Death in Paradise, Season 15, at last!

Death in Paradise, Season 15, has finally been released in the US on BritBox for 'regular' subscribers. You'll remember that this series already began to air on BritBox for 'premiere' folks. Of course, we had the Christmas Special, that released in December 2025. There will be 8 episodes, and I believe they will be dropped weekly. Scroll down for Trailer.

DI Mervin Wilson is played by Don Gilet. Commissioner Selwyn Patterson, portrayed by Don Warrington, returns (Yay!) alongside DS Naomi Thomas and Catherine Bordey. There's also a new officer, Sergeant Mattie Fletcher, who joins the team, and Mervin’s half-brother Solomon appears, which could make things more personal this season. 

ENVIRONMENTAL CRIME FICTION, ECOLOGICAL MYSTERIES, & DROWNED TOWNS

Earth Day: Climate change, environmental issues, and how we can save our planet. So important, now more than ever. Commit yourself to saving this planet! 

A few years ago I started posting a list of environmental/ecological mysteries. The list has grown. This list doesn't even touch on the growing number of environmental mysteries. Crime fiction is an excellent way to make readers aware of issues.

Mystery Readers Journal (Volume 36:1) focuses on Environmental Mysteries. This issue is available as a PDF download and hardcopy. Take a look at the Table of Contents and order here. 

For Earth Day 2026, I updated my Earth Day/Environmental Mysteries list. There are many more authors, and certainly more books by many of the authors on the list, but I had to limit. As always, I welcome additions of your favorites. I took a few liberties on the list, too, but I think they all fall under the umbrella of environmental/ecological mysteries. 

Scroll down for a second list that deals exclusively with Drowned Towns aka Reservoir Noir.

Be kind to the Earth. It's the only one we have!

ENVIRONMENTAL/ECOLOGICAL MYSTERIES

Edward Abbey's The Monkey Wrench Gang
P.D. Abbey's H2Glo
Liz Adair's Snakewater Affair
Ellery Adams' Invasive Species

Glyyn Marsh Alam's Cold Water Corpse; Bilge Water Bones

Grace Alexander's Hegemon 
Lou Allin's Northern Winters Are Murder; Blackflies Are Murder: Memories Are Murder
Roberto Ampuero's El aleman de Atacama (only in German)

Christine Andreae's A Small Target
Suzanne Arruda's Stalking Ivory
Sarah Andrews' Em Hansen Mystery series
Lindsay Arthur's The Litigators
Anna Ashwood-Collins' Deadly Resolution; Red Roses for a Dead Trucker
Sandi Ault's Wild Inferno; Wild Indigo; Wild Penance; Wild Sorrow
Shannon Baker's Tainted Mountain; Broken Trust; Tattered Legacy; Skies of Fire
Paolo Bacigalupi's The Water Knife

J. G. Ballard's Rushing to Paradise
Michael Barbour's The Kenai Catastrophe; Blue Water, Blue Island
Nevada Barr's Track of the Cat; Ill Wind; Borderline; and others
Lee Barwood's A Dream of Drowned Hollow?
Pamela Beason's Sam Westin wildlife biologist series
Matt Bell's Appleseed

Robert P. Bennett's Blind Traveler's Blues
William Bernhardt's Silent Justice

David Riley Bertsch's Death Canyon
Donald J Bingle's GreensWord
Michael Black's A Killing Frost 
Jennifer Blake's Shameless
Claire Booth's Another Man's Ground
C J Box's Winterkill; Open Season; Below Zero; Savage Run; Out of Range; Trophy Hunt; Free Fire; In Plain Sight; Dark Sky
Lisa Brackmann's Hour of the Rat
Alex Brett's Dead Water Creek
Lisa Brideau's Drift; Amid Rage; Drink to Every Beast

Tobias S. Buckell's Artic Rising

Joe Burcat's Drink to Every Beast
James Lee Burke's Creole Belle
Rex Burns' Endangered Species
Steve Burrow's A Siege of Bitterns
David Butler Full Curl; No Place for Wolverines; In Rhino We Trust
Chester Campbell's The Surest Poison
Christine Carbo The Wild Inside, Mortal Fall, The Weight of Night, A Sharp Solitude
Ann Cleeves' Another Man's Poison; Wild Fire; Blue Lightning; The Crow Trap
Eileen Charbonneau's Waltzing in Ragtime

Rajat Chaudhuri: The Butterfly Effect
Cassandra Clark: Dark Waters Rising

Margaret Coel's The Dream Stalker
Anna Ashwood Collins's Metamorphis for Murder; Deadly Resolutions
Sarah-Jane Collins' Radiant Heat

Kathleen Concannon's A Deadly Bluff
Shawn Connors' Chain Reaction

Robin Cook's Fever
Dawn Corrigan's Mitigating Circumstances
Peter Corris's Deep Water
Donna Cousin's Landscape
Michael Crichton's State of Fear

James Crumley's Dancing Bear
Rich Curtin's Final Arrangements; Deadly Games
Christine D'Avanzo Cold Blood, Hot Sea; Devil Sea; Secrets Haunt the Lobsters' Sea; Glass Eels, Shattered Sea
Cecil Dawkins' Rare Earth
Janet Dawson's Don't Turn Your Back on the Ocean

