Jess Lourey

Author Information
Jess Lourey's Latest Book

Newest Release

  • Bibliography:
    26 Books (3 Series)
  • First Book:
    March 2006
  • Latest Book:
    September 2025
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Full Series List in Order

A Murder-By-Month Mystery

1 - May Day (Mar-2006)
2 - June Bug (Mar-2007)
3 - Knee High by the 4th of July (Sep-2007)
4 - August Moon (Jun-2008)
5 - September Fair // September Mourn (Sep-2009)
6 - October Fest (May-2011)
7 - November Hunt (Mar-2012)
8 - December Dread (Oct-2012)
9 - January Thaw (Jan-2014)
10 - February Fever (Feb-2015)
11 - March of Crime (Sep-2017)
12 - April Fools (Feb-2019)

Salem's Cipher Novel

1 - Salem's Cipher (Sep-2016)
2 - Mercy's Chase (Sep-2018)

Steinbeck and Reed

1 - The Taken Ones (Sep-2023)
2 - The Reaping (Sep-2024)
3 - The Laughing Dead (Sep-2025)

Book List in Order: 26 titles

  • May Day

    A Murder-By-Month Mystery - 1

    "Janet Evanovich fans have a new reason to celebrate!" ―Gemma Halliday, best-selling author of Mayhem in High Heels The not-so-proud owner of a dead-end job and a cheating boyfriend,Minneapolitan Mira James jumps at the chance f...

  • June Bug

    A Murder-By-Month Mystery - 2

    80 years ago: The wealthy Krupps family loses a diamond necklace at the bottom of Whiskey Lake and, shortly thereafter, their entire staff is fired, their home is closed up, and Mr. Krupps vanishes without a trace.... Today: A newspaper contest t...

  • Knee High by the 4th of July

    A Murder-By-Month Mystery - 3

    What's so wrong with admiring from a distance? Mira's quirky puppy love for Chief Wenonga, a well-muscled fiberglass statue in her Minnesota small town, might be a safer love pursuit than online dating. But when the 23-foot Chief goes missing from hi...

  • August Moon

    A Murder-By-Month Mystery - 4

    Mira James' fury over getting stood up by Johnny Leeson is hotter than the scorching summer heat in this fourth Murder-by-Month mystery. She's getting out of Battle Lake, Minnesota, "where the women are churchgoers, the men like to hunt, and the body...

  • September Fair // September Mourn

    A Murder-By-Month Mystery - 5

    The Minnesota State Fair-the beloved home of 4H exhibits, Midway rides, and everything on a stick. The festival fun is riding high until the recently crowned Milkfed Mary, Queen of the Dairy, a Battle Lake native, is brutally murdered while her regal...

  • October Fest

    A Murder-By-Month Mystery - 6

    Beer and polka music reign supreme at Octoberfest, Battle Lake's premier fall festival. To kick off the celebrations, the town hosts a public debate between the two congressional candidates: straight-laced Arnold Swydecker, and slippery incumbent, Sa...

  • November Hunt

    A Murder-By-Month Mystery - 7

    November in Battle Lake, Minnesota, is cold enough to freeze the balls off a pool table. It's also deer hunting season. When Tom Kicker is killed in a hunting accident, Mira James is hired to investigate -- a job that brings her closer to a P.I. li...

  • The Toadhouse Trilogy

    "Riveting...not to be missed!" "The Midwest Book Review

    Aine believes herself to be a regular teenager in 1930s Alabama, but when a blue-eyed monster named Biblos attacks, she discovers that the reclusive woman raising her isn't really her...

  • December Dread

    A Murder-By-Month Mystery - 8

    Four shining stars for the Murder-By-Month Mystery series ‘Tis the season for grinning sales-elves on TV and maddeningly jolly muzak. But for Mira James and other Battle Lake-area women, the holidays are marred by something far worse -- a seria...



  • January Thaw

    A Murder-By-Month Mystery - 9

    The Ice Man Succumbeth Private-eye-in-training Mira James loves Minnesota’s crisp January days, as long as she can spend them in the arms of hunky Johnny Leeson. But when Mrs. Berns’s erratic Zamboni driving uncovers an icebound dead man, Mira...

  • February Fever

    A Murder-By-Month Mystery - 10

    All Aboard the Murder Express Mira James’s hot and heavy relationship with boyfriend Johnny Leeson is definitely warming up her winter. But when Johnny has to go to Portland, Oregon, for a month-longth internship, airplane-averse Mira lets her sep...

