Bell Elkins Books In Order

Publication Order of Bell Elkins Books

The Bell Elkins series is a series of successful novels based on the mystery and thriller genres and written by one of the Pulitzer Prize winning and popular American authors named Julia Keller. The series consists of a total of 5 novels and 3 novellas published between the years 2012 and 2016. All the novels of the series feature the central character in the form of Bell Elkins, who is depicted as a prosecuting attorney based in the Raythune County in West Virginia. The first novel of the Bell Elkins series was published under the title ‘A Killing in the Hills’. It was released by the Minotaur Books publishing house in the year 2012. The plot of this novel is set in Acker’s Gap, West Virginia, United States, and revolves around the happenings in the life of the Raythune County attorney named Bell Elkins. Author Julia Keller says that the novel shows a powerful and intricate story related to a mother and daughter pair, who always try to do the right thing in their town and in each other’s lives before it gets too late. In the opening sequence of the plot of the novel, it is shown that something unusual is happening in Acker’s Gap.

Three elderly men who were enjoying their coffee at one of the local restaurants of the town get gunned down by an unknown shooter. It seemed that half of the people of Acker’s Gap were present there when the killings happened, but no one was able to get a good look at the gunned because everything happened very quickly. Somehow, the people and the investigators were not able to understand whether it was a random act or the three elders, Shorty McClurg, Lee Rader, and Dean Streeter are targeted specifically. Some of them believed that it might be connected to the series of drug violence incidents happening quite recently in the country and in Acker’s Gap. The Raythune County’s prosecuting attorney comes to know that one of the witnesses of the deadly incident is her teenaged daughter named Carla Elkins. It appeared to Bell Elkins that her daughter was quite horrified and shocked by witnessing the killings of the three elders. But soon, she recovers and begins to believe that she might have been uniquely placed in the incident in order to help her mother in serving the justice, being the prosecuting attorney of the town.

Carla Ekins also sees it as an opportunity to repair her damaged and fragile relationship with her mother and come close to her once again. However, by agreeing to help and identify the shooters, Carla seems to have done more harm to herself than any good. In fact, she has put her life in danger by becoming the next target of the gang of the shooters who killed the three elders in the coffee shop. The plot depicted by author Julia Keller in this novel was very much liked by the readers who praised her a lot with many positive reviews. This helped her to become a popular author of the mystery genre as well as the novel went on to be sold all over the world. Author Julia Keller was also praised by her fellow writers and the critics for her unique style of writing a mystery plot and the beautiful characterization of the main characters of the novel. She was motivated and encouraged by all her supporters to continue writing similar interesting and intriguing novels in her writing career. Due to this, she still continues to write mystery novels in this series and is about to publish the latest novel any time soon in the coming days.

The second novel of the Bell Elkins novel series written by author Julia Keller was published in the year 2013 by the Minotaur Books publishing house. It was titled ‘Bitter River’ and continued to depict the happenings in the life of the main character named Bell Elkins, who is once again described as the prosecuting attorney of the county. The plot of this novel deals with the murder mystery of a pregnant teenager whose dead body is found at the bottom of the river in the Raythune County. In the opening sequence of the plot of the novel, it is shown that Bell Elkins receives a phone call before the dawn, which is not considered to be a good news any how. And being the prosecuting attorney of the county, it is rarely a good news for Bell Elkins when the sheriff of the town calls her. Therefore, when she picks up the phone, she seemed to have already made up her mind that she is not going to like what she will hear. It appears that she is still not prepared for what she hears. The sheriff tells Bell Elkins that the dead body of a 16 year old girl named Lucinda Trimble has been discovered from the bottom of the Bitter river. He also tells her Lucinda did not down, in fact, she was murdered before the killer threw her body into the water.

The most disturbing news that the prosecuting attorney hears about the murder case is that Lucinda Trimble was pregnant at the time of her murder. She very well understands the situation and knows that the coming few weeks are going to be very tough for her with a case like that. However, this is not all that Bell Elkins has to cope with these days. She comes to know that her daughter Carla has gone to live with her ex-husband at his house located just hours away from her residence. Also, one of the closest friends of Bell Elkins named Sheriff Nick Fogelsong has been behaving quite oddly these days, which bothers Bell. To add to her bundle of problems, she comes to know that a man from her past life has resurfaced and cannot not figure out the reason behind this. It seems that if Bell Elkins tries to search for the truth, both behind the murder of the teenaged Lucinda Trimble and behind the complicated relationships of her own, she might lead herself down to a path where she might put her life at great risk. With this novel, author Julia Keller has once again tried to weave and present a haunting and compelling murder mystery set in the extreme poverty and the stark beauty of the small mountain town of West Virginia.