Mark de Castrique's Fatal Scores
Barbara Delinsky's Looking for Peyton Place
Lionel Derrick's Death Ray Terror
William Deverell's April Fool
Karen Dionne's Boiling Point; Freezing Point; The Marsh King's Daughter, The Wicked Sister
Paul Doiron's The Poacher's Son; Trespasser; Bad Little Falls; The Bone Orchard; One Last Lie, Almost Midnight, Dead by Dawn, and others
David Michael Donovan's Evil Down in the Alley
Mark Douglas-Home's The Sea Detective
Rubin Douglas' The Wise Pelican: From the Cradle to the Grave
Jack Du Brul's Vulcan's Forge; River of Ruin; and others
Robert Dugoni & Joseph Hilldorfer's Cyanide Canary
Toni Dwiggins' Badwater; Quicksilver
Kerstin Ekman's Blackwater
Aaron J Elkins' The Dark Place; Unnatural Selection
Howard Engel's Dead and Buried
Kathleen Ernst's High Stakes in a Great Lake
Eric C. Evans' Endangered

Nicholas Evans' The Divide
Nancy Fairbanks's Acid Bath; Hunting Game; and others
Kate Fellowes' Thunder in the Night
Cher Fischer's Falling into Green
Bill Fitzhugh's Pest Control; The Exterminators
Michael J. Fitzgerald's The Fracking War
Mary Flodin's The Death of the Gecko
G M Ford's Who in Hell is Wanda Fuca?
Clare Francis's The Killing Winds (Requiem)
Jamie Freveletti's Dead Asleep 
Sara Hoskinson Frommer's Death Climbs a Tree

Abby Geni's The Lightkeepers
Jean Craighead George's The Missing 'Gator of Gumbo Limbo; Who Really Killed Cock Robin?; The Case of the Missing Cutthroats; The Fire Bug Connection (young readers)
Matthew Glass's Ultimatum
Kenneth Goddard's Double Blind; Prey; Wildfire
Chris Goff's A Rant of Ravens; Death of a Songbird; A Nest in the Ashes
Jean Craighead George's The Case of the Missing Cutthroats

Steven Gould and Laura J. Mixon's Greenwar
Alexander M. Grace's Hegemon
Scott Graham's Mountain Rampage, Yellowstone Standoff; Mesa Verde Victim
Robert O. Greer's The Devil's Hatband
John Grisham's The Pelican Brief; The Appeal; The Litigators; Gray Mountain
Beth Groundwater's Deadly Currents; Wicked Eddies
Elizabeth Gunn's Eleven Little Piggies
Jean Hager's Ravenmocker
William Hagard's The Vendettists
James W. Hall's Bones of Coral
Patricia Hall's The Poison Pool
Joseph Hall's Nightwork
Karen Hall's Unreasonable Risk, Through Dark Spaces

A.M. Halvorssen's The Dirty Network
Matt Hammond's Milkshake
Vinnie Hansen's Fruit of the Devil 
Paul E. Hardisty's The Descent

Jane Harper's The Dry; The Lost Man
Jonathan Harr's A Civil Action

Alice Henderson's A Solitude of Wolverines, A Blizzard of Polar Bears, and more.
Sue Henry's Termination Dust
Robert Herring's McCampbell's War
Joseph Heywood's Blue Wolf in Green Fire, Ice Hunter, Chasing a Blond Moon; Buckular Dystrophy; Bad Optics
Carl Hiaasen's Skinny Dip; Stormy Weather; Sick Puppy; Strip Tease; Scat; Star Island; Double Whammy, Tourist Season, Skin Tight

Anne Hillerman's Song of the Lion
Tony Hillerman's The Blessing Way
Tami Hoag's Lucky's Lady
John Hockenberry's A River out of Eden
Peter Hoeg's Smilla's Sense of Snow
John Holt's Hunted
Dave Hugelschaffer's Day into Night, One Careless Moment
Judy Hughes' The Snowmobile Kidnapping
Mary Ellen Hughes's A Taste of Death
R.J. Jacobs's Always the First to Die

Dana Andrew Jennings' Lonesome Standard Time
Liz Jensen's The Rapture
Craig Johnson's Hell is Empty; Dry Bones

Sylvia Kelso's The Solitaire Ghost; The Time Seam
Emily Kimelman's Unleashed
Thomas King's Cold Skies
M.T. Kingsley's With Malicious Intent

Henry Kisor's Hang Fire
Linda Kistler's Cause for Concern
Lisa Kleinholz's Dancing with Mr. D. 
Bill Knox's The Scavengers, Devilweed, and others in the Webb Carrick series
Dean Koontz's Icebound
William Kent Krueger's "Cork O'Connor" series, including Manitou Canyon, Sulfur Springs
Janice Law's Infected Be the Air

P.J. Lazos' Oil and Water
Leena Lehtolainen's Fatat Headwind
Stephen Legault's The Cardinal Divide, The Glacier Gallows, The Vanishing Track, The Darkening Archipelago
Donna Leon's Death in a Strange Country; About Face; Earthly Remains; Acqua Alta
David Liss' The Ethical Assassin
Sam Llewellyn's Deadeye
Charles & Lidia LoPinto's Countdown in Alaska; Nukes
Robert Lopresti's Greenfellas
Jim Lynch's The Highest Tide
John D MacDonald's Barrier Island (and other titles)
Ross Macdonald's Sleeping Beauty
Jassy Mackenzie's The Fallen
Nicole Maggi's A Murder in Zion

