Reading order
| # | Title | Published | Author | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Darkness On The Edge Of Town | 2023 | Matthew Hattersley | Buy |
| 2 | When The Kingdom Comes | 2023 | Matthew Hattersley | Buy |
| 3 | The City of Sun and Violence | 2024 | Matthew Hattersley | Buy |
| 4 | A Bullet for the Past | 2024 | Matthew Hattersley | Buy |
| 5 | A Line in the Sand | 2025 | Matthew Hattersley | Buy |
The John Beckett series follows its titular investigator through five books of crime fiction with a noir sensibility. Starting with Darkness On The Edge Of Town (2023), the series builds through When The Kingdom Comes and The City of Sun and Violence before reaching A Bullet for the Past and A Line in the Sand (2025).
The evocative titles suggest a series more interested in atmosphere and moral complexity than simple whodunit plotting. Hattersley writes Beckett as a man who understands darkness because he has seen enough of it.