Massachusetts book series in reading order

by Jeremiah Healy

by Philip R. Craig

by Linda Barnes

by Nero Blanc

by Dolores Stewart Riccio

by Sally Cabot Gunning

Robert B. Parker

87 books• 9 series

Robert B. Parker (September 17, 1932 – January 18, 2010) was an American writer working mainly in mystery and detective fiction. The Spenser novels, about a private detective, are Parker's most famous works and inspired the ABC series Spenser: For Hire and a run of TV movies. The Godwulf Manuscript (1973), God Save the Child (1974) and Mortal Stakes (1975) are among the early titles. Jesse Stone and Sunny Randall are further characters, and Virgil Cole & Everett Hitch form another series. Parker's books draw on detailed knowledge of the Boston metropolitan area, and Robert Crais, Harlan Coben and Dennis Lehane are among those who credit the Spenser novels with renewing the detective genre.

Charlotte MacLeod wrote mystery fiction on both sides of the Canadian-American border, and her 48 catalogued books run from Mystery of the White Knight (1964) to It Was an Awful Shame and Other Stories (2002). Four recurring casts carry the work: Sarah Kelling and Max Bittersohn in Boston, Professor Peter Shandy at Balaclava Junction, Madoc and Janet Rhys, and the Grub-And-Stakers. Massachusetts settings, college teachers and women sleuths recur across the mysteries. The catalogue closes in 2002.

Phoebe Atwood Taylor, born in Boston in 1909 and died there in 1976, wrote mystery novels under her own name and as Freeman Dana and Alice Tilton. Her first, The Cape Cod Mystery (1931), introduced Asey Mayo, the Codfish Sherlock, who went on to appear in 24 novels; Leonidas Witherall heads a second series. Taylor drew on her own Boston childhood and her knowledge of Cape Cod for the local detail, and the critic Dilys Winn placed her as the mystery writer's answer to Buster Keaton. She graduated from Barnard College in 1930 and married the surgeon Grantley Walder Taylor in 1951. Thirty-three catalogued titles date from 1931 to 1987.

George V. Higgins

32 books• 5 series

George V. Higgins (1939–1999) was an American author, lawyer, newspaper columnist and college professor. The Friends of Eddie Coyle (1970) opens the catalogue and established the Boston noir line of gangster tales that later writers and films took up. More than thirty books came after it, among them The Digger's Game (1973), Cogan's Trade (1974), also published as Killing Them Softly, and the Jerry Kennedy legal novels, Kennedy for the Defense (1981) among them. Thirty-two titles are catalogued through 2004, with Boston, lawyers, politicians and the Mafia as standing subjects.

Jane Langton (1922–2018) wrote children's literature and mystery novels, and illustrated her own books. Two sequences carry most of the work: the Homer Kelly mysteries, built on a recurring detective of that name, and the Hall Family Chronicles, which run to magic and fairy tale. Thirty-four books are catalogued, from The Majesty of Grace (1961) to The Dragon Tree (2008), with Massachusetts and Cambridge among the settings, at a median length of 252 pages.

Knitting and murder meet in Sally Goldenbaum's Seaside Knitters Society Mysteries, set in a Massachusetts seaside town. Goldenbaum started in romance, with The Baron and Crescendo (1986) among the earliest titles, before turning to mystery. Thirty-five books are catalogued through Skating on a Thread in 2026, at 304 pages on median, and the 2010s were the busiest decade.

William G. Tapply, born in 1940 and died in 2009, was an American writer who published more than 40 books and lived his whole life in New England, working as a high school teacher and a college professor. Brady Coyne, a Boston lawyer who investigates, carries the mysteries he is known for, and Stoney Calhoun heads a second series. Fly fishing, one of Tapply's own pastimes, fills much of his non-fiction. Forty-seven titles span Death at Charity's Point (1984) to The Nomination (2011).

Jeremiah Healy created the Boston private investigator John Francis Cuddy, and, as Terry Devane, the Mairead O'Clare legal thrillers, both series set primarily in Boston. Healy graduated from Rutgers College and Harvard Law School and taught for eighteen years at the New England School of Law. Blunt Darts (1984) opens a 30-book catalogue that closes with Two Birds with One Stone (2005), taking in The Staked Goat (1986), Swan Dive (1988), Right to Die (1991) and Shallow Graves (1992). Hard-boiled detective fiction, Massachusetts and murder head the subject list, at a median of 292 pages.

