Reading order
| # | Title | Published | Author | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Westerfield’s Chain | 2002 | Jack Clark | Buy |
| 2 | Highway Side | 2011 | Jack Clark | Buy |
| 3 | Dancing on Graves | 2011 | Jack Clark | Buy |
The Nick Acropolis series by Jack Clark is set in Chicago and follows a former city homicide detective who has moved into private investigation. Acropolis brings the procedural knowledge of a former cop to cases that fall outside the reach of the official department, giving the series a slightly different character from private eyes who never had institutional experience.
Westerfield’s Chain (2002), the first book, established the character and was a finalist for the Shamus Award for Best First Private Eye Novel. Highway Side and Dancing on Graves both appeared in 2011, completing the three-book series. All three are set in Chicago, with Clark’s intimate knowledge of the city’s geography and social landscape shaping the cases Acropolis investigates.
The series is compact at three books, each a self-contained case. Clark ran the Nick Acropolis novels alongside the Eddie Miles series, keeping both protagonists firmly in the Chicago setting that defines his fiction.