Jo A. Hiestand

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Jo A. Hiestand's Latest Book

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  • Bibliography:
    53 Books (4 Series)
  • First Book:
    September 2004
  • Latest Book:
    February 2024
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Full Series List in Order

A Cookies & Kilts Mystery

1 - Shortbread And Dead (Jul-2021)
2 - A Trifling Murder (Jan-2022)
3 - A Drizzle of Trouble (May-2022)

The McLaren Mysteries

1 - Cold Revenge (Mar-2015)
2 - Last Seen (Jun-2015)
3 - Shadow in the Smoke (Oct-2015)

Mike McLaren

1 - Siren Song (Apr-2010)
2 - Swan Song (Apr-2011)
3 - Torch Song (May-2012)

A Taylor & Graham Mystery

1 - A Terrible Enemy (Jul-2013)

Book List in Order: 53 titles

  • Death of an Ordinary Guy

    Worldwide Mysteries - 568

    The spectators, huddled against the November chill for the annual Guy Fawkes celebration in Upper Kingsleigh, were ready for the customary bonfire and revelry. Instead, one stunned official made a horrible discovery: the straw-filled effigy of Mr. Ha...

  • Sainted Murder

    Worldwide Mysteries - 601

    Winter's chill hits the Derbyshire uplands hard, but the busy preparations for December's annual St. Nicholas festival are in full swing in the village of Bramwell. The celebration is marked by baking bread for the poor and the elderly, but w...

  • On the Twelfth Night of Christmas

    Worldwide Mysteries - 731

    As holiday festivities wind down, Derbyshire investigator Brenna Taylor is roused from a cozy office and called to a frozen pond -- and a waiting victim. Mercedes Salt mysteriously drowned during her morning walk on her rambling family estate. Tensio...

  • Siren Song

    Mike McLaren - 1
    Worldwide Mysteries - 808

    It's been a year since inspector Mike McLaren walked off the force, tormented by a case of injustice. Working as a stonemason keeps his hands busy, but his mind is too sharp to refuse a woman's plea for help on a cold case. The victim, Marta Hughes, ...

  • Swan Song

    Mike McLaren - 2

    A talented musician's unsolved murder draws McLaren into another challenging investigation. Ex-police detective Michael McLaren had no intention of delving into another cold case of murder. And certainly had no intention of making his inquiries a new...

  • A Well Dressed Corpse

    Is the phantom black dog haunting a sleepy English village a harbinger of two mysterious disappearances? One dark March evening Vera Howarth vanishes from her village. Despite search teams, TV appeals and a police investigation, she is never found. H...

  • Torch Song

    Mike McLaren - 3

    "Do you know what it's like to lose a child to murder?" An up-and-coming singer of 1940s-style torch songs, Janet Ennis tragically died five years ago in what the police labeled an accidental fire. But Janet's mother, Nora, believes it to be murder a...

  • Cider, Swords and Straw

  • Hit Song

    Why would anyone hide a brooch in a brick wall? McLaren has a new case-a young art student was murdered, but the sister of the accused simply cannot believe that her brother was responsible. She claims that a vigilante group, with the help of the loc...



  • The Corpse Road

    They hadn't expected to find a body among the fire's debris. A young woman dies tragically in a church fire. The death might've been labeled an accident...but for the barred door. Identifying the victim isn't easy, though, for two women have simultan...

  • Horns of a Dilemma

    Things seem comfortably routine one Ash Wednesday evening in the English village of Hollingthorpe. The regulars have come together to turn the Devil’s Stone, the age-old custom of shifting a one-ton boulder in the churchyard. An odd, back-breaking ...

  • A Terrible Enemy

    A Taylor & Graham Mystery - 1

    Year after year, the villagers near Stanton Moor celebrate May Day with bonfires and the laying of rowan branches to seek protection for home and cattle. But the men who gathered this May evening hadn’t come for blessings. They had come for murder....

