John Pickett Mysteries Books In Order

Publication Order of John Pickett Mysteries Books

John Pickett (Series by Sheri Cobb South)
Author Sheri Cobb South writes the “John Pickett” series of historical mystery novels. The series began publication, when “In Milady’s Chamber” was released in the year 2006.

John Pickett is a Bow Street Runner and is idealistic. All About Romance has described him as being a bit young yet delectable.

“In Milady’s Chamber” is the first novel in the “John Pickett Mystery” series and was released in the year 2006. Some low dealings in high society. Lady Fieldhurst, who is estranged from her husband since she cannot produce an heir for him, wants to repay his neglect and take a lover on. Fate plays a hand when she and her future lover go into her chamber and find Lord Fieldhurst on the floor with her nail scissors poking out of his neck.

John Pickett is twenty-four and a new Bow Street Runner, having spent much of his short career chasing down petty thieves and pickpockets. Nothing in his short career has prepared for these low dealings in high society. Or for the gorgeous young widow who’s also the prime suspect.

This novel is a pleasurable, Regency set murder mystery which combines the easy reading of modern day with the niceties from the past. The interplay between the characters and their circumstances are great, and the investigation of the crime and each of the imposed obstructions of the time period is a lot of fun for crime solving sleuths.

“A Dead Bore” is the second novel in the “John Pickett Mystery” series and was released in the year 2008. Lady Fieldhurst, currently eager to escape London after the scandal that followed the death of her husband, accepts an invitation to spend the entire summer being Lady and Sir Gerald Hollingshead’s guest in rural Yorkshire. She soon finds, though, that country life ain’t the safe haven she was hoping for: tension reigns while tempers flare at Hollingshead Place, and is due mostly to Lady Hollingshead’s ambitions for her daughter. She is a lovely young, destined for a brilliant marriage despite her loving a penniless curate.

A dinner party ends with the death of a vicar, a man that was a kindly old soul whose single sin appears to be writing a dull local history, and Lady Fieldhurst quickly suspects foul play and calls for John Pickett. She’s got a single stipulation: he has to keep his connection to Bow Street a secret, since she is a guest in their house. He presents himself as her footman, complete with a livery and powdered hair.

He soon has both his white-gloved hands full trying to sift through some old secrets, dealing with the demanding housekeeper, and revealing some of the old passions. Not to mention avoiding the precocious fourteen year old younger daughter of the house, who also has a school girl infatuation for this faux footman. Then there is the minor issue of Lady Fieldhurst, who is both an able assistant yet also a much too pleasant distraction.

Readers enjoy watching this couple as they fight their attraction to each other and solve different mysteries. They have fun banter, and it is enjoyable to see John attempting to be a footman.

“Family Plot” is the third novel in the “John Pickett Mystery” series and was released in the year 2014. Lady Fieldhurst in disgrace with her aristocratic in-laws once more and gets exiled on to Scotland with her young nephews. She and the children, on impulse, decide they are going to stay at a remote seaside inn under an assumed name, where they can enjoy a holiday away from the scandal that still plagues the family.

But trouble quickly finds them once the kids find an unconscious woman on the beach, a woman who bears a stunning resemblance to the local laird’s daughter, who’s missing and presumed to be dead for the past fifteen years. Angus Kirkbride, uncertain about whether or not to just denounce her as a fraud or welcome her as a returning prodigal, sends her off to London for a Bow Street Runner.

Meanwhile, John, who has been pining helplessly for Lady Fieldhurst, resolves to only forget about her and marry someone else. When Patrick Colquhoun, a magistrate, gets Kirkbride’s summons, he ships Pickett on to Scotland before his youngest Runner can do anything hasty. Angus dies only hours after announcing he planned on changing his will in his daughter’s favor, and John and Lady Fieldhurst must join together in order to learn the full truth about this family reunion, which suddenly became deadly.

“Dinner Most Deadly” is the fourth novel in the “John Pickett Mystery” series and was released in the year 2015. When Julia (Lady Fieldhurst) comes back from her journey in Scotland all out of sorts and restless, her friend Lady Dunnington (Emily) plans out a dinner party with some carefully selected male guests that Julia can pick out a paramour. Emily also invites a possible lover for herself: Sir Reginald Montague, a man whose dangerous good looks and urbane manner hide a host of unsavory secrets.

Alas, her small dinner is an absolute disaster from the start. Each gentleman at the table bears an unspoken grudge of some sort against Sir Reginald, and then dinner gets interrupted by Emily’s estranged husband. He and Emily get into a heated discussion which ends with Lord Dunnington’s vowing to put an end to his wife’s pursuit of Sir Reginald no matter what. However the coup de grace comes at the evening’s end when Sir Reginald gets shot dead.

John Pickett, a Bow Street Runner, gets summoned to Emily’s house, where he gets taken aback to see Julia. Since, in addition to investigating this case, he is faced with the awkward task of informing her that their masquerade as a married couple back in Scotland has resulted in their getting married legally. Beset by different distractions, not least of which are the flattering attentions of Lady Dunnington’s pretty young housemaid and the humiliating annulment process, Pickett has to track down the killer of a guy whom everybody had a reason to want dead.