Kelly Oliver books

Kelly Oliver is an American author and philosophy professor who writes mystery fiction alongside academic work, known for the Jessica James Mysteries and the Fiona Figg historical mystery series.

A Fiona Figg & Kitty Lane Mystery Reading Order

Title Published Buy on Amazon
Chaos at Carnegie Hall - N/A
Chaos at Carnegie Hall / Mystery in Manhatten 2022 Buy
Covert in Cairo 2023 Buy
Mayhem in the Mountains 2023 Buy
Arsenic at Ascot 2023 Buy
Murder in Moscow 2024 Buy
Poison in Piccadilly 2024 Buy

Fiona Figg Mystery Reading Order

Title Published Buy on Amazon
Betrayal at Ravenswick 2020 Buy
High Treason at the Grand Hotel 2021 Buy
Villainy in Vienna 2022 Buy
Chaos at Carnegie Hall - N/A
Mayhem in the Mountains 2023 N/A
Murder in Moscow - N/A

Forerunners: Ideas First Reading Order

Title Published Buy on Amazon
Mediators 2014 Buy
Aesop’s Anthropology 2014 Buy
The Anthrobscene 2014 Buy
No Speed Limit 2015 Buy
Deep Mapping the Media City 2015 Buy
The Geek’s Chihuahua 2015 Buy
Martin Heidegger Saved My Life 2015 Buy
Mandela’s Dark Years 2015 Buy
Cinema without Reflection 2016 Buy
Dark Deleuze 2016 Buy
How Noise Matters to Finance 2016 Buy
Digital Stockholm Syndrome in the Post-Ontological Age 2016 Buy
The Uberfication of the University 2016 Buy
The Politics of Bitcoin 2016 Buy
Fifty Years of The Battle of Algiers 2016 Buy
Ten Theses for an Aesthetics of Politics 2016 Buy
The Celebrity Persona Pandemic 2016 Buy
Carceral Humanitarianism: Logics of Refugee Detention 2017 Buy
A Third University Is Possible 2017 Buy
UW Struggle 2017 Buy
Shareveillance 2017 Buy
Aspirational Fascism 2017 Buy
Callous Objects 2017 Buy
The End of Man 2018 Buy
The Neocolonialism of the Global Village 2018 Buy
A Billion Black Anthropocenes or None 2018 Buy
The Swindle of Innovative Educational Finance 2018 Buy
Learning versus the Common Core 2019 Buy
Edges of the State 2019 Buy
Theory for the World to Come 2019 Buy
Break Up the Anthropocene 2019 Buy
Against Aesthetic Exceptionalism 2019 Buy
Burgers in Blackface 2019 Buy
How to Do Things with Sensors 2019 Buy
Town Hall Meetings and the Death of Deliberation 2019 Buy
Medical Technics 2019 Buy
Spoiler Alert 2019 Buy
Wageless Life 2019 Buy
LatinX 2019 Buy
Furious Feminisms 2020 Buy
Kill the Overseer! 2020 Buy
Trans Care 2020 Buy
Cruelty as Citizenship 2020 Buy
Grounded: Perpetual Flight . . . and Then the Pandemic 2020 Buy
The Problem of the Negro as a Problem for Gender 2020 Buy
Grounded 2020 Buy
The Problem of the Negro as a Problem for Gender 2020 Buy
Virtue Hoarders 2021 Buy
The Global Shelter Imaginary 2021 Buy
Calamity Theory 2021 Buy
Young-Girls in Echoland 2021 Buy
Safety Orange 2021 Buy
Only a Black Athlete Can Save Us Now 2022 Buy
The World Is Gone 2022 Buy
Out of Breath 2022 Buy
Does the Earth Care? 2022 Buy
Studious Drift 2022 Buy
The Owls Are Not What They Seem 2022 Buy
Solarities 2022 Buy
The School-Prison Trust 2022 Buy
Endlings: Fables for the Anthropocene 2022 Buy
Rescue Me 2022 Buy
All through the Town 2023 Buy
Health Colonialism 2023 Buy
Crip Negativity 2023 Buy
Gramsci at Sea 2023 Buy
Opening Ceremony 2023 Buy
No More Fossils 2023 Buy
Everything is Police 2024 Buy
Livestreaming 2024 Buy
On the Appearance of the World 2024 Buy
Illness Politics and Hashtag Activism 2024 Buy

