Reading order
| # | Title | Published | Author | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Nothing More Dangerous | 2019 | Allen Eskens | Buy |
| 2 | Forsaken Country | 2022 | Allen Eskens | Buy |
| 3 | Saving Emma | 2023 | Allen Eskens | N/A |
| 4 | The Quiet Librarian | 2025 | Allen Eskens | Buy |
Allen Eskens’s standalone novels step outside his series characters to explore different settings and situations within the crime fiction genre. Nothing More Dangerous is set in rural Missouri during the 1970s, following a teenager who gets pulled into a mystery about a missing woman from a local factory. It has a slower burn than his detective novels and deals heavily with racism and small-town silence.
Forsaken Country, Saving Emma, and The Quiet Librarian each bring their own angles to crime and justice. Eskens writes with the precision of someone who has spent years in courtrooms, and his standalones let him stretch into territory his series characters might not reach.