Ed Lynskey

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  • Bibliography:
    52 Books
  • First Book:
    May 2004
  • Latest Book:
    June 2024
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Book List in Order: 52 titles

  • Out of Town a Few Days: 15 Frank Johnson Stories

  • The Dirt-Brown Derby

    PI Frank Johnson is hired by Mary Taliaferro, a wealthy aristocrat owning a horse estate near Middleburg, Virginia. Mary's teen-age daughter Emily has died in a riding tragedy. The local law enforcement says it's an accident. Mary thinks it's murder....

  • The Blue Cheer

    • P.I. Frank Johnson has moved to Scarab, West Virginia, drawn by the promise of lazy days and the lure of its tranquil mountains. What he finds instead is a Stinger rocket exploding over his back yard. His ensuing investigation uncovers a cul...

  • Pelham Fell Here

    MP and part-time gunsmith Frank Johnson finds his cousin Cody Chapman killed by a twelve-gauge shotgun. Enraged, Frank wants some answers, and fast. Was Cody involved in an arms smuggling scheme? The mystery grows when a pair of murderous deputy sher...

  • Troglodytes

    When American diplomat Sylvester Mercedes flew into Ankara, Turkey on what was supposed to be a normal business trip, he mysteriously vanishes from his hotel room. With her husband now missing for more than two weeks, prominent socialite Lois Mercede...

  • Quiet Anchorage

    Quiet Anchorage, Virginia, is like any other peaceful small town in America. Until the murder of Jake Robbins rocks Quiet Anchorage, and his fiancée Megan Connors is charged for it. Her elderly aunts, the tenacious Isabel and Alma Trumbo, then decid...

  • Lake Charles

    Bears comparison with the best noir fiction being published today. I loved it. —Ed GormanBLURBS:LAKE CHARLES is going to scorch your soul. Ed Lynskey has given us a geographical and spiritual wasteland that that bears comparison with the best ...

  • Ask the Dice

    Over the past two decades, Tommy Mack Zane has faithfully worked as a contract killer for Watson Ogg, the Washington, D.C. crime boss. Now middle age creeping up finds Tommy Mack edgy, jaded, and weary of his grisly trade. As he contemplates retireme...

  • The Zinc Zoo

    Older and wiser, P.I. Frank Johnson, in his fifth outing, has moved to the Washington, D.C. suburbs where he's lived with his fianc Dreema Atkins. Times are lean. No new P.I. cases have rolled Frank's way since his return from Ankara, Turkey. His old...



  • Blood Diamonds

    Long time grifter and suburbanite Jonas Blades works in a sash-and-door mill until he literally bumps into Jacquie Mantooth, a voluptuous schemer who is putting together a plan to pull off a big diamond heist. She recruits her new lover Jonas to be t...

  • The Quetzal Motel

    Phoebe Ash runs the Quetzal Motel with her father Ricky Lon. It's a quaint inn until one hot summer night when Long John Silver, a tall man in a leg cast and on crutches, pays for a room for Nancy Q, his wife, and him. Phoebe's growing suspicions of ...

  • The Cashmere Shroud

    Small town Quiet Anchorage, Virginia, doesn't seem like a prime spot for murder, and Isabel and Alma Trumbo look forward to spending their days playing Scrabble and visiting with the "Three Musketeers" outside the local florist shop. When their young...

  • Topaz Moon

    Topaz Moon is a hard-boiled crime novel set in the fictitious town of Emerald Shire, Virginia. Hondo Gunn, an early middle-aged criminal attorney, feels lonely while Aggie Essex is a twentysomething editor who also lives and works there. They bump in...

  • Wrong Orbits

    Loomis McTeague has good reasons to fear his safe, little world in suburbia is skidding into a wrong orbit. His best friend Stu O'Fryer is involved in a disgusting criminal enterprise. Loomis suspects his wife Enola Jo is cheating on him. His new co-...

  • After the Big Noise

    For his next hardboiled outing, P.I. Frank Johnson accepts a pair of new cases just before the 2005 year-end holidays. The reader gets two mysteries for the price of one as he stays busy on both cases. First, he hunts for a missing husband, and secon...

  • The Ladybug Song

    Phyllis Garner, the kooky and funny bag lady, refuses to accept her best friend Ladybug Miles’ death is an accidental drowning in the Cornet River. The blustery, know-it-all Sheriff Roscoe Fox has officially called it that way. However, Phyllis hol...

  • The Corpse Wore Gingham

    Piper and Bill Robins, a retired married couple, are enjoying their leisure years spent in the tranquil, leafy Washington, D.C. suburb of Beverly Park, Virginia. Bill watches “Pawn Stars” on TV and mows his lawn while Piper shops for clothes and ...

