Todd Ritter Books In Order

Publication Order of Kat Campbell Books

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Todd Ritter
Todd Ritter was born in rural Pennsylvania to a dad that dabbled in taxidermy and a bank teller mom. He grew up in a ranch style house, among “Bambi”-esque forests and wide-open fields right out of the crop duster scene from “North by Northwest”. It is appropriate then that his two biggest influences are Alfred Hitchcock and Walt Disney.

Before becoming a full time author, he worked as an editor, a journalist, and a graphic designer. Todd worked as a journalist for two decades, and he began his career as a film critic while he attended Penn State University.

Besides writing under this name, he’s also released work under the pen names of Alan Finn and Riley Sager, with the latter being the most successful and prolific. He writes under these pen names since he was looking for a new publisher, and it’s possible that editors would be more willing to go with somebody that had a clean slate, instead of a critically acclaimed writer with a spotty sales record.

“Death Notice” is the first novel in the “Kat Campbell” series and was released in 2010. Perry Hollow, Pennsylvania has never had a murder before. Not as long as Kat Campbell has been the police chief, at least. The first one’s a brutal one: George Winnick, a farmer in his sixties, is discovered in a homemade coffin on the side of the highway with arteries and veins drained of blood and filled with embalming fluid and his lips sewn shut.

As chilling as they may seem, it gets even worse when Kat learns that Henry Goll, the Perry Hollow Gazette obituary writer, got a death notice for George before he was even killed.

Shortly after, the task force from the Pennsylvania Bureau of Investigation arrives and everything starts to take an irreversible turn for the worse. Head of the task force, named Nick Donnelly, has been chasing down the “Betsy Ross Killer”, so named because he is so handy with a needle and thread, for over a year now. Winnick seems to be his fourth victim. But is he?

Kat hasn’t ever handled a murder case before, however she is not about to just sit idly by as somebody terrorizes her sleepy idyllic town or her son. However are her efforts going to be enough to stop this killer and bring calm back to Perry Hollow?

A portrait of a small town in turmoil, where residents fear for their lives, “Death Notice” is a gripping debut from a terrific new talent in crime fiction.

Readers felt this one sticking with them well after finishing this one. You get put right into the mind of the victim. Even if you’ve never met the victim before, you really want the good guys to get there and put a stop to what’s going on. However you just won’t stop reading because you also want to know who the killer is. The novel makes your heart race.

“Bad Moon” is the second novel in the “Kat Campbell” series and was released in 2011. The exact same night that Neil Armstrong became the first man to walk on the moon, Charlie Olmstead (ten years old) jumped on his bike in order to see if there was a way that he could get a better look. It was the last that anybody ever saw of him. After Perry Hollow Chief of Police Jim Campbell discovered Charlie’s bike caught in the water just above Sunset Falls, he assumed the worst. Everybody did, except for Charlie’s mom.

Years later, Eric Olmstead (Charlie’s younger brother and now a famous author) has returned to Perry Hollow in order to bury his mom and fulfill her final request: Find Charlie. In order to do so, he goes to his former sweetheart and current police chief, Kat Campbell, who just so happens to also be Jim Campbell’s daughter.

Together, they quickly learn that Eric’s mom was convinced Charlie got kidnapped, and that finding him, whether he was dead or alive, was her secret obsession. Even though she never succeeded, she did find clues that suggested that he was not the only boy across Pennsylvania that vanished into thin air during that time.

The haunting tale about a boy gone missing for forty years, and a small town which finds lies easier to believe than the truth, explodes into the present in “Bad Moon”, Todd’s fantastic follow-up to his acclaimed debut novel.

This one has a terrific story line, some great characters, neighbors and friends that have kept secrets for so many years, which leads to an unforeseen finish line.

“Devil’s Night” is the third novel in the “Kat Campbell” series and was released in 2013. There’s two things that Perry Hollow Police Chief Kat Campbell never imagined she’d do again: Enter a burning building, and lay eyes on Henry Goll, the man that was trapped inside with her the last time she was in one. So Kat is on high alert when, hardly a year after the dust has settled around the Grim Reaper Killings, both happen on the same day.

At one in the morning, she gets jolted awake by a desperate call telling her Perry Hollow’s single museum—home to every historical artifact the town has—was set on fire. Kat, arriving on the scene, catches only a glimpse of Henry’s face among the whole crowd before she gets rushed into the charred building, just to find the museum curator is dead, having been bludgeoned, but not burned.

Kat has lived through some pretty tense moments and seen a few gruesome crimes, however the next twenty-four hours are going to be the most dangerous of her whole life while she and Henry track a killer and the motivation behind these horrifying crimes.

Todd Ritter returns to the beloved town of Perry Hollow, Pennsylvania with “Devil’s Night”, which is his most poignant and cleverly plotted novel to date.

Todd’s writing and plotting are strong, and the characters are likable yet not simplistic. The ending is fantastic, and you will be surprised when you learn who the killer is. It’s too bad this series was not continued because it’s fantastic.