Miss Pink Books In Order

Publication Order of Miss Melinda Pink Books

Miss Pink series by Gwen Moffat
Author Gwen Moffat pens the “Miss Pink” series of mystery novels. The series began publication in the year 1973, when “Lady with a Cool Eye” was released.

In total, sixteen books were published in the series, with the last one titled “Retribution”, being released in the year 2002.

Gwen drew on her experience as a climber to write these novels. After meeting a climber, she was introduced to climbing as well as a bohemian lifestyle. She lived rough during the forties and fifties, climbing in the Lakes, Snowdonia, the Alps, and Scotland. Early in the fifties, she became the first female British certified mountain guide. For an entire decade she was closely associated with the RAF Mountain Rescue Service, and made her living from climbing.

The series stars Melinda Pink, who is a middle-aged mountaineer and magistrate, that solves mysteries at different mountainous locations.

“Lady with a Cool Eye” is the first novel in the “Miss Pink” series and was released in the year 1973. Charles Martin, the warden of the Plas Mawr Adventure Centre, is just a weak man who has been driven to drink by Bett, his unfaithful wife. Then Bett is found dead in her husband’s wrecked Jaguar, right at the foot of a cliff. It is first assumed to be suicide or just an accident. Further developments, however show that this was murder.

Miss Pink, middle-aged and tough, is one of the Centre’s directors, proves herself to be a shrewd amateur sleuth. She puts two and two together and figures out the Centre is being used to cover for something quite serious.

“Miss Pink at the Edge of the World” is the second novel in the “Miss Pink” series and was released in the year 1975. Two climbers die under mysterious circumstances on The Old Man of Scamadale, which is a stack off of the Scottish coast. The cops, who know zip about climbing techniques, are willing to accept these deaths as nothing more than accidents.

It is Clive and his climbing buddies that convince them, from their personal knowledge of the stack, that both guys were murdered. Doing so puts themselves into strong suspicion, for they alone seem to have the necessary expertise to carry the killings out. It is an ironical situation, however, Miss Pink handles it all with her own usual subtle detection.

“Over the Sea to Death” is the third novel in the “Miss Pink” series and was released in the year 1976. At the tiny hotel in Glen Shira, in the Cuillin of Skye mountains, the dedicated climbers and professional guides gather, among them is amateur detective, Melinda Pink, JP. Right from the start, it is a dangerously fragile gathering.

One of the guides, who is in his forties, is getting careless and soft, and he is a womanizer. Another guide is a stunningly attractive woman, who barely bothers to hide her affair with a client, however his non-climber wife has gone almost insane with jealousy. The hotel owner, who is known derisively as ‘the Colonel’, is horribly resentful of how the world has been going and the permissive society.

A very pretty young lady provides the flashpoint, and she shows up in a halter top, a huge floppy hat, flip-flops, and jeans. Miss Pink has got a pair of murders to contend with, both of which have been ingeniously camouflaged. To reach the solution takes every bit of her climbing expertise as well as her entire understanding of what makes people tick.

“A Short Time to Live” is the fourth novel in the “Miss Pink” series and was released in the year 1976. The isolated village of Sandale gets cut off temporarily from the rest of the world, when a torrential downpour causes a landslide. This is the background to a story of anonymous letters, blackmail, a large-scale robbery, conspiracy, murder, and kidnapping.

Obviously, not all of these crimes are the work of the same person, and it is Mis Pink that sorts the puzzle out. She is aided this time by the enigmatic Daniel Cole, who has claims to be Press, however, his interest in Sandale might be a lot more sinister.

Lucy Fell’s liaison is notorious. Peta Mossop’s is too. Peta’s husband, who is the local inn-keeper, deals in stolen goods. Anything from loads of whiskey to sheep. George Harper, who is a newcomer, is quite the mystery man, with a daughter, named Caroline, who is quite the beautiful woman. Peta is killed and Carolina vanishes, Miss Pink is faced with a problem that (even by her standards) is very complicated.

As in all of these books, the way to the solution takes some tricky rock-climbing, as well as one sensational storm.

“Die Like a Dog” is the sixth novel in the “Miss Pink” series and was released in the year 1982. In Snowdonia, Richard Judson (an arrogant landlord) incenses local opinion by allowing his Alsatian guard dogs (who have been trained to kill) to run loose out in a nature reserve. Satan, an especially savage dog, goes missing. Then Judson and Handel Evans, his bailiff, disappear too.

Detectives Williams and Pryce investigate, and Miss Pink concludes that it is high time that she do some detective work, too.

“Grizzly Trail” is the eighth novel in the “Miss Pink” series and was released in the year 1982. Miss Pink is in the Rockies alone in winter, making her way through them, with her jeep back at base camp for her mountaineering assaults on the peaks. It is tough going, and not least because when Miss Pink meets up with a grizzly bear, threatening and upright, and ready to murder her with just one swipe of the paw.

Out in Cougar Canyon, she has traveled to go to the Logan ranch to join Seale, her friend. The closest neighbors of the Logans are the Trotters. They make their illicit living murdering protected species of wildlife. There is also the Farrells that own a run-down ‘dude ranch’. When the bodies begin being found, is it really possible to blame the grizzlies for all the bodies?