Reading order
| # | Title | Published | Author | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | An Air That Kills | 1994 | Andrew Taylor | Buy |
| 2 | The Mortal Sickness | 1996 | Andrew Taylor | Buy |
| 3 | The Lover of the Grave | 1997 | Andrew Taylor | Buy |
| 4 | The Suffocating Night | 1999 | Andrew Taylor | Buy |
| 5 | Where Roses Fade | 2000 | Andrew Taylor | Buy |
| 6 | Death’s Own Door | 2001 | Andrew Taylor | Buy |
| 7 | Call the Dying | 2004 | Andrew Taylor | Buy |
| 8 | Naked to the Hangman | 2006 | Andrew Taylor | Buy |
The Lydmouth series by Andrew Taylor is set in a fictional town on the Welsh-English border during the years following World War II. Beginning with An Air That Kills in 1994, the eight novels follow journalist Jill Francis and police detective Richard Thornhill as they separately investigate crimes that disturb the surface calm of small-town life. The post-war setting, with its rationing, class tensions, and slow social change, gives the books a distinctive mood.
Lydmouth itself is almost a character in the series. Taylor draws on his knowledge of the Forest of Dean and the Welsh Marches to create a closed, watchful community where everyone knows each other’s business, or thinks they do. The relationship between Jill and Thornhill develops across the series against this backdrop, complicated by Thornhill’s marriage and the social conventions of the era.
The books work well as standalone mysteries, but reading them in order gives a fuller picture of the town and its people as the 1950s unfold. Taylor’s careful period detail and his interest in the way communities keep and reveal their secrets make the Lydmouth novels some of his most satisfying work.