Betty Rowlands Books in Order

Newly arrived at Hawthorn Cottage, crime writer Melissa Craig hopes for peace in the Cotswolds. Instead, bones are found in the woods behind her home, and curiosity pulls her into her first real murder case.

Settling into a teaching post in Upper Benbury, Melissa is jolted when fellow teacher Angelica is found murdered. With the police eyeing a man close to her, she follows the trail of a slashed portrait and village secrets.

On a trip to the French mountains, Melissa witnesses a death below the cliffs that looks far from accidental. When a second body turns up in the same spot, she has to untangle a dangerous web far from home.

Melissa helps stage an amateur play at a country hotel, only for one of the cast to die at the bottom of the cellar stairs. Hidden passages, backstage grudges and practiced liars make this a tricky case.

A missing neighbour leads Melissa to a chilling scene, murder with a grotesque smile painted on the victim's face. As similar deaths spread across the Cotswolds, she races to stop a killer known as The Smiler.

Looking for quiet time to work, Melissa accepts an invitation to a country house retreat. When the difficult owner is murdered in his orchard after asking for her help, she must sort through resentments, secrets and too many suspects.

After local novelist Leonora Jewell dies, Melissa is asked to finish her final book. A bloodstained metal bar and vanished evidence at Leonora's cottage convince her the death was murder, not misfortune.

After a hard early life and a failed marriage, Julia Drake gets a fresh start when she reconnects with old friend Stephanie Harraway and meets artist Luke Devereux. But old wounds and uneasy loyalties make happiness far less simple than it seems.

Police photographer Sukey Reynolds expects a routine call to Hazel House, but finds a dead woman and an emptied safe. The break-in looks simple at first, yet the grand house quickly reveals deeper secrets.

Sukey is pulled into a very personal case when the woman her ex-husband left her for is found dead at Dearley Manor. Old resentments, new loyalties and family secrets make the investigation anything but comfortable.

What starts as gossip about a small local robbery turns serious when a young woman's body is found in nearby woods. Melissa soon suspects the tidy village knows more about the victim than anyone is admitting.

While working a string of high-end burglaries, Sukey startles a suspect who seems to know her face all too well. As murders follow, she has to uncover why someone out there appears to be her double.

Melissa finds a young woman dead beside Benbury Brook after seeing her shaken new neighbour flee the woods. Convinced he is being blamed too quickly, she digs into the village's darker corners.

Melissa is forced back into family history when her estranged father is found dead and her mother falls under suspicion. To clear Sylvia's name, she must face old wounds and uncover who really wanted him gone.

A burglary at a New Age retreat called Burwell Farm leaves Sukey uneasy long before a body turns up in the garden. The place promises healing, but its residents seem to be hiding something much darker.

Sukey photographs a young woman found dead at Ivy House, then notices odd links to a nearby hotel burglary. A vanished guest and a secret meeting by the river push her dangerously close to the truth.

While Sylvia enjoys a stay at a grand retirement home, first a dog and then its owner are found dead in the dining room. Mother and daughter both start asking questions, to the police's discomfort.

Melissa plans to retire from sleuthing and spend summer in her garden, but a beekeeper is found dead under the trees, covered in stings. When another death follows, the case looks far too clever to ignore.

Arthur Soames seems to have died in a tragic fall, but his family insists someone killed him. Sukey agrees to look closer and uncovers a life full of secrets, grudges and people with reason to lie.

At a summer garden party, Sukey finds estate manager Una May dead beneath an apple tree after a public argument with her employer. A slashed painting and a house full of hidden tensions complicate everything.

An archaeology professor is murdered at the elegant Mariners Hotel just after a frantic visitor arrives to see him. Sukey doubts the obvious suspect and follows whispers, documents and phone calls toward the real killer.

A tense library event ends with a public accusation, then a novelist is found dead the next day. When the accuser is killed as well, Sukey has to look hard at the author's household and the lies around it.

Back from holiday, Sukey heads to Clevedon when an unidentified woman is found washed up on the beach. Old cold cases and a recurring tattoo suggest the seaside town has been hiding a pattern of murder.

A doctor doubts the accidental death of kindly Adelaide Minchin, and Sukey keeps the case in mind. Then two girls vanish from the same village, and her hunch that the crimes are connected becomes hard to ignore.

When Fenella Tremaine is found murdered in the grounds of Sycamore House, the police think they have an easy suspect. Sukey isn't convinced, and the victim's tangled past soon makes the case much messier.

Before a planned weekend away, Sukey is called to a coastal manor hotel where a guest has been found murdered in the lake. An address book and a bad arrest send her chasing the truth.