Reading order
| # | Title | Published | Author | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Cry Me a River | 1993 | T.R. Pearson | Buy |
| 2 | Blue Ridge | 2000 | T.R. Pearson | Buy |
| 3 | Polar | 2002 | T.R. Pearson | Buy |
| 4 | Warwolf | 2011 | T.R. Pearson | Buy |
| 5 | First In Flight | 2015 | T.R. Pearson | Buy |
| 6 | Brigade | 2018 | T.R. Pearson | Buy |
The Ray Tatum Mysteries by T.R. Pearson span six books published between 1993 and 2018. The series pairs crime plots with Pearson’s signature discursive Southern storytelling, making it a hybrid of mystery fiction and literary character study.
Cry Me a River (1993) introduces Ray Tatum and sets the tone, blending murder investigation with Pearson’s usual cast of eccentric rural characters. Blue Ridge (2000) and Polar (2002) followed before a long gap, after which Warwolf (2011), First In Flight (2015), and Brigade (2018) continued Tatum’s cases. The mystery elements give these books more forward momentum than Pearson’s purely literary work, but the voice remains the same.