Larry Maness' A Once a Perfect Place
Elizabeth Manz's Wasted Space
John Marsden's A Killing Frost
Margaret Maron's High Country Fall, Shooting at Loons, Up Jumps the Devil, Hard Row
John Martel's Partners
Steve Martini's Critical Mass

Jean Matthews' Bet Your Bones
Keith McCafferty's The Royal Wulff Murders; Dead Man's Fance; A Death in Eden; The Bangtail Ghost; Buffalo Jump Blues
Charlotte McConaghy's Once There Were Wolves; Wild Dark Shore

M.J. McGrath's The Boy in the Snow
John McGoran's Drift; Deadout; Dust Up
Karin McQuillan's Deadly Safari; Cheetah Chase; Elephant's Graveyard

Mindy Meija's Leave No Trace
Anne Metikosh's Undercurrent 
Deon Meyer's Blood Safari, Thirteen Hours; Fever
Shannon Michaud's Still Water
Penny Mickelbury's What Could Be More Than Dead? 
Susan Cummins Miller's Chasm
Kirk Mitchell's High Desert Malice; Deep Valley Malice
Laura J. Mixon & Steven Gould's Greenwar

Margaret Mizushima's Killing Trail; Stalking Ground; and others 
Skye Kathleen Moody's Blue Poppy; and other Venus Diamond mysteries
C. George Muller's Echoes in the Blue
Marcia Muller's Cape Perdido
Sandy Neill's Deadly Turn; Deadly Trespass

Judith Newton's Oink
Michael Norman's Skeleton Picnic; On Deadly Ground
Dan O'Brien's Brendan Prairie
Michael Palmer's Fatal
Sara Paretsky's Blood Shot
Brad Parks' The Player
T. Jefferson's Parker's Pacific Beat

James Patterson's Zoo

Ridley Pearson's Killer View
Louise Penny's A Better Man

Cathy Pickens' Southern Fried
Carl Posey's Bushmaster Fall
David Poyer's As the Wolf Loves Winter, Winter in the Heart
Richard Powers' Playground

Katherine Prairie's Thirst
Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child's Reliquary
Kwei Quartey's Murder at Cape Three Points; Gold of our Fathers
Peter Ralph's Dirty Fracking Business

Ben Rehder's Bum Steer; Holy Moly; Hog Heaven; Fat Crazy, and more
Bob Reiss's Purgatory Road
Ruth Rendell's Road Rage 
Geoffrey Robert's The Alo Release
Carolyn Rose's An Uncertain Refuge
Leonard Rosen's The Tenth Witness
Simon Rosser's Tipping Point

Rebecca Rothenberg's The Shy Tulip Murders; The Bulrush Murder
Patricia Rushford's Red Sky in the Mourning
Alan Russell's The Forest Prime Evil 
Kirk Russell's Shell Games
Nick Russell's Big Lake Blizzard

Louis Sachar's Fuzzy Mud
Brenda Seabrook's The Dragon That Slurped the Green Slime Swamp (Children's)
Frank Schätzing's The Swarm
L.J. Seller's Crimes of Memory
Paige Shelton's Cold Wind
Patricia Skalka's Death Stalks Door County

Barry Siegel's Actual Innocence
Sheila Simonson's An Old Chaos 
Jessica Speart's Bird Brained, Blue Twilight, Gator Aide, Tortoise Soup
Dana Stabenow's A Cold Day for Murder, A Deeper Sleep, A Fine and Bitter Snow, Midnight Come Again, A Taint in the Blood, and many others
John Stanley's The Woman Who Married a Bear, The Curious Eat Themselves, 
Neal Stephenson's Zodiac
Mark Stevens' Buried by the Roan; Antler Dust; Lake of Fire 
David Sundstrand's Shadow of the Raven
William Tapply's Cutter's Run
Peter Temple's The Broken Shore

Ngugi wa Thiong'o's Petals of Blood
Craig Thomas's A Wild Justice
Olga Tokarczuk's Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead

Antti Tuomainen's The Healer
Judith Van Gleson's "Neil Hamel" series, including The Wolf Path & Parrot Blues
David Rains Wallace's The Turquoise Dragon
Lee Wallingford's Clear-Cut Murder; Cold Tracks
Joseph Wambaugh's Finnegan's Week
Sterling Watson's Deadly Sweet
Betty Webb's Desert Wind; The Anteater of Death 
Randy Wayne White's White Captiva
Robert Wilson's Blood is Dirt

K.J.A. Wishnia's The Glass Factory; 23 Shades of Black; Red House Soft Money
Qiu Xialolong's Don't Cry, Tai Lake
Brooks Birdwell Yeager's Chilly Winds

John Yunker's The Tourist Trail; Where Oceans Hide Their Dead
Greg Zeigler's Rare as Earth; Some Say Fire; The Straw That Broke

Anthology: 
Crimes Against Nature: New Stories of Environmental Villainy, edited by Robert Lopresti

Reservoir Noir

Crime Fiction that deals with intentional flooding of towns and villages because of building dams and reservoirs for water supply, irrigation, power and other reasons--a sad addition to the environmental crime fiction list.