  • The Coffin Watchers

    The watchers that night who saw only blackness and the suggestion of trees massed against an ebony sky claimed later that they knew something would happen. Some probably cursed their ill luck that they hadn’t chosen the right hour to watch; others ...

  • A Handful of Taylor & Graham: Short Stories

    Five short stories dealing with customs and traditions. There are the traditionally told stories from Brenna's viewpoint, as well as one told by her co-worker, Mark Salt! Other stories include a mention of DCI Graham in his original career, and one n...

  • Pearls Before Swine

    Tolling church bells are as much an aspect of rural England as are grazing sheep, thatched-roof cottages and verdant-hedged lanes. But someone in this sleepy village evidently takes exception to one slice of Merrie Olde England, for Roger, Lord Swinb...

  • Rock Song

    Dreams woke him that night. Not nightmares. Not exactly. More like flashes from his past. Mingled, as happens through the power of dreams, with foreshadowing of the future. Except he didn’t know that yet... Since his infancy, Michael McLaren has be...

  • Cold Revenge

    The McLaren Mysteries - 1

    One year ago, Marta Hughes won a purse-choking sum of money at a local casino. She never returned home. Her body was discovered in a ditch twelve miles from her home; her car was back in her driveway. Linnet Isherwood cannot let her friend's unsolved...

  • Last Seen

    The McLaren Mysteries - 2

    One dark night, popular singer Kent Harrison goes missing after his performance at Tutbury Castle. When his body’s found in a forest, the police investigation focuses on Kent’s ex-wife, a local herbalist, a covetous colleague, and even the curato...

  • Brush With Injustice

    Michael McLaren and girlfriend Dena Ellison share a rare relaxing day touring Rufford Abbey, a 12th century religious house taken over in 1626 as a grand private residence. McLaren’s sense of workmanship kicks in when he sees a crookedly-aligned br...



  • Shadow in the Smoke

    The McLaren Mysteries - 3

    Janet Ennis tragically died five years ago in what the police labeled an accidental fire. But Janet’s mother, Nora, believes it to be murder and arson. And she’s hoping ex-cop Michael McLaren can prove it quickly, for she’s losing her memory to...

  • The Nursery Capers

  • An Unfolding Trap

    Since infancy, Michael McLaren has been the target of his paternal grandfather’s anger. So when the patriarch sends an invitation to heal the rift, McLaren travels to Scotland, eager to meet and finally end the feud. But the welcome never happens. ...

  • No Known Address

    Luke Barber went missing from his village, leaving no clue to his whereabouts or why he left. Now, three years later, Luke’s father hopes ex-cop Michael McLaren can find a trace of Luke, alive or dead. As McLaren pokes through the case details, he ...

  • A Staged Murder

    Bonfire Night! The four hundred-year-old tradition of burning the straw effigy is beginning in Upper Kingsleigh, England. The torch extends… But it’s no mock figure at the end of the rope; it’s the body of a man, an American tourist. Brenna Tay...

  • An Unwilling Suspect

    McLaren’s fiancée tragically died one month ago. Trying to heal emotionally from her death, McLaren settles into a rented farmhouse in the woods near picturesque Lake Windermere, in Cumbria. But he’s barely had a chance to rest when Helen, the w...

  • A Recipe for Murder

    December bullies its way into the village in a swirl of snow and biting wind, threatening to cancel the annual St. Nicholas festival. But winter’s slap pales when a body is discovered in the candlelit church. Someone is not living up to the seasona...

  • In a Wintry Wood

    DS Brenna Taylor and DCI Geoffrey Graham are summoned to investigate a drowning in a wintry pond during a family 12th Night party. The case quickly turns personal for the CID team, for one of their own detectives becomes prime suspect. Brenna finds h...

  • Arrested Flight

    Ex-police detective Michael McLaren is determined to have a peaceful holiday after the fiasco of his first attempt at Windermere, so he stops at a bed-and-breakfast in Moorton, a village in Cumbria. But mystery and murder seek him out, and he soon su...