  • Salem's Cipher

    Salem's Cipher Novel - 1

    A troubled codebreaker faces an epic plot reaching back through centuries of America’s secret history Salem Wiley is a genius cryptanalyst, courted by the world’s top security agencies ever since making a breakthrough discovery in her field of...

  • March of Crime

    A Murder-By-Month Mystery - 11

    A doll walks into a bar... Ida Gilbertson of the Battle Lake Senior Sunset nursing home has a new hobby: crafting life-sized dolls and displaying them around town. Budding PI Mira James finds the dolls creepy enough on their own, but when she's fo...

  • Mercy's Chase

    Salem's Cipher Novel - 2

    What if everything you thought you knew about Stonehenge was wrong? When agoraphobic genius Salem Wiley lands her dream job as an FBI cryptanalyst, she vows never to return to the witch hunt underworld, where ancient secrets encrypted by hunted wo...

  • April Fools

    A Murder-By-Month Mystery - 12

    "I laughed, gasped, and cried (all out loud)." -Catriona McPherson, author of Scot and Soda

    Librarian and aspiring PI Mira James has discovered one corpse a month for each of the eleven months she's lived in Battle Lake, Minnesota. She'd giv...

  • Unspeakable Things

    Inspired by a terrifying true story from the author’s hometown, a heart-pounding novel of suspense about a small Minnesota community where nothing is as quiet -- or as safe -- as it seems. Cassie McDowell’s life in 1980s Minnesota seems perfec...

  • Bloodline

    Perfect town. Perfect homes. Perfect families. It’s enough to drive some women mad… In a tale inspired by real events, pregnant journalist Joan Harken is cautiously excited to follow her fiancé back to his Minnesota hometown. After spending a...

  • Litani

    The Amazon Charts bestselling author of Unspeakable Things and Bloodline explores the darkness at the heart of the rural Midwest in a novel inspired by a chilling true crime.In the summer of ’84, fourteen-year-old Frankie Jubilee is shuttled of...

  • Leave My Book Alone!

    ⭐ This heartwarming and hilarious story of a controlling dragon is a perfect soother for children going through some big changes. ⭐ Claudette the dragon knows what's best for everyone: what food they should eat, what clothes they should wear, a...



  • Monday Is Murder

    ⭐ How much can go wrong in a single Monday? PI-in-training Mira James is about to find out. ⭐Big city gal Mira James is finally settling into itty bitty Battle Lake. Sure, there's that pesky dead-body-a-month hitch, and her hunky musici...

  • The Quarry Girls

    Killers hiding in plain sight. Small-town secrets. A girl who knows too much. From the Amazon Charts bestselling author of Unspeakable Things and Bloodline comes a nerve-twisting novel inspired by a shocking true crime.Minnesota, 1977. For the teens ...

  • The Taken Ones

    Steinbeck and Reed - 1

    Two girls vanished. A woman buried alive. Between two crimes lie decades of secrets yet to be unearthed in a pulse-pounding novel by the Edgar Award–nominated author of Unspeakable Things.Summer 1980: Despite the local superstition that the...

  • The Reaping

    Steinbeck and Reed - 2

    By-the-book forensic scientist Harry Steinbeck and rogue BCA agent Van Reed must catch a cold-case killer who’s returned to abduct a small town’s children one by one in this heart-stopping novel from the Edgar Award–nominated author...

  • Chosen

    Preorder now and receive the stunning DELUXE LIMITED EDITION while supplies last―featuring gorgeous sprayed edges, as well as exclusive special design features. This breathtaking collectible is only available on a limited first print run, a mus...

  • A Whisper of Poison

    John Wick meets The Giver in this post-apocalyptic teen survival young adult novel from bestselling author Jess Lourey....

  • The Laughing Dead

    Steinbeck and Reed - 3

Award-Winning Books by Jess Lourey

Bloodline
2022 Anthony Award -- Paperback Original/E-Book/Audiobook Original Novel
2022 Thriller Award -- Paperback Original
Unspeakable Things
2021 Anthony Award -- Paperback Original/E-Book/Audiobook Original Novel


Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Jess Lourey has published 26 books.

The next book by Jess Lourey, The Laughing Dead, will be published in September 2025.

The first book by Jess Lourey, May Day, was published in March 2006.

Yes. Jess Lourey has 3 series.
Author Series
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