Malla Nunn Books in Order
Malla Nunn has written 6 books, published between 2008 and 2021. The first book is A Beautiful Place to Die (2008) and the newest is Sugar Town Queens (2021). Publication order is the reading order below.
- Books
- 6
- Published
- 2008–2021
- Total pages
- 1,966 across 6 books
- Reading time
- 33–49 hours
Reading time is an estimate, not a recorded figure: 1,966 pages at 300 words a page, read at 200–300 words a minute.
Malla Nunn, born in 1963, is a Swaziland-born Australian screenwriter, film director and author. The Detective Emmanuel Cooper mysteries are set in South Africa and open with A Beautiful Place to Die (2008), followed by Let The Dead Lie (2010), Blessed Are the Dead (2012) and Present Darkness (2013). Nunn then turned to young adult fiction with the award-winning When the Ground Is Hard (2019) and Sugar Town Queens (2021). Six books are catalogued in all.
How many Malla Nunn books are there?
Malla Nunn has 6 books, released between 2008 and 2021. 4 of them belong to the Detective Emmanuel Cooper series.
Malla Nunn Books in Publication Order
The table lists all 6 Malla Nunn books in the order they were published, with the release year, the page count where one is on record, and how many independent book listings confirm each title. Catalogue data as of September 2026.
- 120083751/4
- 220103821/4
- 320123091/4
- 420133371/4
- 5When the Ground Is Hard2019 · 272 pages · confirmed 1/420192721/4
- 6Sugar Town Queens2021 · 291 pages · confirmed 1/420212911/4
Malla Nunn 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.
Detective Emmanuel Cooper in order
4 booksStandalone books
2 books2 Malla Nunn titles here are not listed as part of any series.
Do you have to read Malla Nunn books in order?
You only need to read Malla Nunn books in order within the Detective Emmanuel Cooper series, which holds 4 of the 6 Malla Nunn books listed here. The numbered table above gives every book in publication order.
Where to start with Malla Nunn
Start with A Beautiful Place to Die (2008), the earliest published title.
What is the newest Malla Nunn book?
Sugar Town Queens (2021) is the newest Malla Nunn book released so far.
Is there a new Malla Nunn book coming?
No next Malla Nunn book is announced in the catalogue, which is a gap in the listings it merges rather than a sign that the run has ended.
Malla Nunn at a glance
- Paused
- No new Malla Nunn title has appeared for 5 years. The last was published in 2021.
- Release pace
- Malla Nunn books have appeared about one every 3 years on average.
- Length
- 1,966 pages across all 6 books with a recorded length, a median of 323 pages each.
- Busiest decade
- Most Malla Nunn books, 4 of 6, were published in the 2010s.
What the Malla Nunn books are about
All 6 Malla Nunn books carry subject tags in Open Library's catalogue. The subjects below are the ones that recur across them, most frequent first: crime is tagged on 3 of 6. The subjects are cataloguers’ headings, not a plot summary.
- Crime 3 of 6 books
- Investigation 3 of 6 books
- Murder 3 of 6 books
- South Africa 3 of 6 books
- Children's fiction 2 of 6 books
- History 2 of 6 books
- Police 2 of 6 books
- Private investigators 2 of 6 books