  • The Amber Top Hat

    Quiet Anchorage, Virginia, is just like any other small town but with one notable difference: the dead bodies keep turning up. Fortunately, Sheriff Roscoe Fox, who never met a sugar-glazed doughnut served with coffee he didn’t like, can depend on t...

  • Smoking on Mount Rushmore

    This short fiction collection assembles 16 stories, most of them published from 2000-2010, by Ed Lynskey. The crime fiction first appeared in Shots, Thuglit, Mississippi Review Online, and Crime Scene Scotland. The editors selecting the stories incl...



  • Sweet Betsy

    For their next outing, Isabel and Alma Trumbo, the ace sister sleuths living in small town Quiet Anchorage, Virginia, are planting marigolds in their flowerbed when Alma unearths a curious bone. Isabel suspects it’s a dinosaur bone while Alma insis...

  • Fur the Win

    Piper and Bill Robins, a retired couple, are enjoying their leisure years spent in the tranquil, leafy Washington, D.C. suburb of Beverly Park, Virginia. Bill watches “Pawn Stars” on TV and mows his lawn while Piper shops for clothes and solves c...

  • Murder in a One-Hearse Town

    For their next mystery, Isabel and Alma Trumbo, the ace sister sleuths living in Quiet Anchorage, Virginia, are called in by Sheriff Roscoe Fox to investigate the puzzling murder taking place in the florist shop. The late Moses Eppes worked briefly f...

  • Vi's Ring

    For their seventh mystery, Isabel and Alma Trumbo, the retired sister sleuths living in Quiet Anchorage, Virginia, tackle one of their more unusual murder cases to date. Stan Bennett, Alma's first ex-husband, pays them a visit and reveals his youn...

  • Heirloom

    For their eighth mystery, Isabel and Alma Trumbo, the retired sister sleuths living in Quiet Anchorage, Virginia, undertake solving yet another murder mystery. Uncle Jimbo who runs the town antique shop discovers the dead body of Angelo Conti, the to...

  • A Big Dill

    On the same day sister sleuths Isabel and Alma Trumbo’s beloved beagle Petey Samson runs away from home, they confront their ninth murder mystery. Holly McBride, owner and operator of the popular spice shop A Big Dill on Main Street, is found slain...

  • Eve's Win

    For their tenth mystery, Isabel and Alma Trumbo, the retired sister sleuths living in Quiet Anchorage, Virginia, undertake solving yet another murder mystery. When their friend Eve Palmer phones Isabel to ask for the sisters' assistance in searching ...

  • Cops Like Us

    It's every cop's worst nightmare: a violent felon he put behind bars paroles out and comes after him and his family. Five years ago, homicide sergeant Ismail O'Dwyer arrested Boyo Slade after a bar brawl left a man slashed in Old Yvor City, a fictiti...

  • Berried Truth

    Bestselling and award-winning mystery author Ed Lynskey introduces a new cozy mystery series set in the small town of Cat's Paw, Virginia. Plucky and resourceful, Juno Patchen operates her family truck farm in the Blue Ridge Mountains and sells her p...

  • To Dye For

    For their eleventh mystery, Isabel and Alma Trumbo, the retired sister sleuths living in Quiet Anchorage, Virginia, undertake to solve yet another murder mystery. Their hairstylist Laura Isherwood is found murdered in the beauty shop on Main Street. ...



  • Death Car

    For his next hardboiled outing, P.I. Frank Johnson accepts an infidelity case where Webb Lohr believes his wife Danica is having an affair. Then Webb is found murdered in his car at a desolate crossroads. As Frank delves into the twisty investigation...

  • Bent Halo

    For his next hardboiled outing, P.I. Frank Johnson accepts a homicide case when Kitty Lovejoy seeks out his assistance in solving the grisly murder of her husband, Sloane, a retired pharmaceutical chemist. Of course, nothing is simple as it seems on ...

  • Fowl Play

    For their twelfth mystery, Isabel and Alma Trumbo, the retired sister sleuths living in Quiet Anchorage, Virginia, undertake solving yet another murder mystery. Their neighbor Trish Cox's grandson Jason is found murdered on the old highway bridge spa...

  • Clover

    For his next hardboiled outing, P.I. Frank Johnson accepts another missing-person case, this time the gorgeous 19-year-old Clover Digges who has vanished from her home in Middleburg, Virginia. He opens his investigation during the early days of the c...

