Dorset Crime Books In Order

Publication Order of Dorset Crime Books

Chronological Order of Dorset Crime Books

The “Dorset Crime”series is a set of thrilling mysteries by bestselling author Rachel McLean. According to the author, when she sits down to write, she is most interested in leaving the pulses of her readers racing and their brains ticking.

Growing up, reading is something she always loved doing and particularly had a love for novels written at breakneck pace. These are novels that often leave readers asking what has happened.

After reading many novels over the years, she thought there was a gap in the genre waiting to be filled and this is just what she intends to do with her writing. Rachel

McLean’s debut novel was “Thicker Than Water,” which she published in 2018 to much critical acclaim. She has since gone on to become one of the most popular authors in the mystery genre, with more than two dozen novels to her name.

It is not surprising that Rachel would become a very prolific author as writing is something she always loved ever since she was a child.
In fact, she always found jobs where she had to do anything to do with putting together training documents, briefing notes and press releases among other writings.

Since her debut went onto become a bestseller, she has become a full time author. Rachel McLean is the winner of the 2021 Kindle Storyteller Award, which she won when she published “The Corfe Castle Murders” of the “Dorset Crime” series.

This was quite the feat as she beat tens of other submissions to win the award. Moreover, this was at the height of the pandemic which meant that there were too many submissions and to stand out was therefore harder.

She would win several other gongs in addition to the prize money of $20,000. She was granted access to a marketing campaign team for Amazon UK, and also won the Golden Kindle Award.

The “Dorset Crime” series of novels are compelling character driven mystery novels about the life and times of Lesley Clarke, a Detective Crime Inspector.
At the start of the series, she is introduced as having been injured in a bombing incident in Birmingham and now rumors abound that she is afflicted with PTSD, among other mental issues.

Lesley has to choose between getting some respite in a calmer locale or early retirement. Instead, she decides to take a new position in the Dorset Police Department in Major Crimes.

She works with detective sergeant Dennis Frampton, detective constable Michael Legg, detective constable Johnny Chiles, and police constables Mullins and Tinna Abbot. She also gets the support and skills of crime scene manager Gail Hansford.

She has a reputation for being a straight talking police officer that swears a lot and does not mince her words. Lesley runs a tight operation and requires everyone in her team to follow procedures and work with each other.

Even though some people in her team do not like her or the way she talks, nobody can dispute the fact that her methods work.

“The Corfe Castle Murders” opens to the murder of Archie Weatherton, an archeologuist found killed in a tent while out at work.

It was Leila Ford, his young girlfriend who found the body, leaving everybody bewildered since he was supposed to be in London at the time. Just what was he doing on site and why was a member of the crew named Patrick going through his things earlier.

DCI Lesley Calrke is in Birmingham enjoying some good times with her daughter before she’s due to start working for the Dorset Police Major Crimes Investigations Team.

But when she hears the anguished screams by Laila she dashes to the scene and begins a murder investigation.
She is soon informed that she will be in charge of the investigation alongside a small team from criminal investigations. Even though she hits the ground running, she butts heads with some traditionalists in her team who do not appreciate her style.

Lesley has to resolve a murder mystery before a killer strieks again, even as she has to deal with teh politics of a smaller team in which she a less welcome even if bigger fish.

In the “Clifftop Murders” the second novel of the “Dorset Crime” series, a young lawyer is pushed off a cliff. She had been indulging in her hobby of early morning photography when she was attacked and killed.

What is surprising for Lesley the detective crime inspector is that her law firm is not cooperating as well as she would have expected. What is even worse for Lesley is that one of the senior partners she has been dating seems defensive when questioned.

She thinks there is something the firm could be hiding and intends to get to the bottom of it.
Things get interesting when some senior partner is discovered murdered in a hut on the beach, making things even more complicated as he was the prime suspect in the first killing.

Investigations soon indicate that the law firm may have links with the local mafia. Further investigations indicate that Lesley’s girlfriend Elsa was the legal representative in the many cases handled by the organization.

The third novel of the Dorset crime series by Rachel McLean is “The Island Murders.” At the opening of the story, many people in Lesley’s lie are getting deeper in the illegal activities of Arthur Kevin, a local crook in Dorset. Elsa Short, her girlfriend, is also one of these people.

Detective Constable Johnny Chile is suspected of providing information to Arthur which he uses to play others in his community. The case opens to Simone who works at the National Trust, being discovered dead in the Poole Harbor nature reserve.

There are more than forty two workers on the island and DCI Lesely Clark and her team have to go through all of them. Lesley Clarke, the detective crime investigator, is in charge of the investigations alongside Johnny Chiles and detective sergeant Dennis.

Dennis has just realized that there’s a connection between Arthur Kelvin and Johnny and is interested in severing it and severing the connection they had.