Stephen Bacon's Murmured in Dreams; "The Summer of Bradbury" in Terror Tales of Yorkshire, edited by Paul Finch 
Andrea Barrett: The Forms of Water
Alan Dipper's Drowning Day
Eileen Dunlop's Valley of the Deer (YA)
Lee Harris's The Christening Day Murder
JoeAnn Hart's Arroyo Circle
Carl Hiassen's Star Island; Skinny Deep

Mabel Esther Allan: Pendron Under the Water  (YA)

John Blackburn: Bury Him Darkly

Scott Carson's The Chill

Matthew J. Costello's Beneath Still Waters (horror)

Reginald Hill's On Beulah Height
Donald James' Walking the Shadows
Jane Langton's Emily Dickenson is Dead
Tim Lebbon's "The Flow" in Terror Tales of Wales, ed. by Paul Finch

James D. Landis' The Taking (Artist of the Beautiful)

Julia Wallis Martin's A Likeness in Stone
Sharyn McCrumb's Zombies of the Gene Pool
Michael Miano's The Dead of Summer
Nicholas Olde's "The Monstrous Laugh" in The Incredible Adventures of Rowland Hern

Ron Rash's One Foot in Eden
Rick Riordan's The Devil Went Down to Austin
Peter Robinson's In a Dry Season
Lisa See's Dragon Bones
Nova Ren Suma's Imaginary Girls (YA)

Paul Somers' Broken Jigsaw
Julia Spencer-Fleming's Out of the Deep I Cry
Jonathan Thomas's The Color Over Occum

John Milliken Thompson's The Reservoir Reservoir 13
Donald Westlake's Drowned Hopes
John Morgan Wilson's Rhapsody in Blood
Robert Wilson's Blood is Dirt
Stuart Woods's Under the Lake

*** 

Non-Fiction about Drowned Towns

Thomas Conuel: Quabbin: The accidental Wilderness
James L. Douthat: Cherokee Reservoir Grave Removals by T.V.A.
David and Joan Hay: Mardale, The Drowned Village: Being a Lakeland Journey into Yesterday
Allen Holt: Watergrove: A History of the Valley and Its Drowned Village
David Howarth: The Shadow of the Dam
Elizabeth Peirce: Quabbin Valley: People and Places
Joyce Hunsinger Pogany: Austintown
Les Ross, Editor: Before the Lake: Memories of the Chew Valley

***

Let me know any other author/titles that you'd like included. Make a comment below.

LIBRARY MYSTERIES: LIBRARY WEEK

This is National Library Week! 

My most exciting library experience was getting my first library card. I could read by 4, and although I visited our local library on a weekly basis where my mother checked out books for me, I wanted my own library card. The rule was that you had to be able to sign your name to obtain a card. So my sister taught me to sign my name. After that, the world was my oyster! I spent many summers walking the mile from my home to the Cobbs Creek Library in Philadelphia to check out books, get recommendations from the librarians, and participate in the summer reading club (stars for books read). I quickly went from children's to adult books. Books became my best friends. Over the years I continued to visit my local public libraries. I have fond memories of going to the Penn Wynne Library with my Dad where he sought out American hardboiled mysteries. Because of my own love of mysteries, it was a wonderful bonding experience.

So today's list honors National Library Week with a list of Library/Librarian Mysteries series. This is not a complete list, so I welcome any additions. Note this is a list of Library/Librarian series and not stand-alone library books. There are so many of those, including Allen Eskens' The Quiet Librarian, Sulari Gentill's The Woman in the Library, Fiona Davis's The Lions of Fifth Avenue, and many more. Alas, another post!

Let me know if I've missed any of your favorites library/librarian mystery series. Make a comment or send me a note. Thanks!

LIBRARY/LIBRARIAN MYSTERIES

Jeff Abbott: Jordan Poteet Series

Deborah Adams: Jesus Creek Mysteries 

Lydia Adamson: Lucy Wayles Series

Jenna Bennett: Art Crime Team (ACT) Series (Annika Holst, Librarian)

Claudia Bishop: Hemlock Falls Series 

Lawrence Block: The Burglar in the Library

Lillian Jackson Braun: The Cat Who Series 

Allison Brook: Haunted Library Mystery Series 

Elizabeth Kane Buzzelli: Little Library Mystery Series

B.B. Cantwell: Portland Bookmobile Mystery Series 

Elizabeth Lynn Casey: Southern Sewing Circle Mystery Series 

Laurie Cass: Bookmobile Cat Mystery Series

Genevieve Cogman: The Invistible Library

Elizabeth Spann Craig: Village Library Mystery Series

Shirley Damsgaard: Ophelia & Abby Series

Holly Danvers: Lakeside Library Mystery Series

Debbie De Louise: Cobble Cove Mystery Series

Jo Dereske: Miss Zukas mysteries

Laramee Douglas: Death in Culcinea

Umberto Eco: The Name of the Rose 

Jasper Fforde: Thursday Next Series

Amanda Flower: India Hayes Mystery Series 

Eva Gates: Lighthouse Library Mystery Series 

Victoria Gilbert: Blue Ridge Library Mystery Series 

Jeanne Glidewell: Lexie Starr Mystery Series 

Charles A. Goodrum: Dr. Edward George Series

Charlaine Harris: Aurora Teagarden Series

Zana Hart: Curious Librarian Cozy Mystery Series

Patricia Harwin: Catherine Penny/Far Wychwood series

Marion Moore Hill: Scrappy Librarian Mystery series

M. E. Hilliard: The Greer Hogan Series

Miranda James: Cat in the Stacks Series

Emma Jameson: Jemima Jago Mystery Series

Sofie Kelly: Magical Cats Mystery Series 

Nicholas Kilmer: Fred Taylor Art Collecting Series (Partner Molly Riley, Librarian)

