Lake District Mysteries Books In Order

Publication Order of Lake District Mysteries Books

Lake District Mysteries series by Martin Edwards
Author Martin Edwards pens the “Lake District Mysteries” novels. The series began publication in the year 2004, when “The Coffin Trail” was released.

The novels are set in a region in North-West England, in the Lake District. The books star historian Daniel Kind and DCI Hannah Scarlett.

Hannah is a Detective Chief Inspector in the Cumbria Constabulary and heads up the Cold Case Review Team. She lives with Marc Amos, a bookseller, however over the course of the series, she gets more and more drawn to Daniel, who is the son of the veteran cop that was her mentor during the early years of her career as a cop.

Daniel is a historian with a professional and personal interest in the work of detectives that has abandoned his highly successful career after the suicide of his partner. Over the course of the series, he gets to know Hannah and gradually a relationship develops between the two.

After Daniel’s dad and Hannah’s mentor died, Hannah and Daniel meet and friendship (as well as possibly more) soon starts to blossom.

“The Coffin Trail” was shortlisted for the Theakston’s Old Peculier Award for the Best Crime Novel of 2006.

“The Coffin Trail” is the first novel in the “Lake District Mysteries” series and was released in the year 2004. What is meant to be a fresh start in the English Lakes District starts stinking of buried secrets.

Daniel Kind, a TV personality and Oxford historian and Miranda, his new lover, both are eager to escape to a new life. On an impulse, they buy Tarn Cottage in Brackdale, which is an idyllic valley in the Lake District that Daniel knew when he was a boy. He’s still fascinated by this place that is so isolated that the dead had to be carried out over the peaks on some pack animals along the ancient Coffin Trail. However the couple had hoped to live the dream of downsizing, the past does have a way of catching up to them.

Tarn Cottage used to be home to Barrie Gilpin, the autistic youth that was suspected of one grisly murder, what appeared to be the ritualistic killing of one young woman visitor to the valley. She was discovered laid out on an ancient pagan site up on the fell known as the Sacrifice Stone. Barrie fell down to his death close to the crime scene before anybody could question him. All these years later, Daniel hangs onto his belief in Barrie’s innocence and questions his own cop dad’s handling of this case.

DCI Hannah and her squad start a cold case review, Brackdale’s skeletons start rattling. The wild geography of the Lake District plays against some local literary references. All of which are backdrop to the lives of the villagers and outsiders which are drawn to this beautiful spot. But for what reasons?

“The Cipher Garden” is the second novel in the “Lake District Mysteries” series and was released in the year 2005. In the idyllic Lake District, the peaceful village of Old Sawrey, Warren Howe gets brutally butchered with his own scythe by some mysterious figure. The cops have many suspects, however there isn’t enough evidence to make an arrest.

Years go by and one anonymous tip-off sparks DCI Hannah Scarlett’s interest, who heads up the local Cold Case Review Team. With the help of Daniel Kind, a historian, she digs deeper in this search for the truth and learns that, in Old Sawrey, old sins cast rather long shadows. Hannah, while following the trail of the killer, arrives at the stunning conclusion, one that is going to change lives forever.

Readers found this to be a beautifully crafted novel, and for those that love a classic whodunnit, there is even a delicious twist in the tale.

“The Arsenic Labyrinth” is the third novel in the “Lake District Mysteries” series and was released in the year 2007. Guy, a drifter with a special taste for deception, has come back to Coniston in England’s Lake District after ten years. Tony di Veuto, a local journalist, is campaigning to revive the interest in Emma Bestwick’s vanishing, and Guy knows exactly what happened to her.

When he tips the newspaperman that Emma’s not going to be coming back home, DCI Scarlett, reopens the old investigation, as the head of the Cumbria’s Cold Case Review Team. Her inquiries take her right to the Museum of Myth and Legend and the isolated and spooky Arsenic Labyrinth, which is a series of stone tunnels that were used to remove arsenic from tin ore.

At the same time, Daniel is immersing himself into the works of John Ruskin, whose neighbors created the Arsenic Labyrinth. A stunning find makes it obvious to Hannah that there is two mysteries they have to solve, not just the one, and she goes to Daniel for some help in untangling all the secrets of the past. While Daniel and Hannah struggle to resist their growing yet dangerous attraction to each other, Guy’s plans to make a fast dollar runs into trouble, and he must resort to some desperate measures. Somebody is determined to kill so their secrets are kept safe.

The novel shows how passionate relationships can lead to murder and obsession, set against the rather stunning backdrop of the Lake District in winter.

“The Serpent Pool” is the fourth novel in the “Lake District Mysteries” series and was released in the year 2010. DCI Hannahh Scarlett is determined to learn the truth about Emily Friend’s mysterious drowning in the Serpent Pool. However Hannah’s distracted by a new house, a new sergeant that has a troublesome reputation, some new cause to doubt her own partner: secondhand bookseller Mark Amos.

One of Marc’s best customers has been burned to death in a converted boathouse that was filled with some priceless books. Then Louise meets the Daniel Kind’s sister, Louise, who just returned back from America so she can work on a book about Thomas De Quincey and the history of murder. How could each of these elements be related to one another?