Flaxborough Chronicles Reading Order
| Title | Published | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|
| Coffin, Scarcely Used | 1958 | Buy |
| Bump in the Night | 1960 | Buy |
| Hopjoy Was Here | 1962 | Buy |
| Lonelyheart 4122 | 1967 | Buy |
| Charity Ends at Home | 1968 | Buy |
| The Flaxborough Crab | 1969 | Buy |
| Broomsticks Over Flaxborough | 1972 | Buy |
| Six Nuns and a Shotgun | 1975 | N/A |
| The Naked Nuns | 1975 | Buy |
| One Man’s Meat | 1977 | Buy |
| Blue Murder | 1979 | Buy |
| Plaster Sinners | 1980 | Buy |
| Whatever’s Been Going On at Mumblesby? | 1982 | Buy |
Non-Fiction
| Title | Published | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|
| Snobbery with Violence | 1971 | Buy |
Colin Watson wrote crime fiction that leaned more toward comedy than body counts. His Flaxborough Chronicles follow Inspector Purbright and the other inhabitants of a small, fictional English market town where everyone has something to hide and nobody is quite what they seem. Watson published thirteen novels in the series between 1958 and 1982, and the books were popular enough to be adapted for British television.
Outside of the Flaxborough novels, Watson wrote Snobbery with Violence, a non-fiction study of crime fiction’s English roots and the class attitudes baked into the genre. The book became a well-regarded piece of literary criticism and remains a useful companion for anyone interested in the history of detective fiction.