder in the Garden / Death in the Garden
8. Windsor Red
9. A Cure for Dying / Making Good Blood
10. Witching Murder
11. A Different Kind of Summer
12. Footsteps in the Blood
and 10 more in the table above

Major Mearns and Sergeant Denny in order

2 books

1. The King Cried Murder
2. Dread Murder

Jennie Melville Short Stories/Novellas

1 book

1 title published under this heading without a numbered place in a series.

Standalone books

18 books

18 Gwendoline Butler titles here are not listed as part of any series.

Do you have to read Gwendoline Butler books in order?

You only need to read Gwendoline Butler books in order within each series: the books listed here span 3 separate series, and each series has its own publication order.

Where to start with Gwendoline Butler

Start with Receipt for Murder (1956), the earliest published title.

What is the newest Gwendoline Butler book?

Hand in Glove (As: Jennie Melville) (2023) is the newest Gwendoline Butler book released so far.

Is there a new Gwendoline Butler book coming?

No next Gwendoline Butler book is announced in the catalogue, which is a gap in the listings it merges rather than a sign that the run has ended.

Awards Gwendoline Butler has won

Wikidata records 1 award for Gwendoline Butler. Each row states whether the title won or was shortlisted, and the year the award was given. Award data is sourced from Wikidata.

Romantic Novelists' Association Awards1981Won

Gwendoline Butler at a glance

Died: Gwendoline Butler died in 2013, according to Wikidata.
After death: Books credited to Gwendoline Butler are still being published after Gwendoline Butler's death in 2013; the newest appeared in 2023.
Release pace: Gwendoline Butler books have appeared about one a year on average.
Length: 11,928 pages across the 51 of 76 books with a recorded length, a median of 224 pages each.
Busiest decade: Most Gwendoline Butler books, 23 of 76, were published in the 1990s.

When Gwendoline Butler books were published

Publication distribution by decade, showing when Gwendoline Butler titles appeared. 1990s was the most productive decade with 23 titles.

1950s

1960s

1970s

1980s

1990s

2000s

2010s

2020s

76 books total across 8 decades. Decade reflects the year each title was first catalogued.

What the Gwendoline Butler books are about

51 of the 76 Gwendoline Butler books carry subject tags in Open Library's catalogue. The subjects below are the ones that recur across them, most frequent first: police is tagged on 28 of 51. The subjects are cataloguers’ headings, not a plot summary.

Police 28 of 51 books
England 21 of 51 books
John Coffin (Fictitious character) 18 of 51 books
Mystery & detective, police procedural 16 of 51 books
Coffin, john (fictitious character) 15 of 51 books
London (England) 15 of 51 books
Policewomen 13 of 51 books
Charmian Daniels (Fictitious character) 11 of 51 books
Daniels, charmian (fictitious character) 11 of 51 books
Mystery & detective, women sleuths 7 of 51 books
Mystery & detective 6 of 51 books
Fiction in English 5 of 51 books