W. Glenn Duncan Books In Order

Publication Order of Rafferty Books

W. Glenn Duncan was a renowned American born Australian writer of mystery and thriller stories. He was popular for writing the Rafferty mystery novels. Before deciding to settle down as a full-time writer, Duncan had worked as a journalist. For a brief period in his life, he was also employed as a pilot. Duncan had lived in different places in the United States, including Florida, California, Ohio, and Texas, before he relocated to Australia with his family, which comprised of his beloved wife and 3 three children. He lived there until he breathed his last in 2019. Duncan’s family still lives in Australia, where his elder son is carrying forward his work to keep his legacy alive. In the later part of his writing career, Duncan had entered into a partnership with his, W. Glenn Duncan Jr. to continue writing his Shamus Award-winning novel series, Rafferty P.I. This series features the chief protagonist in the role of a private investigator named Rafferty.

The character is not given the first name for reasons best known to Duncan. Duncan is depicted as a former police officer turned private investigator living in Dallas, Texas. He takes up mysterious cases happening in and around the area and often gets involved in chasing culprits of murder and other criminal activities. Author Duncan had come up with the character for the first time in the latter part of the 1980s. Subsequently, he penned the first 6 titles and published them to great successes across the globe. Duncan Jr. joined Duncan Sr.’s team in 2017 and began rebooting the series by launching its books in the new paperback editions. He also published the novels as ebooks. In 2018, Duncan Jr. added a new independent story featuring Rafferty and followed it up by another one in 2020.

The father and son pair is said to have tried their hands in a variety of jobs before they decided to make their living as authors of mystery stories. It includes working as an architect, business owner, radio station newsman, local politician, professional pilot, and project manager. They have seen days where they had to live in tents, cars, and boats. The pair have also had engaged in adventures of their own, such as running into a burning building and crashing a car into a two-story house’s upper story. The critics believe that Duncan truly managed to capture the pure essence of a smart-ass private eye in Rafferty’s character. This awesome character appears to be a blend of Spenser, Sam Spade, and Mike Hammer, showcasing traits from all these popular characters at times. An important aspect of Rafferty’s character as shown by Duncan in the books is living by a set of rules, which he is not willing to break at any cost. Many of those rules are quoted in the novels, coming at different situations while Rafferty is undergoing his adventures.

The novel of this series that won the prestigious Shamus Award is known as Fatal Sisters. In this novel, Rafferty is shown trying to locate a missing person named Sherm Akister. He doesn’t find any difficulty in finding the man, but what gives him a tough time is informing his naive wife about his murder in a whorehouse that is connected to a mob. Rafferty tries his best to get justice for the victim, but his job is made difficult by the killings of the witnesses one after the other. Every other book of this series has also managed to achieve immense success in all the places of its release. Readers all over the world have loved the books very much and appreciated the efforts of Duncan in creating such an exciting series. The books mostly entertained the fans of mystery stories. With each sequel, Duncan managed to increase his fan-following to a great extent. The joy of his fans increased multiple folds when his son declared to release all the books again in paperback formats. They loved to go through the series again and also cherished the new stories added by Duncan’s son independently after his death. Duncan Jr. hopes to add several more titles to the series in the times to come and keep the series running for as long as he can. He also wishes to use Rafferty P.I.’s success to create new characters and develop new mysteries around them.

The Rafferty P.I. series written by author W. Glenn Duncan began in 1987. Initially, it had six titles published between 1987 and 1990, however, new titles have been added by his son starting from 2018. Some important characters mentioned in the books of this series include Vivian Mollison, Cynthia Lawson, Walter Hadley, Cricket Dawes, Toby Wells, Luis Ortega, Thorney, Max Krandorff, Carl, Sherm Akister, Patty Akister, Manny Hinkston, Dariell Thof, Kimberly, Kathy-Lee, Brian, Bradley Wright, etc. The debut novel of this series is entitled ‘Rafferty’s Rules’. It was released by Ballantine publication in 1987. The book opens by mentioning that Rafferty had saved Vivian Mollison 15 years ago from a junkie when he was a cop. Since then, many changes have occurred. Rafferty is not a cop anymore and Vivian Mollison is pursuing her studies at SMU and lives with her father, who became wealthy because of his computer business.

Rafferty gets mixed emotions when he learns that Vivian has been kidnapped by a gang of bikers. He is asked to chase down the bikers and save Vivian again. Vivian’s father has promised him to give a lot of money, but he is required to bring back his daughter safe and sound. Rafferty doesn’t think about the money and only wants to ensure Vivian’s safety. He does not want any harm to come to her. Rafferty seems to have developed a feeling for the girl and wants to rescue her from the bikers at any cost. The second installment of this series is called ‘Last Seen Alive’. It was also published in 1987 by Ballantine. Initially, it is depicted that Rafferty is enjoying a vacation in a small town in Texas. The police arrest him on the charges of murder as he was the last one to see Cynthia Lawson alive. He feels he has landed himself in deep trouble and wants to get out of it as soon as possible.

When the police release him for not finding any concrete proof against him, he sets himself on the course of finding out who murdered Cynthia Lawson. The investigation leads him to crooked doctors, religious fundamentalists, shady bookies, and a few protective ex-lovers. Later, the police accuse another person of the murder and put him behind bars. The wife of the accused approaches Rafferty to ask for his help in clearing her husband’s name. Rafferty wants to unravel this mystery very soon and get back to enjoying his vacation. So, he starts taking more interest in the investigation, looking at every detail closely and studying every evidence thoroughly to catch the real murderer.