Jessica James Mysteries Reading Order

Title Published Buy on Amazon
Wolf 2016 Buy
Coyote 2016 Buy
Fox 2017 Buy
Jackal 2018 Buy
Viper 2019 Buy
Cottonmouth 2021 Buy

KellyOliver Non-Fiction Reading Order

Title Published Buy on Amazon
Ethics, Politics, and Difference in Julia Kristeva’s Writing 1993 Buy
Reading Kristeva: Unraveling the Double-bind 1993 Buy
Womanizing Nietzsche: Philosophy’s Relation to the “Feminine” 1994 Buy
The Portable Kristeva 1997 Buy
Family Values: Subjects Between Nature and Culture 1997 Buy
Subjectivity Without Subjects: From Abject Fathers to Desiring Mothers 1998 Buy
French Feminism Reader 2000 Buy
Between the Psyche and the Social: Psychoanalytic Social Theory 2001 Buy
Witnessing: Beyond Recognition 2001 Buy
Noir Anxiety 2002 Buy
Colonization Of Psychic Space: A Psychoanalytic Social Theory Of Oppression 2004 Buy
Contemporary French Feminism 2004 Buy
Women as Weapons of War: Iraq, Sex, and the Media 2007 Buy
Psychoanalysis, Aesthetics, and Politics in the Work of Julia Kristeva 2009 Buy
Animal Lessons: How They Teach Us to Be Human 2009 Buy
Knock Me Up, Knock Me Down: Images of Pregnancy in Hollywood Films 2012 Buy
Technologies of Life and Death: From Cloning to Capital Punishment 2013 Buy
Earth and World: Philosophy After the Apollo Missions 2015 Buy
Hunting Girls: Sexual Violence from The Hunger Games to Campus Rape 2016 Buy
Carceral Humanitarianism: Logics of Refugee Detention 2017 Buy

Pet Detective Mysteries Reading Order

Title Published Buy on Amazon
Kassy O’Roarke, Cub Reporter 2019 Buy
Kassy O’Roake, Treasure Hunter 2020 Buy
Kassy O’Roarke, Geocacher 2020 Buy

Pet Detective Mysteries For Kids 7-12 Reading Order

Title Published Buy on Amazon
Kassy O’Roarke, Cub Reporter 2019 N/A
Treasure Hunter 2020 Buy

SUNY, Insinuations: Philosophy, Psychoanalysis, Literature

Title Published Buy on Amazon
A Voice from Elsewhere 2002 Buy

The Detection Club Reading Order

Title Published Buy on Amazon
The Case of the Christie Conspiracy 2025 Buy
The Case of the Body on the Orient Express 2025 Buy

Kelly Oliver leads a double career. As a philosophy professor, she has published extensively on topics including feminist theory, psychoanalysis, and ethics. As a fiction writer, she produces mystery novels across multiple series, each with a different setting and tone. The combination is unusual and gives her bibliography a split personality that reflects her wide-ranging interests.

Her Jessica James Mysteries follow a philosophy graduate student who solves crimes on a university campus, drawing directly on Oliver’s academic life for setting and atmosphere. The Fiona Figg Mystery and Fiona Figg & Kitty Lane Mystery series move to World War I and its aftermath, following a female spy through European intrigue. The Detection Club books add yet another historical mystery angle. On the lighter side, her Pet Detective Mysteries are written for young readers.

Oliver’s academic work is equally prolific. She has authored and edited more than twenty books on philosophy, feminism, and cultural criticism, and she is the series editor for the Forerunners: Ideas First series from the University of Minnesota Press, which has published over seventy short academic volumes on contemporary political and cultural topics.

Frequently Asked Questions

How many books has Kelly Oliver written?

Kelly Oliver has written 119 books across nine series.

What was Kelly Oliver's first book?

Kelly Oliver’s first book is Ethics, Politics, and Difference in Julia Kristeva’s Writing, published in 1993.

Does Kelly Oliver write both fiction and non-fiction?

Yes, Kelly Oliver is a philosophy professor who writes academic non-fiction alongside her mystery novels. Her non-fiction includes works on feminism, psychoanalysis, and ethics, while her fiction ranges from contemporary mysteries (Jessica James) to World War I-era historical mysteries (Fiona Figg) to children’s books (Pet Detective Mysteries).

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