Lucy Burdette Books In Order

Publication Order of Key West Food Critic Mystery Books

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Roberta Isleib Short Stories/Novellas

Publication Order of Golf Lover's Mystery Books

Publication Order of Advice Column Mystery Books

Publication Order of Anthologies

Lucy Burdette is the pseudonym used by the popular American author named Roberta Isleib for writing her mystery and thriller novels. Under this name, she has written the successful Key West Food Critic Mystery series. Lucy also uses her original name for writing some of the mystery novels. In fact, she has completed two famous novel series titled Advice Column Mystery series and Golf Lover’s Mystery series. Many of the novels written by author Lucy have been nominated for prestigious awards like the Anthony Award, Agatha Award, Macavity Award, etc. She was born in New Jersey, United States, and her first job after completing her graduation was working as a clinical psychologist. As the time went by, she began showing interest in writing mystery books. She developed the habit initially by writing during the free time that she got from her day job and eventually she became an expert at writing intriguing mysteries.

The first mystery novel written by author Lucy was titled as Six Strokes Under, which featured a plot full of suspense and mystery, and revolved around a sports psychologist and neurotic professional golfer. The novel was published in the year 2002 and straight away got nominated for the Anthony and Agatha awards. Nowadays, Lucy is working on the ongoing Key West Food Critic Mystery series, which has already become a national bestseller. Other than writing mystery novels, author Lucy maintains a weekly blog along with a few other culinary mystery authors. The group keeps posting news and upcoming events about their written work and also interacts with the fans and readers. Author Lucy maintains one more blog which she maintains along with a group of crime fiction authors. Based on her experience in the field of clinical psychology, Lucy believes that the works of a detective in the mystery novels have many things common with the long-term psychotherapy.

Both the psychotherapist and detective have to begin with understanding the problem and then look for the clues by following the threads. Gradually, they are required to fill in the bigger picture. Therefore, author Lucy considers that her career move to become a writer proved to be a natural progression for her. Quite often, Lucy shows her passion of portraying the psychologist characters of her mystery novels as competent and trained professionals. She is very much passionate about different recipes of food and has similarly described the main character of the food critic in the successful Key West Mystery series. A successful writing career as a writer of mystery novels has allowed author Lucy Burdette to become a member of a number of writers’ organizations. In the past, she has served as the president of the International association called Sisters in Crime, which was founded in the year 1987 in order to promote the recognition, advancement and the professional development of the female writers of the crime genre. Currently, she serves as an active member of the MWA as well as the Authors Guild. Author Lucy even works for the RWA. As of today, she is happily married and divides her time between her homes located in Key West in Florida and Connecticut.

The Key West Food Critic Mystery series written by author Lucy Burdette consists of a total of 7 novels. They were published between the years 2012 and 2015. The series is currently ongoing as Lucy is about to publish the latest novel of the series very soon. One of the initial novels of the series was published under the title ‘Death in Four Courses’. It was released by the NAL publishing house in the year 2012. The plot of this novel is set in Key West in Florida, United States, and revolves around the happenings in the life of the main character named Hayley Snow. She is described as the new food critic working for the Key Zest magazine. In the beginning, she used to be just a culinary groupie, but goes on to become one of the cutting edge taste-makers of Florida. However, just like how it always happens in her life, the good things come packed with an exquisite murder in her life. In the opening sequence of the plot of the novel, it is shown that the annual literary conference of the Key West magazine is about to be organized and the biggest names of the country related to food writing are expected to attend. Hayley Snow also decides to attend so as to catch up with some fresh insider gossips. One of the other characters named Jonah Barrows is described as a superstar food critic, who is expected to be the keynote speaker at the conference. He has already become a much-talked about personality in the food writing industry because of his recent memoir. And as a keynote speaker, Jonah has promised to tell about some more jaw-dropping descriptions. However, his dead body is discovered by Hayley Snow near the pool. Soon, the exciting event takes a sad turn as Hayley finds herself to be the much talked about topic, and is also attended by the police. Hayley realizes that she should work the matter on her own and catch the real killer before comes back and takes the life of another victim.

The next novel of the Key West Food Critic Mystery series was titled ‘Topped Chef’. It was published by the NAL publishing house in the year 2013. The plot of this novel is also set in Key West, Florida and continues to depict the primary character named Hayley Snow at the center of the plot. In the opening sequence of the plot of the novel, Hayley is shown as being extremely satisfied with her job as a food critic at the Key Zest magazine. She loves to be able to taste the offerings from the innovative restaurants of Key West. But her satisfied life takes a sour turn when she gets involved in another murder investigation. Her boss asks her to become one of the judges of the Topped Chef contest of Key West, hoping that it will bring good publicity for the magazine. Hayley seems to be quite nervous, but very much excited when she comes to the filming of the contest. But she becomes a little bit shocked to see a well known businessman named Sam Rizzoli on the judging panel. Sam is the same person whose restaurant was given a negative review by Hayley. Soon, he is found dead and police begin to to look for his killer among his business rivals. However, Hayley Snow believes that the contest is being taken too seriously and when she realizes that the police is headed in the wrong direction, she takes it upon herself to try and catch the killer. Hayley is required to do it as soon as possible because she faces the danger of being the next victim and being permanently eliminated from the judging panel of the contest by the killer.