Marjorie Eccles Books In Order

Publication Order of Gil Mayo Books

Publication Order of Tom Richmonds Books

Publication Order of Herbert Reardon Books

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Short Story Collections

Publication Order of Anthologies

Marjorie Eccles is a prolific author of romance and mystery novels. She hails from the United Kingdom and has achieved a great success through her books. Besides writing the mystery and romance books, she is also known for writing young adult and thriller novels. Author Eccles is particularly famous for writing her two novel series, the Gil Mayo Mysteries and the Herbert Reardon series. Other than these two book series, she has also written several standalone books. Author Eccles was born on January 01, 1927 in Yorkshire, United Kingdom. She spent a large period of her childhood in her hometown and on the coast of Northumbria. Her career span is comprised of more than 20 books as well as some short stories. Author Eccles’ works are mainly categorized in the genre of crime fiction. However, she has also penned a few works of romantic fiction. The greatest achievement of her writing career is winning the Agatha Christie Styles Award for one of her short stories. In addition to this prestigious award, author Eccles was also nominated for the Ellis Peters Dagger Award by the CWA. The written works of author Eccles have been released in numerous countries throughout the world, including the United States and the UK.

A number of her books have also been translated into multiple foreign languages. Eccles’s novels have been serialized in many foreign countries. Other than using her original name for writing her books and stories, author Eccles also makes use of a couple of pen names to to try her hand in different genres of writing. The popular pseudonyms of author Eccles include Jennifer Hyde and Judith Bordill. As of today, author Eccles resides with the adult son in Hertfordshire. In spite of growing very old, she has not stopped writing. In fact, two of her books from the Herbert Reardon series are lined up for back to back releases in the next couple of months. Eccles is praised for her creation of the character of Gil Mayo as a police inspector. Her unique writing skills and excellent character descriptions helped the series to become highly successful. The books of the Gil Mayo series were used by the BBC for adapting them into TV serials.

The Gil Mayo Mystery series written by author Marjorie Eccles is comprised of 13 titles in total, which were released between the years 1988 and 2001. Each and every novel of this series features the chief protagonist in the role of Gil Mayo, who is depicted as a police detective working in Midlands, England. The setting of the plots is done in various parts of England, but mainly in the Midlands. An initial book of the mystery series is entitled ‘Late of this Parish’. It was released by the Endeavor Press publication in the year 1992, after which it was re-issued in 2017. The main characters of this book include Gil Mayo, Cecil Willard, Laura, Sara, etc. At the start of the book’s story, it is shown that Reverend Cecil Willard is not loved by the people around him. He seemed to be an austere and scholarly man, having die-hard opinions and stern moral principles. A former headmaster of the boys’ school, Willard was never endeared either by his close one or the neighbors in his village, where he lived and worked for many years. Willard had become even more bad-tempered because of a recent stroke. The effects of the stroke were so debilitating that he had become difficult to handle. However, in spite of his rude behavior and harsh opinions, no one ever imagined to harm him. But, when his dead body was discovered at the church’s altar, the community became shocked. Gil Mayo is called in to investigate Cecil Willard’s murder case. As DCI, Gil takes charge of the case and his initial investigation reveals that there were a lot of people in the two who resented the old man in one way or the other. It also became clear that someone, especially feared him for the vast amount of knowledge that he possessed and went to the extent of killing for getting rid of his fear. Each of the interviews that Gil Mayo takes with respect to the investigation make him come up with a new suspect in his list. Among the people who had possible reasons to kill Cecil Willard, there was Willard’s submissive daughter named Laura, his neighbors, his gardener, and the prospective headmasters of the local school. While growing through Willard’s diary, Gil learns about a mysterious woman named Sara, but no one in the village seems to know her. After days of hard work and toiling, Gil finally begins to get some answers into the case when the events begin to connect with a different case in a nearby village. Now, Gil has to catch the killer as soon as possible before another victim turns up dead mysteriously.

Another interesting novel of this series is called ‘An Accidental Shroud’. This book was released in the year 1994 by the St Martin’s publication. The primary characters of this novel’s story include Nigel Fontenoy, Abigail Moon, Gil Mayo, Jake Wilding, etc. At the beginning of the story of the book, it is depicted that the dead body of a local antique jewelry dealer named Nigel Fontenoy is discovered from the building site of his cousin. When this case arrives on the desk of the DI Abigail Moon and DCI Gil Mayo, they think that it is quite a simple case and won’t take much time to solve it. The detectives suspect that the murder is the outcome of a family matter. Subsequently, they make up their mind to not look beyond the relatives of Nigel Fontenoy to look for the culprit. In their initial findings, Gil and Abigail learn that Nigel’s cousin named Jake Wilding was in a lot of debt to him, which makes him have a possible reason to murder his cousin. What makes the detectives suspect Jake Wilding as the murderer even more is that he is not able to provide an account of his personal whereabouts at the time of the killing of Nigel Fontenoy. The situation becomes even more difficult for Jake when Nigel’s blood is found on a truck owned by him. The case becomes much more intriguing when Jake Wilding names his former wife as his alibi. He claims that Nigel was pressuring him into securing something highly valuable from that woman. Now, the investigators suspect that the valuable thing might be a document, a jewelry, or some other precious thing. Soon, Abigail Moon discovers that when one is found in this tangled case of family ties, another thing gets lost. As a result, the case appears to be much more difficult that they had initially thought. They realize that it is going to take a lot of investigative work from them to uncover the real murder and make him pay for his deadly crime.