Maria Hudgins Books In Order

Publication Order of Dotsy Lamb Books

Publication Order of Lacy Glass Books

Publication Order of Anthologies

Maria Hudgins is a renowned American writer of thriller and mystery stories. She is famous for writing the widely popular Dotsy Lamb Mysteries series and the Lacy Glass book series. The books in both these series are immensely successful in all the places of their publication. Hudgins is an avid lover of mystery stories and an enthusiastic traveler. Prior to beginning her career in the field of writing novels, she used to work as a teacher. Now retired from the teaching profession, Hudgins resides in Hampton, Virginia, the United States, and spends all her time and energy in developing her mystery/thriller novels. Hudgins says that she always had an urge to write intriguing stories, but could not attempt to write one due to her teaching and family commitments. The first thing she did after her retirement is to sit down to write her first book.

Author Hudgins is credited to have created the lead protagonists Dotsy Lamb and Lacy Glass. She has described Dotsy Lamb as a divorced woman and a professor of medieval and ancient history hailing from Virginia. Dotsy Lamb travels to Europe with her friend named Lettie to explore the historical sculptures and monuments. Instead, she gets involved in solving murder mysteries with the assistance of Lettie. The more Dotsy Lamb tries to keep herself away from the mysterious murders, the more she keeps getting in investigating them and trying to track down the culprits. Lacy Glass is depicted as a PhD botanist in her thirties. She works as a pigment specialist and explores old tombs to analyze the wall paints and linen dyes found inside them.

Lacy Glass hails from America and takes up archaeological exploration jobs in Turkey, Egypt, and other European countries. Author Hudgins has set the Dotsy Lamb books in Scotland, Switzerland, the Greek Islands, and Italy. She visited each of these countries and took resourceful notes before using them as settings in her books. Author Hudgins uses an engaging style of writing and down-to-earth humor to make her novels more interesting. She has drawn from her experiences, both good and bad, to develop her characters and her storylines. Hudgins likes to describe her style of writing mystery as ‘traditional’. In addition to traditional mystery stories, her books contain various other elements such as police procedurals, romantic suspense, and sleuths: amateur, professional, and private eye. To develop an idea, Hudgins starts by creating an outline, which is a basic framework of the story she is going to write.

As mystery plots are usually complex, outlining makes it easy for her to keep up with the characters and their involvement in different scenes. Hudgins uses the system of one paragraph for each chapter and tries to describe the action with as much depth as possible. She writes her narration in the present tense and doesn’t like to beat around the bush. Author Hudgins also makes use of color codes as visual aids to differentiate between chapters. She is extremely grateful for all the support and love she has received from readers all over the world. Hudgins looks forward to writing many more exciting novels in the years to come and entertain her fans for as long as she can. Hudgins extends her gratitude to all the critics who have reviewed her work genuinely and with all sincerity. She hopes to keep finding a place in their good books by improving her writing skills with each new novel.

The Lacy Glass series written by author Maria Hudgins began in 2012. It is comprised of two books and features Lacy Glass as the central character. The other important characters mentioned in the series include Hatsheput, Maxwell Sebring, etc. Lacy Glass is introduced as a botanist, who gets involved in solving murder cases on her trip to Egypt and Turkey. The debut book of this series is entitled ‘Scorpion House’. It was released as a Kindle book in 2012. Initially, it is depicted that Lacy Glass gets the chance to explore an ancient nobleman’s tomb in Egypt. Thinking it as a once in a lifetime opportunity, Lacy jumps at night without any second thoughts. She is offered to live with other prominent scientists in an expedition house and all her expenses are paid in advance.

The opportunity is also important for Lacy Glass because her name is going to get published in a well-known scientific journal. This would give a great boost to her career and set her on the path of success. But, when the housemates begin to turn up dead one after the other in suspicious circumstances, Lacy Glass begins to fear for her life. She begins to think that accepting the lucrative offer was the biggest mistake of her life. As a botanist, she is recruited for analyzing the paint on the tomb’s walls as well as the dyes in the piece of linen. When she meets the other 9 scientists, she gets the feeling that none of them can be trusted. The first person to lose his life is her mentor and best friend. He was the only person whom Lacy Glass knew well and trusted with all her heart. When she starts investigating the mysterious deaths of the housemates, she learns that one of the housemates, a cook by profession, claims to be the daughter of Pharaoh Hatshepsut. Lacy uses all her detective skills to get to the bottom of the mystery and help the authorities catch the main culprit.

The second volume of this series is called ‘The Man on the Istanbul Train’. It was also published in 2012 in the Kindle format. The book opens by showing that Lacy Glass boards a train from Istanbul to visit an archaeological site in the central region of the country. During her journey, she witnesses a man thrown out of the running train and flies past her window. Lacy had helped the same man in Istanbul to board the same train and now feels responsible for his death. She thinks that she had not asked him to board that train, he would have been alive. The man is later identified as Maxwell Sebring. When Lacy arrives at the site of the archaeological dig, she is shocked to know that the man who has financed the digging is also named Maxwell Sebring and he also died on the site the same morning. The twin deaths and the names of both the victims being the same make Lacy’s head go for a spin. She is forced to step into her sleuthing shoes again and find out if there is a bigger game at play and whether the victims died their natural death or there is some foul play at work.