Lori Armstrong Books In Order

Publication Order of Short Stories/Novellas

Publication Order of Mercy Gunderson Mystery Books

Publication Order of PI Julie Collins Books

Publication Order of Anthologies

Lori Armstrong is an American author of fiction. She is also known by the name of Lorelai James, her other pen name. She left the firearms industry officially back in 2000 in order to pursue writing crime fiction.

Lorelai James is the author of several romance novels. She is a bestselling author that has made it to the tops of many bestseller lists. She is known for writing many enticing series, including the Legacy series, Need You Series, Mastered series, and more.

Lori Armstrong is the pen name that she uses for novels that are largely gritty crime mysteries. She lives in Rapid City, South Dakota. She has a husband and their family includes three daughters as well. She is a fourth-generation resident of South Dakota and proud of that fact!

Armstrong has won the Private Eye Writers of America’s Shamus Award two times. Her novels have also won her awards such as the Willa Cather Literary Award. They have been nominated for several awards as well, including the Daphne du Maurier Award.

Lori Armstrong is the creator and author of the P.I. Julie Collins series. This series of fictional novels kicked off in 2005 with the publication of the debut novel, Blood Ties. Hallowed Ground was the second novel in the series. This sequel came out in 2006. Shallow Grave was the third novel in the series to come out, followed by Snow Blind and a few small novellas.

Blood Ties is the first novel in the P.I. Julie Collins series by Lori Armstrong. In this book we finally get to meet Julie Collins. At the moment that the reader first is introduced to Julie, she is bored out of her mind. She is currently stuck in a secretarial job that is going nowhere, a real dead end that doesn’t seem like it’s turning around anytime soon.

Working at the County Sheriff’s office is boring and besides that she is still heavy with grief. Her half-brother was Lakota and he was murdered, and they still haven’t solved the case. She doesn’t believe that they really ever will. She’s got a cynicism to her now after seeing that there is absolutely a total lack of public interest when it comes to figuring out who did this and catching the killer.

Her half-brother has not been the only person murdered, either. There have been several other transient men targeted, all having the same thing in common; being Native American. Julie just doesn’t know how to deal with the entire situation, so she turns to the numbing effects of tequila as well as cigarettes and men that she really should be avoiding the company of all together.

Even though she’s bored to tears in her job and frequently comes to tears in her free time, Julie does have one thing going for her. It’s a bright spot in an otherwise totally mundane life. That is the fact that part of the time she does hang out and pursue her hobby of being a private investigator along with her friend, Kevin Wells. They’ve been buddies ever since they were kids.

They mostly just play around, but then one day the body of a young girl is found. She was just 16 years old and found in Rapid Creek nearby. Julie thinks that this case will receive attention that the other ones didn’t. Then she finds out that someone actually contacted and hired Kevin to find out details related to the case.

Kevin is supposed to discover the whereabouts of this dead girl and where she was in her final days. Julie does not want to be drawn in to another grisly murder case after what she went through with her half-brother. Still, she finds herself compelled to look into the case and can’t keep her mind off of it. It’s against all of her better judgment to get more into the case, but she cannot help herself.

The curiosity is driving her now and Julie finds out soon that the girl had a truly tragic life. The reality of her life and the way that she died make her think— and then wonder if there are ties to her past (as well as Kevin’s) that might be better not to visit once more.

Still, there are alarms going off in her head the whole time. The whole situation seems familiar, all too familiar to her. Julie is starting to see strange parallels the whole time, running through the entire case. This could be related to the other murders or could be an isolated incident– who knows?

Julie is starting to realize that some secrets stay buried for a reason. When it comes to family secrets, these may be the most dangerous of all. Some secrets are hidden by people who never want them found out– and would be willing to kill to keep them buried forever. Can Julie get to the bottom of who killed this girl before it’s too late? Read Blood Ties, the first novel in the P.I. Julie Collins series, to find out!

Hallowed Ground is the second novel in Lori Armstrong’s Julie Collins series. If you loved the action and intensity of the first mystery novel, then you’re really going to be into this second installment!

Julie Collins is back again, and her pace of life has picked up somewhat. Especially now that her small county is constantly getting rocked by murder after murder. Bear Butte is not used to getting this much crime, and definitely not used to this many people getting killed intentionally.

Julie’s become interested in investigation and has spent the past few months really learning as much as she can about the Private Eye business. She’s about to strike out on her own and really take some new cases on.

So when a case that concerns a missing young Native American girl comes along, Julie decides to take it. But is the girl really caught in between her parents in the middle of a custody fight, or does it go deeper than that? Could this be related to the casino that many people don’t want to open? Pick up Hallowed Ground by Lori Armstrong to find out!