Fran Rizer Books In Order

Publication Order of A Callie Parrish Mystery Books

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Anthologies

Fran Rizer is one of the award winning authors from America, who is popular for writing mystery, suspense, and thriller novels. She is particularly famous for writing the books of the Callie Parrish mystery series. In addition to the novels, author Rizer has also published a number of articles in various literary magazines, such as the Bluegrass Unlimited, Bluegrass Now, Field & Stream, Better Homes and Gardens, and a few others too. Rizer has also penned some short fiction stories, which were released in Canada and the USA. A particular taste and interest of her lies in photography, for which she has won numerous awards. A prestigious one among those awards is Sequence of Smile, which Rizer won for her photo-essay. Author Rizer has been involved in co-authoring works of scientific studies for the Clemson University. Before establishing herself as a prominent author, Rizer used to participate in competitions of poetry and fiction writing. In fact, she has received several awards for emerging victorious in the competitions. One of the competitions in which Rizer participated and won is the Augusta Council Porter Fleming Contest for Fiction. Along with all these achievements, author Rizer has also achieved prominence in writing songs. Many of her songs have been recorded, published, and received for radio airplay, but they were not able to receive any hits. In the year 2006, author Rizer signed a 3 book contract with the Berkeley Prime Crime publications. This contract was for writing the first 3 books of the Callie Parrish series. This proved to be the turning point in the writing career of author Rizer as she went on to publish a total of 7 books in this series with an additional thriller called Kudzu River. This standalone single thriller novel was based on the theme of abuse, killing, and retribution. Following this, author Rizer also wrote a ghost stories’ collection. It is called as Southern Swamps & Ruins.

Rizer collaborated with Richard D. Laudenslager for writing this collection of stories. Rizer’s popular mystery series has been nominated on multiple occasions for some of the most prestigious awards such as the Agatha Christie, Edgar, SIBA, and many others as well. Being included in the list of prominent authors has provided author Rizer the opportunity to feature in the SCETV series known as ‘A Literary South Carolina Tour’. Author Rizer has said that she used to receive a lot of questions regarding her personal and professional lives whenever she used to participate in any book signing event or some other functions. And she has always tried to answer as many questions from her fans as possible via emails. Rizer has stated that her birth had taken place in South Carolina, on Decembe 12. She has never tried to change the information about her date, month, or place of birth. However, she has sometimes tried to give a wrong information about her age just to be thought of as younger than she looks. Initially, Rizer was working as a teacher. And it was only after retiring from her 25 year long career in this profession that she attempted to write her debut novel. As of today, her family is comprised of a couple of sons, a grandson, and several cousins, uncles, and aunts. During the course of her writing and publishing career, author Rizer has come across numerous wonderful people. She was even amazed to see the some marvelous readers at her book signings and talking events. Author Rizer likes to remain in touch with her fans all the time. For this purpose, she tries to answer all their questions through her emails. Rizer also keeps them updated about her recent publishings and the latest happenings in her career through her personal website.

The Callie Parish Mysteries series written by Fran Rizer is comprised of seven books in total, which were released between the years 2007 and 2015. All the books in this series feature the lead character as Calamine Parrish, who is described as a mortuary cosmetologist living in South Carolina. An initial book released in this series is entitled ‘Mother Hubbard Has a Corpse in Cupboard’. It was released by the Bella Rosa publication in the year 2013. The mother characters of the story of the book include Callie Parrish, Rizzie, Jane, Dr. Sparrow, etc. At the start of the novel, it is shown that Rizzie and Jane are the close friends of Callie Parrish and she manages to take some time off from her job as mortuary cosmetologist to spend time with them. They visit a county fair to have relaxing time. But, their hopes of having a good time get shattered when the hip of Rizzie’s Maum gets broken. Later, Callie comes across an injured person in a storage facility, who appears to be dead. This man’s identity is established as Dr. Sparrow. Soon, graffiti’s begin to pop up all over the town, which Callie Parrish sees as threats against herself and hates very much. But, her main focus lies in finding the man who killed Dr. Sparrow. When Callie hears about the devastated wife of the doctor, she seems certain that she is just faking her grief. And when Rizzie’s brother faces the accusation of being the prime suspect in the murder, Callie’s job becomes even more personal and difficult. She has to find out the real killer as soon as possible or else she could become the next victim.

Another famous book published in this novel series is titled as ‘A Corpse Under the Christmas Tree’. It was also published in 2013 by the same publishing house. At the beginning, Jane and Callie are shown as being very fond of getting Christmas presents. However, they find an unexpected gift in the form of a dead body lying under a nearby tree. The victim is in the getup of Santa Claus and is dumped under the same tree which Callie and her friends had decorated for the joyous holiday season. As Callie begins investigating about this murder, she is taken far from her usual job in the Middleton Mortuary. She visits many fascinating places in search of clues. Sheriff Harmon decides to make Callie work as his deputy, but with the undercover profile. Callie Parrish comes across important clues at Turkey Trot and Safe Sister, but she is unable to get anywhere nearer to the murderer. At the same time, Callie brother named Frankie asks her to prepare some recipes for him for an upcoming cooking competition. But, she knows that she is not a good cook, so Callie refuses to give any recipes. In spite of this, Rizzie and Frankie win the competition. With respect to this aspect, author Rizer has added some recipes in the plot. Callie continues with her investigation and tries to unravel the mask from the face of the killer, who she knows is among the ones in her proximity.