Detective Jo Fournier Books In Order

Publication Order of Detective Jo Fournier Books

The Detective Jo Fournier series is an excellent series of suspense, mystery, detective fiction, contemporary, thriller, and crime fiction stories. It is penned by a reputed American author named M.M. Chouinard. The series began in 2019 and features the central character in the form of Jo Fournier. Jo is seen portraying the role of a detective and investigating tough cases involving murder and other criminal activities. At the beginning of the series, she is newly promoted to the rank of detective and is quite enthusiastic to take charge of her first case. The entire series is set in a small town in Massachusetts called Oakhurst. Other principal characters in addition to Jo Fournier include Jeanine Hammond, Nicole, Gia, Karen, Emily Carson, Michael Wharton, Bob Arnett, and several others.

Each book of this series is widely popular. They have succeeded in reaching out to a large number of readers across the globe. The individual successes of the novels have helped the series to become an immense success as a whole. Author Chouinard has achieved tremendous success as a novelist. She has gone on to get noticed by the prominent personalities of the publishing world and receive favorable reviews from them. Now, Chouinard continues writing mystery novels and hopes to add many more interesting titles to this series in the coming years.

The opening book of the Detective Jo Fournier novel series written by author M.M. Chouinard is entitled ‘The Dancing Girls’. It was released by the Bookouture publication in 2019. The book opens with the description of Jeanine Hammond’s brutal murder in the peaceful town of Oakhurst, Massachusetts. Her body is found in a hotel. Jo Fournier is asked to take charge of the case and investigate to find and catch the culprit. This is the first case that comes her way after her recent promotion to detective and she finds it quite disturbing. The more Jo investigates Jeanine Hammond’s personal, the more she wonders who would want to murder a loving and shy wife life her. What disturbs her, even more, is that the killer left Jeanine’s body dressed like a ballerina as if he wanted to make a show out of it.

The further investigations lead Jo Fournier to Jeanine’s husband, who seems to quite controlling about the matters related to money. What makes her suspect him more is that the wedding ring of Jeanie is not found anywhere. Before Jo Fournier can make any further discoveries in this disturbing case, she learns about the murder of another woman, Emily Carson. Emily’s body is also discovered from a hotel and the killer has strangled her to death. She is also posed like a graceful dancer. While Jo Fournier is going through the files of some old cases, she finds a terrifying connection of some of them to the present two cases. Each victim carries similar strangulation marks. Jo tries to convince the FBI about her theory, but the Bureau doesn’t take her seriously. She thinks of disobeying the direct orders and investigating the cases on her own, but fears that it might lead to the abrupt end of her career.

Jo has already sacrificed a lot for this career, including a close relationship, and is not ready to sacrifice more. Just as she is about to lose hope, she comes across some shocking messages on the computers of the victims. It leads her to believe that the small-town women were hiding some big lies. After successfully establishing the missing link, Jo Fournier sets out to confront the killer before he sets his target on the next victim. She races against time to stop the twisted killer from taking another innocent life and put an end to this mystery once and for all.

The second installment of this intriguing series is called ‘Taken to the Grave’. It was also published by Bookouture in 2019. This novel opens by depicting the discovery of a girl’s dead body in one of the parks of Oakhurst, Massachusetts. Jo Fournier is extremely shocked to see the state in which the girl is found. She is the 2nd innocent victim to be found dead in a period of three days and this has put the locals in a state of panic. Jo Fournier finds a tarot card near the body, just like the previous victim, and thinks that it is the common link between the two cases. The card depicts betrayal, which means that both the victims were closely linked to the killer. Upon looking into the life of the girl, who was a university student, Jo gets her hands on a series of messages filled with threats. Similar threatening messages are also found from the computer of the first victim, who was the girl’s teacher at the university.

Jo senses that she has come closer to catching the killer, but she does not realize that she has come too close and that her own life is in danger. Her primary suspect is a former military student, who seems to have the entire town behind him and thirsty for his blood. Before Jo Fournier could catch the suspect, she learns that a respected community member has been discovered dead at her house and a tarot card has been found in her mail. Jo doesn’t find any clear motives to link the third victim to the first two. Also, this time the tarot card bears an entirely different message of domestic bliss. The next day, another body is found with another tarot card. Jo Fournier realizes she doesn’t have much time in her hand to crack the mystery. She has to unravel the code and catch the culprit before another innocent life is lost.

There is also added pressure from Jo’s family, who ask her to choose between helping her own family in healing or the families of the victims in getting justice. Jo Fournier does not know what to choose. She only knows that she has to catch the twisted murderer and bring back peace in her town. Her partner, Bob Arnett, provides her the necessary support and doesn’t let her lose hope. Both of them are determined to bring the culprit to justice and decide to hatch a plan so that he will fall into its web.

M.M. Chouinard is a popular author of suspense, crime fiction, thriller, and mystery stories. She is particularly well known for writing the Jo Fournier books. Her novel usually contains police procedurals, cozy mystery, and suspense. Chouinard also likes to write women’s fiction. The first fiction story written by her was published in the local newspaper when Chouinard was just eight years old. While growing up, she got her hands on the novels of Agatha Christie and fell in love with them. After that, there was no looking back for her. Chouinard had decided very early in her life that she wanted to write mystery novels and make a career out of it. Chouinard kept churning out interesting stories while undergoing her PhD in psychology. In the meantime, she was also involved in laying the foundation of the first US new millennium research university. She enjoys writing these days and has no intention of putting down the pen anytime soon. When Chouinard is not busy with her writing activities, she is usually involved in doing paper crafts and nail art. She loves chocolate, coffee, tarot cards, bullet journaling, etc. Currently, Chouinard lives happily with her husband and her pets, including a dog and three cats.