Robert Thorogood Books in Order

If you want to begin with the Caribbean cases: A Meditation on Murder → The Killing of Polly Carter → Death Knocks Twice → Murder in the Caribbean.
If you prefer a modern English cosy mystery: The Marlow Murder Club → Death Comes to Marlow → The Queen of Poisons → Murder on the Marlow Belle.
If you like to follow character growth closely: read The Marlow Murder Club first, then continue in order through Death Comes to Marlow, The Queen of Poisons and Murder on the Marlow Belle.
If you are catching up before future releases: finish the Marlow series in order, then add The Mysterious Affair of Judith Potts when it is published.

Robert Thorogood is an English screenwriter and novelist best known for creating the BBC crime drama Death in Paradise and writing the mystery novels that grew out of it. Born in 1972 in Colchester, Essex, he has built a career on classic whodunits wrapped in bright settings, from a fictional Caribbean island to the Thames‑side town of Marlow.

He was educated at Uppingham School in Rutland, where he met his future wife, broadcaster Katie Breathwick. At Downing College, Cambridge, he read history and threw himself into student comedy, touring with the Footlights troupe in 1993 and serving as its president the following year.

After university he set up a small touring theatre company, taking plays into schools and intimate venues around the country. One of the highlights was a production of Moliere's The Miser, in which he both directed and performed alongside fellow up‑and‑coming actors such as David Mitchell, Robert Webb and Olivia Colman.

It was a long apprenticeship.

For years Thorogood wrote scripts on spec for broadcasters and independent producers, supporting his writing with a string of temporary jobs. The only piece to make it to air in that period was From Abstraction, a Radio 4 drama about mathematician Paul Wolfskehl. A turning point came in 2008, when he became a finalist in the inaugural Red Planet Prize and was able to pitch a Caribbean detective series to producer Tony Jordan.

That pitch became Death in Paradise, which first aired in 2011 and grew into a long‑running international hit. Thorogood created the series, wrote many of its early episodes and later helped develop related shows such as Beyond Paradise and Return to Paradise. He has also worked as creator and showrunner on Trackers, a thriller series set in South Africa.

Alongside the television work he began writing novels featuring the uptight London detective DI Richard Poole, transplanted to the fictional island of Saint Marie. The tie‑in mysteries A Meditation on Murder, The Killing of Polly Carter, Death Knocks Twice and Murder in the Caribbean keep the show's sunny backdrop but lean into intricate, fair‑play puzzles in the classic crime tradition.

In recent years Thorogood has shifted his focus to the Marlow Murder Club books, starting with The Marlow Murder Club and Death Comes to Marlow and continuing with The Queen of Poisons and Murder on the Marlow Belle, with The Mysterious Affair of Judith Potts on the way. These stories follow crossword‑setter Judith Potts and her friends Suzie and Becks as they solve murders in and around the town of Marlow.

At heart, he is still the ten‑year‑old reader who discovered Agatha Christie's Peril at End House and wanted more clever murders on the shelf.

Thorogood now lives in Marlow, Buckinghamshire, the town that inspired Judith Potts's adventures and later became the backdrop for a television adaptation of The Marlow Murder Club. Away from the page he has spoken at crime festivals and screenwriting events, and he is an accomplished Eton Fives player. His novels have appeared on Sunday Times and USA Today bestseller lists, bringing classic puzzle mysteries to a new generation of readers.