David Hunter Reading Order
| Title | Published | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|
| The Chemistry of Death | 2006 | Buy |
| Written in Bone | 2007 | Buy |
| Whispers of the Dead | 2009 | Buy |
| The Calling of the Grave | 2010 | Buy |
| Cat and Mouse | 2013 | Buy |
| The Restless Dead | 2016 | Buy |
| Snowfall & Just Another Day | 2016 | Buy |
| The Scent of Death | 2019 | Buy |
| The Bone Garden | 2026 | Buy |
Jonah Colley
| Title | Published | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|
| The Lost | 2021 | Buy |
Standalone Novels
| Title | Published | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|
| Fine Lines | 1994 | Buy |
| Animals | 1995 | Buy |
| Where There’s Smoke | 1997 | Buy |
| Owning Jacob | 1998 | Buy |
| Stone Bruises | 2013 | Buy |
Simon Beckett spent years as a journalist before publishing his first novel, Fine Lines, in 1994. His early standalones — Animals, Where There’s Smoke, and Owning Jacob — established him as a writer of tense psychological fiction. Where There’s Smoke was adapted into a two-part ITV drama in 2000.
Everything changed in 2002 when Beckett visited the University of Tennessee’s Anthropological Research Facility, better known as the Body Farm, while researching an article for The Daily Telegraph. He participated in hands-on exercises with actual decaying corpses, and the experience gave him the idea for forensic anthropologist David Hunter. The Chemistry of Death (2006) introduced Hunter and became an international bestseller, particularly in Germany. Six more novels followed, with The Bone Garden arriving in 2026 after a seven-year gap.
Beckett has won the Raymond Chandler Society’s Marlowe Award and co-won the Ripper Award, the largest European crime fiction prize, in 2018/19. The University of Tennessee established the Simon Beckett Student Paper Prize in his honor.