Reading order
| # | Title | Published | Author | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Last Place You Look | 2021 | Louisa Scarr | Buy |
| 2 | Under A Dark Cloud | 2021 | Louisa Scarr | Buy |
| 3 | Blink of an Eye | 2022 | Louisa Scarr | Buy |
| 4 | Seen to Be Believed | 2022 | Louisa Scarr | Buy |
| 5 | Out of the Ashes | 2023 | Louisa Scarr | Buy |
Butler & West is Louisa Scarr’s five-book police procedural series. Beginning with Last Place You Look (2021), the books follow two detectives through a series of complex investigations. The partnership between Butler and West develops across the series, with each case testing their skills and relationship.
Last Place You Look and Under A Dark Cloud both arrived in 2021, launching the series with back-to-back releases. Blink of an Eye and Seen to Be Believed followed in 2022, with Out of the Ashes closing the series in 2023. The pacing kept readers from waiting too long between cases.
The books work best read in sequence. While each novel has a self-contained crime to solve, the personal lives and working dynamic of the two detectives are ongoing threads. Scarr writes in the British police procedural tradition, with the investigative detail and interpersonal tension that genre readers expect.