Puzzle Lady Books in Order

Puzzle Lady by Parnell Hall contains 21 books, published between 1999 and 2019. The first book is A Clue for the Puzzle Lady (1999) and the newest is Lights! Camera! Puzzles! (2019). Publication order is the reading order below.

Books
21
Published
1999–2019
Pages on record
5,968 in 18 of 21 books
Reading time
99–149 hours

Reading time is an estimate, not a recorded figure: 5,968 pages at 300 words a page, read at 200300 words a minute, covering the 18 of 21 titles with a page count on record.

Puzzle Lady is Parnell Hall's cozy mystery series about Cora Felton, an older woman known as a crossword constructor who ends up investigating murders. A Clue for the Puzzle Lady (1999) opens the run, and the wordplay holds across Last Puzzle & Testament, Puzzled to Death, A Puzzle in a Pear Tree, With this Puzzle, I Thee Kill and And a Puzzle to Die On. Twenty-one books make up the series, which closes with Lights! Camera! Puzzles! in 2019.

How many Puzzle Lady books are there?

Puzzle Lady has 21 books, released between 1999 and 2019.

Puzzle Lady Books in Publication Order

The table lists all 21 Puzzle Lady 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.

  1. 1
    A Clue for the Puzzle Lady1999 · 323 pages · confirmed 2/4
    1999323
  2. 2
    Last Puzzle & Testament2000 · 370 pages · confirmed 2/4
    2000370
  3. 3
    Puzzled to Death2001 · 391 pages · confirmed 2/4
    2001391
  4. 4
    A Puzzle in a Pear Tree2002 · 384 pages · confirmed 2/4
    2002384
  5. 5
    With this Puzzle, I Thee Kill2003 · 322 pages · confirmed 2/4
    2003322
  6. 6
    And a Puzzle to Die On2004 · 384 pages · confirmed 2/4
    2004384
  7. 7
    Stalking the Puzzle Lady2005 · 350 pages · confirmed 2/4
    2005350
  8. 8
    You Have the Right to Remain Puzzled2006 · 368 pages · confirmed 2/4
    2006368
  9. 9
    The Sudoku Puzzle Murders2008 · 304 pages · confirmed 2/4
    2008304
  10. 10
    Dead Man's Puzzle2009 · 323 pages · confirmed 2/4
    2009323
  11. 11
    The Puzzle Lady vs. The Sudoku Lady2009 · 309 pages · confirmed 2/4
    2009309
  12. 12
    The KenKen Killings2011 · 326 pages · confirmed 2/4
    2011326
  13. 13
    $10,000 in Small, Unmarked Puzzles2012 · 308 pages · confirmed 2/4
    2012308
  14. 14
    Arsenic and Old Puzzles2013 · confirmed 2/4
    2013
  15. 15
    Lethal Luncheon2013 · confirmed 2/4
    2013
  16. 16
    NYPD Puzzle2014 · confirmed 2/4
    2014
  17. 17
    Puzzled Indemnity2015 · 262 pages · confirmed 2/4
    2015262
  18. 18
    Presumed Puzzled2016 · 288 pages · confirmed 2/4
    2016288
  19. 19
    A Puzzle to be Named Later2017 · 393 pages · confirmed 2/4
    2017393
  20. 20
    The Purloined Puzzle2018 · 291 pages · confirmed 2/4
    2018291
  21. 21
    Lights! Camera! Puzzles!2019 · 272 pages · confirmed 2/4
    2019272

Is there a chronological order for Puzzle Lady?

No separate chronological order is on record for Puzzle Lady, because none of the book listings this catalogue draws on publishes one; the publication order above is the only order given.

Do you have to read Puzzle Lady books in order?

You should read the Puzzle Lady books in publication order, the order of the numbered table above. The catalogue does not record whether each Puzzle Lady book also stands alone.

Where to start with Puzzle Lady

Start with A Clue for the Puzzle Lady (1999), the earliest published title.

What is the newest Puzzle Lady book?

Lights! Camera! Puzzles! (2019) is the newest Puzzle Lady book released so far.

Is there a new Puzzle Lady book coming?

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

Puzzle Lady at a glance

No recent titles
The newest Puzzle Lady title on record dates from 2019, 7 years ago. No later title is catalogued.
Release pace
Puzzle Lady books have appeared about one a year on average.
Length
5,968 pages across the 18 of 21 books with a recorded length, a median of 323 pages each.
Busiest decade
Most Puzzle Lady books, 10 of 21, were published in the 2010s.

What the Puzzle Lady books are about

19 of the 21 Puzzle Lady books carry subject tags in Open Library's catalogue. The subjects below are the ones that recur across them, most frequent first: crossword puzzle makers is tagged on 15 of 19. The subjects are cataloguers’ headings, not a plot summary.

More books by Parnell Hall

The author page linked below lists every book in publication order.

Characters in the Puzzle Lady books

Each character linked below has its own reading-order page.