Reading order
| # | Title | Published | Author | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The Hope That Kills | 2016 | Ed James | Buy |
| 2 | Worth Killing For | 2016 | Ed James | Buy |
| 3 | What Doesn’t Kill You | 2017 | Ed James | Buy |
| 4 | In for the Kill | 2018 | Ed James | Buy |
| 5 | Kill with Kindness | 2018 | Ed James | Buy |
| 6 | Kill the Messenger | 2019 | Ed James | Buy |
| 7 | Dead Man’s Shoes | 2020 | Ed James | Buy |
| 8 | A Hill to Die On | 2021 | Ed James | Buy |
| 9 | The Last Thing to Die | 2022 | Ed James | Buy |
| 10 | New York Minute | 2023 | Ed James | Buy |
Simon Fenchurch is a London DI who carries the disappearance of his young daughter as a background presence across the series. That personal loss informs his intensity and, at times, his willingness to bend the rules. The Hope That Kills opens the series in 2016 and immediately establishes Fenchurch as someone who brings more to each case than professional obligation.
The London setting gives the series a different texture from Ed James’s Scottish work, with policing politics, inner-city crime, and the specific atmosphere of East London featuring throughout. The books move at pace, with each installment building on the character’s history while also delivering a contained investigation. Worth Killing For, What Doesn’t Kill You, In for the Kill, and Kill with Kindness run through 2016 to 2018 in quick succession.
Later entries like Dead Man’s Shoes, A Hill to Die On, and The Last Thing to Die continue developing both the cases and Fenchurch’s personal life, before New York Minute in 2023 takes the series to a transatlantic setting for the tenth book.