Two Boston detectives anchor Linda Barnes's crime fiction: Carlotta Carlyle, a woman private investigator, and Michael Spraggue, an actor. Barnes wrote 21 catalogued books between 1982 and 2015, the last of them Further Adventures of Carlotta Carlyle. Massachusetts settings and women detectives run through the work, and no new title has appeared since 2015.

Philip R. Craig (December 10, 1933 to May 8, 2007) was a writer known for the Martha's Vineyard mysteries. The catalogue holds 23 books, from Gate of Ivory, Gate of Horn (1969) and A Beautiful Place to Die (1989) to Vineyard Chill (2008). Titles in between include Off Season (1994), A Case of Vineyard Poison (1995), Death on a Vineyard Beach (1996) and A Deadly Vineyard Holiday (1997). A second series, Brady Coyne/J.W. Jackson, also appears. Subjects include private investigators, Jeff Jackson, Brady Coyne, Massachusetts and art.

Dogs run through Susan Conant's mysteries. Holly Winter, a journalist in Cambridge, Massachusetts, leads the Dog Lover's Mysteries, which open with A New Leash on Death (1990). The Cat Lover's Mysteries and the Gourmet Girl Mysteries follow. Twenty-seven books are catalogued, closing with Sire and Damn (2015). Dog trainers, dog owners and murder are the standing subjects.

Nancy Pickard

26 books• 3 series

Nancy Pickard, born September 19, 1945, in Kansas City, Missouri, is an American crime novelist. Pickard has won five Macavity Awards, four Agatha Awards, an Anthony Award and a Shamus Award, the only author to take all four. Pickard served on the Mystery Writers of America board, holds a journalism degree from the University of Missouri, and began writing at 35. The Scent of Rain and Lightning became a film in 2017. The catalogue lists 26 books, among them Generous Death (1984), Say No to Murder (1985) and Marriage Is Murder (1987), with Jenny Cain and Marie Lightfoot as series.

V.C. Andrews was the name used by Cleo Virginia Andrews (June 6, 1923 to December 19, 1986), an American novelist best known for Flowers in the Attic (1979). That novel led to four sequels and two film adaptations. The publisher never classed the books as Young Adult, yet their young protagonists have drawn teenage readers for decades. After Andrews died in 1986, a ghostwriter first hired to finish two incomplete manuscripts went on publishing new books under the V.C. Andrews name. The catalogue carries 108 books under that name from 1979 to 2025, across series such as Dollanganger, Casteel, Cutler, Landry, Logan and De Beers.

Alice Hoffman

52 books• 10 series

Alice Hoffman, born March 16, 1952, is an American novelist who also writes for young adults and children. Practical Magic (1995) became a 1998 film of the same name and grew into a media franchise. Magic realism runs through much of the work, with elements of magic, irony and unconventional romances. The catalogue counts 52 books, starting with Property Of (1977) and The Drowning Season (1979) and reaching The Witches of Cambridge (2026). Series include Practical Magic, Once Upon a Time Bookshop Stories, Water Tales and Green Angel, plus picture books. Subjects include Massachusetts, mothers and daughters, friendship and family life.

Victoria Trumbull, an elderly poet who investigates murders on Martha's Vineyard, is the detective Cynthia Riggs writes. The Martha's Vineyard Mystery series accounts for all 14 of Riggs's catalogued books, opening with Deadly Nightshade (2001) and closing with Widow's Wreath (2018). Titles across the run take their names from plants: The Cranefly Orchid Murders, The Paperwhite Narcissus, Indian Pipes, Touch-Me-Not and The Bee Balm Murders. Nothing new has appeared since 2018, so the series reads as finished.

