Rose Hill Mystery Books In Order

Publication Order of Rose Hill Mystery Books

Rose Hill Mystery is a series of cozy mystery novels by Pamela Grandstaff, a bestselling American author from West Virginia. She spent much of her childhood in West Virginia, where she asserts that she loved to read and soon also found writing as an interest. While she has lived in a lot of places, she still considers West Virginia her home and many of her works are influenced by her life in the state. She published her debut novel in the series titled “Rose Hill” in 2007 and since then has never looked back as she has penned one title every year. The series is set in the fictional town of Rose Hill in West Virginia at the northeastern point where Pennsylvania and Maryland meet. She takes her titles from flowers and many of her characters are influenced by the Polish, Irish, German, Scottish, Hungarian, Italian, Jewish, Greek and Lebanese neighbors and friends from her childhood. While she mostly writes in the cozy mystery genre, her novels in the “Rose Hill Mystery” series also delve into aspects of steadfast friendships, romantic relationships, small-town life, family, and children among others. She cites the “Richard Jury” mystery series by Martha Grimes as the most significant influence in her writing of the “Rose Hill Mystery” series. She was also inspired by “Jam and Jerusalem” the BBC America series set in the small town of Clatterford that also had funny women with close relationships and strong and eccentric characters.

The “Rose Hill Mystery” series is set in Rose Hill West Virginia and follows the adventures of several residents of the small town. The lead character is Scott Gordon, the police chief alongside the town bookstore owner Maggie, friends and neighbors and the Fitzpatrick family that has lived in the small town for several generations. Rose Hill is a small American town of 500 supplemented by the populace at Eldridge College and a few tourists who often visit. The College gets its name from an influential family in the town known as the Elridges. There are also several other prominent families in town that include the Irish Fitzgeralds that are at the bottom of the social scale while the Rodefeffers are a wealthy and influential family. The novels are about the everyday life of the townspeople who run the churches, the bookstore, the pub, the service station, city offices, fire station, funeral parlor, and the police station. Since it is a small town everyone knows everyone which often makes investigations easier. Overall, the residents are helpful and supportive of their neighbors and family members in the good old southern tradition. But in the banality of their lives is relationships, mysteries, love, murder, skullduggery, and fraud. Scott Gordon the lead of the series is not your everyday police officer as he gets nauseous at the sight of blood, will not give gossip the time of day and has a controlling mother. He is also crazy about Maggie Fitzpatrick an amateur sleuth who together with her friends Claire and Hannah have to deal with a lot. Some of the challenges include nosy neighbors, children, marriage and family all of whom are stumbling blocks to their amateur sleuthing endeavors.

“Rose Hill” the first novel of the “Rose Hill Mystery” Series introduces the beautiful town of Rose Hill snuggled at the base of Pine Mountain. It is a small town with one patrol car, one traffic light, and one callous killer. When the rotten and rich Theo Eldridge is discovered beaten to death at the local veterinary doctor’s, Scott Gordon the police chief is forced to team up with Sarah Albright a go-getting county detective. But the thing is Sarah seems less interested in solving the crime and more interested in seducing the investigator. But the detective is in love with Maggie Fitzpatrick who unfortunately has not gotten over the love of her life that had mysteriously gone missing. While she is determined to fight off the intense attraction between them, she is soon embroiled in the investigations and the emotions may soon be too much for her to deny. Maggie and Scott are working in an inordinately cold January winter trying to untangle an intricate web of dark secrets and illicit business transactions that Theo had been involved with. They soon realize that there is more to the murder and they may have to go back two decades to resolve the case.

“Morning Glory Circle” the second novel of the “Rose Hill Mystery” series is a funny but compelling read. The town’s most vicious gossip may just have access to the darkest secrets held by the most powerful people in town. Scott Gordon the police chief has offered a deal to Margie Este: he would drop all charges of embezzling and mail tampering if she resigned from her cushy post office job and assisted her mother move into a care home. This action probably saved her mother but now Margie wants revenge and is desperate for money. After sending a few malicious letters to random people blackmailing them, Margie goes missing and now Scott has to investigate and find out if one of the victims that had been had been responsible for her disappearance. Maggie Fitzpatrick is helping Scott with the investigations despite his reservations about the danger she is putting herself in. The list of suspects only gets longer as the poison pen pals that Margie had communicated with come forward. When Scott gets a hunch, he follows it not knowing that he is putting his life in danger from the now fidgety killer. Love is in the air in the small town, but unfortunately so are murder, heartache, and blackmail.

“Iris Avenue” the third novel of the series by Pamela Grandstaff is still set in Rose Hill, the perfect place for a quick bite to eat, browsing for antiques or drinks the Rose and Thorn pub. Underneath the charming and polished exterior of the town is something despicable that is just about to be unearthed. When the investigations into a turf war by some heavy-hitting drug dealers lead back to the small town, things get thick. For unknown reasons, a ruthless FBI agent and an ambitious county investigator seem determined to stop the investigators. Scott Gordon the Police Chief needs to decide between sacrificing the people he swore to protect and upholding the law. Meanwhile, Maggie Fitzpatrick is hopeful for the return of the love of her life that had gone missing nearly a decade ago. While he is not the same person he was all those years ago, he still has the intensity that overwhelms her senses and makes her want to leave behind everything she holds dear. And then it is March and there are ominous warnings as the storm clouds gather. Victims and suspects are back to their old haunts and now need to deal with the consequences of the choices made years ago.