Reading order
| # | Title | Published | Author | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | A Lover Too Many | 1969 | John Crow | Buy |
| 2 | Error of Judgment | 1971 | John Crow | Buy |
| 3 | A Secret Singing / The Woods Murder | 1971 | John Crow | Buy |
| 4 | Blood Money / Murder for Money | 1973 | John Crow | Buy |
| 5 | A Question of Degree / Murder in the Mine | 1974 | John Crow | Buy |
| 6 | A Part of Virtue / A Cotswolds Murder / A Dartmoor Murder | 1975 | John Crow | Buy |
| 7 | Nothing But Foxes / A Fox Hunting Murder | 1977 | John Crow | Buy |
The Inspector John Crow series features a lean, unassuming Scotland Yard detective who is repeatedly called out to handle murder cases in rural parts of England and Wales. Crow is not always welcomed by the local police forces, who see him as an unwanted intruder from London. That tension between the outsider detective and the closed-off communities he investigates runs through all seven novels, adding a social dimension to the mystery plots.
Published between 1969 and 1977, the series begins with A Lover Too Many and ends with Nothing But Foxes. The books are set in the English and Welsh countryside, from the Cotswolds to Dartmoor, and they follow the traditional British police procedural format. Several of the novels were issued under alternate titles depending on the publisher and market, which can make tracking down specific editions a bit confusing for collectors. Despite the short run, the series has been reissued multiple times and remains popular with fans of classic British crime fiction.