Nero Blanc is the author of the Crossword Mysteries, with 12 books catalogued from 1999 to 2006. The Crossword Murder (1999) is the first, followed by Two Down and The Crossword Connection. Subject tags name the characters Rosco Polycrates and Belle Graham, and also list private investigators, crossword puzzle makers, Massachusetts and Nantucket Island. Later titles include A Crossword To Die For, Corpus de Crossword and Anatomy Of A Crossword. Death On The Diagonal (2006) is the last.

Carla Neggers writes romance and romantic suspense, with 83 books in the catalogue published from 1982 to 2019. Dream Images (1982) is the earliest, followed by Midsummer Dreams (1982), Tangled Promises (1982) and Dancing Season (1983). Rival's Break (2019) is the newest title, and the catalogue is likely complete. Neggers series include Sharpe & Donovan, Swift River Valley, Cold Ridge/U.S. Marshals, Black Falls, Boston Police/FBI and Texas Rangers/Carriage House. Subjects include contemporary romance, missing persons, murder investigations and the FBI.

Kate Flora writes two crime series. Thea Kozak is an educational consultant who investigates, catalogued under women sleuths, and Joe Burgess is a police sequence set in Boston and Massachusetts. Flora's 25 books run from Chosen for Death (1994) through Death at the Wheel (1996), Liberty or Death (2003) and The Angel of Knowlton Park (2008) to Deliver Us from Evil (2025).

John Lawrence Reynolds is a Canadian author of both fiction and non-fiction. Three Reynolds novels have taken the Arthur Ellis Award: The Man Who Murdered God, Gypsy Sins and Murder Among the Pines. The Joe McGuire mysteries, set around Boston, and the Maxine Benson mysteries are the named series, while the non-fiction runs to titles such as RRSPs and RRIFs for dummies (1999). Reynolds was born in Hamilton, Ontario. 28 books are catalogued from 1989 to Beach Blonde in 2021, at a median of 262 pages.

Steven Axelrod has nine catalogued books, published between 2000 and 2020. Paranoid (2000) and Just Like in the Movies (2004) come before a run of Nantucket titles: Nantucket Sawbuck (2013), Nantucket Five-Spot (2015), Nantucket Grand (2016), Nantucket Red Tickets (2017), Nantucket Counterfeit (2018) and Nantucket Penny (2020), with Heat of the Moment (2015) alongside them. Henry Kennis is the recurring character and Henry Kennis Mystery the series recorded here. Subjects record murder, investigation, Massachusetts and police procedure.

Elin Hilderbrand is an American novelist, born July 17, 1969, who writes mystery and romance. Hilderbrand lives on Nantucket, and the novels are typically set on and around the island. The 39 catalogued books start with The Beach Club (2000) and reach The Thoroughbreds (2026). Named series include Nantucket, Paradise and 28 Summers. Subject headings return to family secrets, female friendship, summer resorts and love stories. In 2019 New York magazine called Hilderbrand "the queen of beach reads".

American novelist Laura Dave was born on July 18, 1977. Dave's novel The Last Thing He Told Me reached the New York Times bestseller list and was adapted for television. The catalogue holds 8 books, from London is the Best City in America (2006) to The First Time I Saw Him (2026), and lists one series, Hannah Hall. Subjects tagged on the books include marriage, family life, missing persons, journalists and Rhode Island. The author's publishing remains ongoing.

Nancy Thayer, born December 14, 1943, is an American novelist. The catalogue here lists 39 books spanning 1980 to 2026, from Stepping to Nantucket Christmas Stroll, and includes the Hot Flash Club series. Recurring subjects are female friendship, family life, middle-aged women, mothers and daughters, and Nantucket Island. Thayer's release status is ongoing.

Joseph Finder

19 books• 4 series

Thrillers are the core of Joseph Finder's catalogue. Finder is American, born October 6, 1958. Paranoia, Company Man, Killer Instinct and Power Play sit in the list next to the Nick Heller thriller series. Two novels reached the screen: High Crimes, with Ashley Judd and Morgan Freeman in the cast, and Paranoia, filmed in 2013 with Liam Hemsworth, Gary Oldman and Harrison Ford. The site lists 19 books, from Red Carpet (1983) and The Moscow Club (1991) to The Oligarch's Daughter (2025). Boston, corporate culture and missing persons appear among the subjects.