Mary Lou Kirwin: Killer Librarian Mystery Series

Patricia Kirwin: Far Wychwood Mysteries

Nathan Larson: Dewey Decimal

Con Lehane: The 42nd Street Library Series

Amy Lilly: Ophelia "Phee" Jefferson Series

Ellen Jacobson: The North Dakota Library Series

Jess Lourey: Murder-by-the-Month Series

T.J. MacGregor: Alex Kincaid series

Charlotte MacLeod: Helen Marsh Shandy, Peter Shandy's wife, in the Balaclava series 

Olivia Matthews: Peach Coast Library Mystery Series

Jenn McKinlay: Library Lovers Mystery series

D.R. Meredith: Murder by the Yard series

Miriam Grace Monfredo: Seneca Falls Historical Mystery Series

Kate Morgan: Dewey James

James Patterson: The Secret Lives of Booksellers and Librarians 

Elizabeth Peters: Jacqueline Kirby series

Shirley Rousseau Murphy: Joe Grey Cat Series (Dulcie, the library cat)

Nora Page: Bookmobile Mystery Series

Meg Perry: Jamie Brodie Series

Ralp;h Raab: Biblio Files Trilogy

R.T. Raichev: Antonia Darcy Series

Nanci Rathbun: Angelina Bonaparte Series

Ian Sansom: Mobile Library Mystery Series

Angela Sanders: Witch Way Librarian Series

Sheila Simonson: Latouche County mysteries

J.B. Stanley: The Supper Club Mystery Series

Susan Steiner: Library, No Murder Aloud

Fran Stewart: Biscuit McKee Mysteries

Dorothy St. James: Beloved Bookroom Series

Emily Thomas: Secrets of Blue Hill Library Series

Judith Van Gieson: Claire Reynier Series (University of New Mexico Rare Books Librarian)

Gayle Wigglesworth: Claire Gulliver Mystery Series

Marty Wingate: First Edition Library Mystery Series

Eric Wright: Lucy Trimble Brenner Series

Sally S. Wright: Ben Reese Series

Non-fiction favorite: 

Susan Orlean's The Library Book

Other Non-Fiction:

Kathy Lee Peiss: Information Hunters; When Librarians, Soldiers, and Spies Banded Together in World War II Europe
***

Librarians who write mysteries: Check out Robert Lopresti's article on SleuthSayers. You'll be surprised!

LA TIMES BOOK PRIZE WINNER: Mystery/Thriller Category

 

The winner of the 2025 Los Angeles Times Book Prize in several categories was announced. All books are of interest, of course, but for this blog, here is the finalist in the Mystery/Thriller category. Congratulations to all. 

EL DORADO DRIVE by Megan Abbott

Nominees:

The Big Shake: The 1906 San Francisco Earthquake in Mystery Fiction - Guest Post by Randal Brandt

At 5:12 a.m. on April 18, 1906—one hundred and twenty years ago today—the landscape of San Francisco was permanently altered by a 7.9 magnitude earthquake and the massive fires that followed. Countless books on the Great San Francisco Earthquake and Fire of 1906 have analyzed the disaster from every conceivable angle: historical, geological, sociological, political, pictorial, etc. The quake has also proven to be a popular and durable plot device for mystery writers from soon after the calamitous event to the present day. 
 

The events of 1906 provide the backdrop for a significant number of crime and mystery novels. In these works, the disaster drives otherwise law-abiding citizens to commit criminal acts, provides the opportunity for people to change their identities, exposes criminal activity to the harsh light of day, and shows up as the ultimate deus ex machina, providing a solution—sometimes a permanent solution—to a particularly sticky situation. 

The first earthquake novel on the scene was Travers: A Story of the San Francisco Earthquake by Sara Dean. Although not a traditional mystery story, crime plays a central role in the plot. Published in February 1908, Travers is the ripped-from-the-headlines story of a San Francisco socialite named Gwendolyn Thornton who is awoken by a thief in her home. As she confronts the intruder, the earthquake strikes, destroying her house. After escaping—with the help of the intruder—to the safety of a refugee camp on Twin Peaks, Gwen learns that her rescuer, a British ex-army surgeon named Keith Travers, had been dismissed from his regiment following a scandal and forced into a life of crime. The earthquake offers Travers an opportunity to reclaim his reputation and standing in society. Written so soon after the actual earthquake, the novel features graphic descriptions of the city and its residents in the wake of the disaster. 
 
The great California writer Gertrude Atherton used the 1906 earthquake to propel the plot of her one foray into mystery fiction—although the mystery in The Avalanche (1919) is more genealogical than criminal. In San Francisco, in the years immediately following the earthquake, Price Ruyler is married and has firmly established himself in business and society. After he overhears an exchange between his mother-in-law and a man known to have made his living as a pimp and a gambler before the earthquake and fire, he begins to suspect that his wife’s past might not be as innocent as he was led to believe. He hires a private detective to investigate and uncovers a plot involving blackmail, betrayal, and the consequences of losing an entire city’s public records.
 