  • Fluke

    For his next hardboiled outing, P.I. Frank Johnson accepts a seemingly bizarre case from Jules Sturgeon who has experienced disturbing dreams about her murder. The next morning Frank finds his new client has been killed in her SUV behind a strip mall...

  • Quarry

    For his next hardboiled outing, P.I. Frank Johnson accepts a case from a distraught woman who suspects her husband of 10 years is having an affair with his female office manager. Before Frank can launch his investigation, her husband is found murdere...

  • Forge

    For his next hardboiled outing, P.I. Frank Johnson accepts his first birth-parents search for his gorgeous, 23-year-old client, Nikki Colvin, whose adoptive parents are deceased. She has reason to believe her natural mom and dad live in Frank's homet...

  • Lure

    For his next hardboiled outing, P.I. Frank Johnson accepts a missing person case when Cain Milsap seeks out Frank's assistance to find Milsap's 28-year-old daughter, Brett. Of course, nothing is simple as it seems on the surface in Frank's world. As ...

  • Pawn

    For his next hardboiled outing, P.I. Frank Johnson accepts another infidelity case, this time Bunny Weld suspects her loutish husband, Joe Vic Sackett, is having an affair with his younger office manager, Charlie Stottlemyre. Of course, nothing is as...

  • Noel

    For his next hardboiled outing, P.I. Frank Johnson accepts the cold case homicide of 18-year-old Noel Fryer, occurring three years ago in his hometown of Pelham, Virginia. She worked at the local jewelry store and died from an apparent home invasion ...



  • Grits

    For his next hardboiled outing, P.I. Frank Johnson accepts the cold case homicide of Grits Wigfall, a 55-year-old Black man, in his hometown of Pelham, Virginia. Grits works as the front counterman at the new auto parts store for his boss, who become...

  • Blaze

    For his next hardboiled outing, P.I. Frank Johnson takes up the homicide case of Cedric Barker, the bouncer at Aphrodite's Crib, a local strip club. Engaged to the ex-stripper, Blaze O'Dwyer, Barker is found murdered at their outdoor wedding minutes ...

  • Madge

    For his next hardboiled outing, P.I. Frank Johnson takes up the missing-person case of Knox Yowell, a machinist who operates a metal lathe in a job shop. One August morning, Knox leaves for the corner bodega to buy his cigarettes and never returns ho...

  • Nymph

    For his next hardboiled outing, P.I. Frank Johnson takes up investigating the violent death of Lark Turnbull. A local prostitute, she has drowned in her motel room bathtub while inebriated. Her twin sister, Nola, has other ideas and suspects foul pla...

  • Roz

    For his next hardboiled outing, P.I. Frank Johnson takes up investigating the violent death of Roz Fleming. A local prostitute, she's been found dead from two headshots behind the local truck stop on a February morning. Roz's older sister, Hallie, in...

  • Snatch

    For his next hardboiled outing, P.I. Frank Johnson takes up investigating to find the vintage 1977 Music Man StingRay bass guitar stolen from the home of his client, Sybil Gleason. She tells him it's an irreplaceable family heirloom that belonged to ...

  • Crib

    For his next hardboiled outing, P.I. Frank Johnson takes up investigating the mysterious gunshots hitting the windows in Madison Lopat's apartment. The second big case he accepts is running surveillance on Joan Proudfoot's husband, Royce, whom she su...

  • Traffic

    P.I. Frank Johnson investigates an old hit-and-run accident one year later in his next hardboiled outing. Vivian St. John believes her sister Gwen's death while jogging on a remote stretch of Botha Road was premeditated. Vivian hires Frank to investi...

  • Framed

    P.I. Frank Johnson travels to Hogshead Beach, Virginia, a sleazy beach hamlet on the Potomac River. He looks into the murder of his old flame, Vera Freeman, who worked at the plastic bag factory. Her ex, Sal Duckworth, who is Frank's client lives on ...

  • Tryst



  • Iceman

  • Zigzag

  • Nozy Cat 2

    • / General Fiction
    • Buy

    Hope Jones runs the Bront� Bookshop in the small town of Sweet Springs tucked away in the rolling, green hills of the Virginia piedmont. Her best friend Peggy Sue Roswell assists Hope along with her smart, spirited fifteen-year-old daughter Stacey. T...

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Ed Lynskey has published 52 books.

Ed Lynskey does not have a new book coming out soon. The latest book, Zigzag, was published in June 2024.

The first book by Ed Lynskey, Out of Town a Few Days: 15 Frank Johnson Stories, was published in May 2004.

No. Ed Lynskey does not write books in series.
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