Laurel McKay is a loan officer at Hangtown Bank in Placerville, California, and a divorced mother of three. She has a teenage daughter and twin boys, an interfering mother who thinks Laurel needs a man, and an uncanny ability to end up at crime scenes.
Cindy Sample introduced Laurel in Dying for a Date, where a blind date ends with a dead body and Laurel as a suspect. The pattern holds across nine books: Laurel finds trouble through everyday activities like dance classes, real estate deals, and donut shops, and then talks her way deeper into the investigation before the police can stop her.
Laurel’s voice carries the series. She is self-deprecating, impulsive, and aware that she is in over her head, which makes her attempts at amateur detection both funny and unpredictable. Her romantic life provides a secondary thread across the books, along with her relationships with her kids and her mother.
Reading Order
See the complete Laurel McKay Mysteries reading order for all books in the series.