The earthquake arrives at a key moment and dramatically alters the course of the narrative in Shaken Down (1925) by Alice MacGowan and Perry Newberry. On an evening in April 1906, Patrolman Jerry Boyne of the San Francisco Police Department discovers that four-year-old Jamie Claiborne has been kidnapped and his nurse murdered. The boy’s father is convinced that his older daughter is behind the plot and vows that he will not be shaken down by the kidnappers. After being frozen out of the investigation by his superiors, Jerry decides to conduct his own investigation and soon ends up with both the kidnappers and the police after him. Just as he is about the break the case wide open—and expose the corruption of some of San Francisco’s most powerful men—the earthquake strikes and the city itself is literally shaken down.
 
Phyllis A. Whitney’s The Trembling Hills (1956) is a gothic romance/mystery novel set in 1906, where a woman's search for love unearths a dark secret involving a manipulative family and a sinister matriarch. The story follows Sara Bishop as she goes to San Francisco to pursue her childhood sweetheart, only to find herself entangled in a web of mystery, family secrets, and the devastating earthquake, which finally brings the past to light. 
 
The British join the party in The Golden Crucible (1976) by Jean Stubbs. Retired Scotland Yard Inspector John Joseph Lintott is enlisted to investigate the kidnapping of Alicia Salvador—who is the sister and assistant of the famous magician, Felix Salvador. Lintott follows the kidnappers from London to San Francisco and discovers that the plot is part of an elaborate revenge scheme. He negotiates Alicia’s release from a Barbary Coast brothel and as they are on their way to reunite with her brother the earthquake strikes. This novel stands apart from other earthquake mysteries in that the mystery is effectively solved before the quake hits. However, the disaster does manage to tie up some loose ends, meting out punishments that Lintott has no control over. 
 
Mignon G. Eberhart, who wrote over sixty novels in her long career, set exactly one story in San Francisco: Casa Madrone (1980), which takes place in April 1906. Mallory Bookever travels from New York to San Francisco in order to marry young and wealthy Richard Welbeck. When she arrives in San Francisco, she finds that Richard is an invalid in his Nob Hill mansion. In the aftermath of the earthquake, Richard is shot and killed. At first Mallory and Richard’s best friend, Scott Suydam, believe that a stray bullet fired by a patrolling soldier struck him. However, they soon suspect that Richard has been murdered in order to prevent his marriage. As the fire approaches, they relocate to Scott’s home, Casa Madrone, where they struggle to put their lives back together and unmask the killer.
 
Readers of Dianne Day’s Fire and Fog (1996) do not have to wait long for the earthquake to strike. The story opens precisely at 5:12 a.m. on April 18, 1906 as Caroline “Fremont” Jones, a plucky, independent typist-for-hire, is tumbled out of bed by the earthquake. At her office, she discovers several crates filled with Japanese artifacts, leading her to suspect that her landlords are involved in a smuggling operation. Unable to stay in her room or occupy her office, Fremont relocates to the tent city in Golden Gate Park and makes herself useful driving for the Red Cross. She also becomes entangled in uncovering the mystery of the stolen Japanese treasures. In addition to vivid descriptions of the quake and fire, this novel offers interesting visions of life in a tent city, the emerging importance of the automobile, the relief efforts, and the outdoor kitchens set up around the neighborhoods. 
 

Michael Castleman’s The Lost Gold of San Francisco (2003) is distinct in the canon of earthquake novels—its plot provides a direct link between the Big One in 1906 and the “pretty big one” in 1989. In April 1906, the San Francisco Mint is preparing to send a large shipment of misstruck gold pieces to Denver to be melted down. In the chaos following the earthquake, the coins disappear. In 1989, the director of a museum slated to receive a donation of one of the 1906 coins is murdered. Reporter Ed Rosenberg, assigned to cover the donation, turns his attention to the murder investigation.  As he reaches the end of the mystery, the Loma Prieta earthquake strikes, causing the death of the killer. Although this novel is filled with an incredible amount of historical detail, the central premise of the lost gold is fictional. However, an item in the San Francisco Chronicle written by columnist Herb Caen in 1987 inspired Castleman’s plot: a laborer digging the foundation for a Financial District high-rise discovered a gold coin minted in 1849 by the Miner’s Bank of San Francisco. 
 
Readers do not even have to open the cover of James Dalessandro’s 1906 (2004) to know that the earthquake and fire play a major role in this novel. The dust jacket features a photograph of a devastated San Francisco street with the burning Call Building in the foreground. Marketed with the tag line “Every disaster has a backstory,” Dalessandro’s tale is told by young newspaper reporter Annalisa Passarelli. Annalisa is secretly assisting Chief of Detectives Byron Fallon to gather evidence of the graft and corruption of the city’s mayor, police chief, and political boss Adam Rolf (an obvious reference to the notorious “Boss” Abe Ruef). When Fallon is murdered, his son Hunter takes up the investigation. The earthquake hits just as Hunter, Annalisa, and a group of honest police officers are about to enter Rolf’s Nob Hill mansion to make the arrests. Rolf and his thugs use the ensuing chaos to turn the tables on their enemies and Annalisa and Hunter have to battle both the killers and the fire in order to save themselves and their city.
 
Locked Rooms (2005) is the eighth book in Laurie R. King’s long-running series about Mary Russell, the wife and partner-in-crime-detection of Sherlock Holmes. In 1924, Russell and Holmes are in San Francisco so that she can sell the Pacific Heights house that she inherited after her family’s death in an automobile crash ten years earlier. When an unknown assailant shoots at Mary, she and Holmes begin an investigation into the secrets of the long-shuttered house and her family. Holmes hires a young, ex-Pinkerton agent/struggling writer named Dashiell Hammett to assist him. Hammett quickly uncovers evidence that the “accident” that claimed her family was no accident—it was murder. Although all of the action in this novel takes place years after the earthquake, the solution to the murders eventually leads directly back to the chaotic days of April 1906, when extraordinary events caused ordinary people to commit drastic, and sometimes illegal, acts. 
 
In the third novel in the Cree Black series, Bones of the Barbary Coast (2006), author Daniel Hecht blends historical mystery with the supernatural as a psychologist investigates a mysterious human skeleton from the 1906 San Francisco earthquake unearthed in the foundation of a fine Victorian home, uncovering secrets from the city’s infamous Barbary Coast through historical research and the 1889 diary of a woman with secrets of her own.
 
Anthony Flacco’s The Last Nightingale (2007) tells the story of twelve-year-old Shane Nightingale who survives the 1906 quake only to witness the horrific murder of his adoptive mother and two sisters at the hands of budding serial killer Tommie Kimbrough. After the fire destroys the Nightingale home, all evidence of the killings is erased, and Shane becomes just another anonymous orphan in the city. Before the quake, Sergeant Randall Blackburn of the San Francisco Police Department had been on the trail of a Barbary Coast killer nicknamed “The Surgeon” for the mutilation he performs on the bodies of his victims. When Blackburn meets up with Shane, the two become an unlikely detective duo. Shane has an unusual sense of intuition and deductive reasoning and Blackburn is experimenting with new methods of police work. 
 
Shortly before the Great Earthquake, Pirate Vishnu sailed into San Francisco Bay. In Gigi Pandian’s second book in the Jaya Jones Treasure Hunt mysteries, Pirate Vishnu (2013), globe-trotting historian Jaya Jones is drawn into the story when she learns about a map of the Barbary Coast drawn by one of her ancestors who came to San Francisco from India and died in the earthquake. Her quest to uncover her ancestor’s secrets and decipher the cryptic treasure map takes her to India. Along the way she also has to solve two murders that took place a century apart and untangle a love triangle. 
 

Rhys Bowen’s series heroine Molly Murphy ventures to San Francisco in Time of Fog and Fire (2016). After seeing a newsreel showing that her husband, New York City police captain Daniel Sullivan, is in San Francisco, Molly travels across the country with her young son. She discovers that Daniel is in danger and arrives just as the 1906 earthquake and subsequent fires devastate the city.
 
In the days before the great earthquake and fire of 1906, Levi Hayes returns from San Quentin Prison with a plan of revenge in Dietrich Kalteis’ House of Blazes (2016). After serving five years for the theft of $30,000 in gold coins from the San Francisco Mint, Levi is ready to take back what’s his from the now-powerful Healey brothers who set him up. Levi recruits his nephew, Mack Lewis, in a wild scheme that propels them through saloon halls, gambling dens, back alleys, and brothels before it backfires. In lock-up as the earthquake hits, Levi and Mack must escape the collapsing building and burning city to get to the gold coins, with the Healeys now after them.
 
Violet is one of three people grateful for the destruction of the big earthquake in The Two Mrs. Carlyles (2020) by Suzanne Rindell. The temblor leaves Violet and her two best friends unexpectedly wealthy—as long as the secret that binds them together stays buried beneath the rubble. A whirlwind romance with the city’s most eligible widower, Harry Carlyle, lands Violet in a luxurious mansion as the second Mrs. Carlyle. But all is not right and Violet soon finds herself trapped by the lingering specter of the first Mrs. Carlyle, and by the inescapable secrets of her own violent history.
 
As described in The Phoenix Crown (2024) by Kate Quinn and Janie Chang, San Francisco in 1906 is a city bustling with newly minted millionaires and scheming upstarts. Gemma, a golden-haired, silver-voiced soprano whose career desperately needs a boost, and Suling, a petite and determined Chinatown embroideress who is resolved to escape an arranged marriage, are two very different women hoping to change their fortunes. Their paths cross when they are drawn into the orbit of Henry Thornton, a charming railroad magnate whose extraordinary collection of Chinese antiques includes the fabled Phoenix Crown. His patronage offers Gemma and Suling the chance of a lifetime, but their lives are thrown into turmoil when the earthquake rips San Francisco apart and Thornton disappears. When the Phoenix Crown reappears five years later at a sumptuous Paris costume ball, Gemma and Suling are thrown together again in one last desperate quest for justice.
 
Susie Hara’s Earthquake Shack (2025) is her second novel featuring Sadie García Miller. Sadie’s not an ordinary private investigator. She doesn’t claim to look for missing persons or solve murders; she specializes in finding lost things. When her estranged cousin Al offers both money and information about her father’s mysterious death years before, Sadie agrees to take his case. His daughter Ruth’s house has disappeared—completely vanished! It was one of the original cottages, or earthquake shacks, built by the Army and the Parks Commission after the 1906 San Francisco quake to provide housing for displaced people. About 5,000 tiny wooden homes were constructed, all with redwood walls, fir flooring, and cedar shingles. They need Sadie’s help to find it. She soon discovers that there is much more at stake than just a missing building. 
 

***

Randal Brandt is a librarian at the University of California, Berkeley where, among other things, he is curator of the Bancroft Library's California Detective Fiction Collection.
 

Orchid Day: Orchids in Mysteries and More!

If you follow me on Facebook or Instagram, you know I post a flower photo every day, usually with the subject line "Behind my Garden Gate." I grow lots of roses (over 125 varieties), but I also cultivate orchids. Yesterday was National Orchid Day, so I thought I'd talk about orchids and mysteries, with some personal anecdotes.

My outdoor orchids, cymbidiums, need to be divided in a specific way. Every time I start the procedure of hacking away at the roots (yes, hacking with a knife cleaned with a blowtorch), I think about rainforests and the quest for rare orchids. I’ve always been fascinated by orchids. When I was growing up, Brenda Starr, Girl Reporter, was my favorite comic strip. I wanted to be just like Brenda – an intrepid reporter traveling the globe in search of the story. Brenda Starr, the liberated, career-action reporter, was definitely my role model. Of course, my fantasy included a romantic Brazilian mystery man like Basil St. John who was always searching for a rare black orchid. Dale Messick’s original Brenda Starr comic strip that I followed in the Philadelphia Bulletin was full of romance, mystery, and exotic black orchids.

So today, splitting my orchids is actually a sojourn into my past. I’m sure it was because of my very close ‘personal’ ties with Brenda Starr that I represented Brazil in the model U.N. when I was in high school, and much later I chose Brazil for one of my Fulbright Fellowships. During my time in Brazil, I even managed to go up the Amazon into Basil’s rain forest, and although I did see a lot of orchids, none were black—and Basil was nowhere to be found.

What Is a Black Orchid? Does the Black Orchid really exist? Where is the Black Orchid found? These questions and others have fascinated orchid enthusiasts for centuries, and orchid growers have been trying to grow this magical, mysterious black colored orchid for ages, too, but this still seems to be a mythical plant. All the hard work by hybridization specialists has been in vain and the search for the Black Orchid continues. Personally I grow a lot of varieties of orchids, but none are black. I guess I’ll just continue my search through mystery fiction, and sometimes while on holiday in tropical rainforests.

So since today is National Orchid Day, I thought I'd post a list about mystery and orchids and rainforests. I’m a big list-maker, and orchids play an important part in mystery fiction including the well known Rex Stout Nero Wolfe series which feature Nero's love of orchids. He has a greenhouse filled with orchids. Stout's Black Orchids is one of my favorite titles. Other orchid mystery titles (fiction and non-fiction and a few out of the normal mystery realm) include:

ORCHID MYSTERIES:

In the Time of the Butterflies by Julia Alvarez

Mayhem on the Orchid Isle; Something's Rotten in Paradise by Aysia Amery

The Orchids of Ashthorne Hall by Rebecca Anderson

Black Orchid Girls by Carolyn Arnold
The Black Orchid by Annis Bell

No Orchids for Miss Blandish; The Flesh of the Orchid by James Hadley Chase
The Orchid Tatto by Carla Damron

The Mystery of The Three Orchids by Augusto De Angelis
Poison Orchids by Sarah A. Denzil & Anni Taylor

The Cloud Garden by Tom Hart Dyke and Paul Winder
Moonraker by Ian Fleming 
Orchids to Murder by Hulbert Footner
The Ghost Orchid by Carol Goodman
Black Orchid by Vaughn C. Hardacker
Black Orchid by Steve Hawk
Beware the Orchids by Cynthia Hickey
Hidden: A Bloom in Waiting by Pyper James
The Emerald Cathedral R.H. Jones
Murder, Local Style by Leslie Karst

The Orchid Thief by Carolyn Keene (a Nancy Drew Mystery)

The Ghost Orchid by Jonathan Kellerman
The Retired Assassin's Guide to Orchid Hunting by Naomi Kuttner
The Orchid Eater by Marc Laidlaw

The Orchid Mystery by Nancy L. Mangan

Killer-Orchid by K.T. McCall
Black Orchid by Dave McKean
Orchid Blue by Eoin McNamee
Blood Orchids by Toby Neal 
The Orchid Thief by Susan Orlean
The Scent of Scandal: Greed, Betrayal and the World's Most Beautiful Orchid by Craig Pittman (non-fiction)
Orchids and Stone by Lisa Preston

Tigerlily's Orchids by Ruth Rendell
The Cranefly Orchid Murders by Cynthia Riggs
Death in the Orchid Garden;  Death at the Spring Plant Sale by Ann Ripley
Blood on the Orchids by Jill Steele

Black Orchids (and other titles) by Rex Stout
The Ghost Orchid Murder by Nancy Jill Thames
Black Orchid Blues by Persia Walker

Death of an Orchid Lover by Nathan Walpow
Deadly Slipper, The Orchid Shroud, Death in the Dordogne; Kill for an Orchid; A Twist of Orchids by Michelle Wan 

Orchid Blues/ Hothouse Orchid by Stuart Woods

The Black Orchid by Loretta Anne White

Dream of Orchids by Phyllis A. Whitney
Spirit in the Rainforest by Eric Wilson

So there you have it: Mysteries and Orchids. As always, let me know if I've missed one of your favorites Orchid Mystery titles.

Orchids: Behind my Garden Gate