  • A Touch of Murder

    Tolling church bells are as much an aspect of rural England as are slate-roof cottages and verdant-hedged lanes. But someone in this sleepy village evidently takes exception to one slice of Merrie Olde England, for Roger, Lord Swinbrook is found on V...



  • Photo Shoot

    Michael McLaren returns home from working a cold case in Cumbria to learn that he’s missed his uncle’s wedding in Scotland. Angry and fearful that his absence has re-opened the family rift just as it’s healed, he drives to the ancestral home, h...

  • Empty Handed

    One dark night artist Craig Saxton went missing from his village. His body was found thirty-two hours later in the river, floating like a bobber on a fishing line. Rumors swell like tidal waves: did his ex-wife or his fiancée’s father kill this l...

  • Black Moon

    Each April the members of a mystery writing group gather on Stanton Moon for camaraderie and to fuel their plots. The moody area seems the perfect setting for hatching a whodunit. Unfortunately, an unscripted mystery materializes like an unsolicited ...

  • Shrouded In Yew

    One dark March evening Vera Howarth vanishes from her village. Despite search teams, TV appeals and a police investigation, she is never found, and her disappearance transmutes into a local ghost story.That was 23 years ago.  Now Reed ...

  • Ancestral Whispers

    Each year the residents of Nether Haddon celebrate the village's founding in the time-honored way with games, music, and performances by their sword dancers. But something new is added to the fancy footwork this year: a team member dies ... murdered....

  • Fire Trap

    A young woman dies tragically in a church fire. The death might've been labeled an accident but for the barred door.Identifying the victim isn't easy, though, for two women have simultaneously gone missing from the small English village. And both wom...

  • Hide and Seek

    Playing a mystery game seems the perfect way to celebrate Jamie Kydd's promotion to Detective Sergeant rank. But the game turns real when a body turns up in the pretend crime scene. Perhaps worse than spoiling the party, the corpse is someone Jamie k...

  • The Wall

    When a young art student is murdered, the sister of the accused simply cannot believe her brother is responsible. Worse than that, he dies of a heart attack, provoked--she claims--by a vigilante group and the local shock jock. Ex-police detective Mic...

  • A Hasty Grave

    A cypher, an old feud, and a body hastily buried in the woods push Rona and Johnny into a hunt for treasure and a deadly game of hide-and-seek with a killer determined to unearth a cache…or bury them.Finding a large hole on one's property is o...

  • The House on Devil's Bar

    The police label of 'accidental drowning' does more than set tongues wagging in the small Missouri town of Klim; it starts an avalanche of cancellations that threaten to sink Rona Murray's bakery business. And blacken her good name. Determined to kee...



  • Last Act

    The Klim, MO community theater is in rehearsals for its production of Macbeth, scheduled to open Halloween night. Sean Keith, one of the actors in the play, is vehemently opposed to its production. The stories of the 'curse' haunting its performance ...

  • Related By Murder

    From the moment ex-police detective Michael McLaren arrives at his friend's house, he's plunged into a nightmare of a case. Two men, hanged a year apart, each killed on a Good Friday. A barrister. A solicitor. Related careers. Related by murder. Rela...

  • Shortbread And Dead

    A Cookies & Kilts Mystery - 1

    It's two weeks before Christmas. In the small Missouri town of Beaudin Trace, the holiday spirit is revving up: shops are adorned in seasonal decorations and the annual Winter Scavenger Hunt is in full swing. This year, the grand prize for the hunt w...

  • Haunted Water

    Cameron Rutter drowned two months ago in a lake on a Cheshire moor. Some say a morgen—a spirit who drags men to a watery grave—was responsible. Others say it was the phantom Grey Lady. The police say Gareth Gynne was the guilty one. Whoev...

  • Death by Gingerbread Drops

    Rona Murray, owner of Linn House Bakery, enters the town's charity Christmas cookie auction, never expecting the evening to end in the death of last year's winner. Had someone baked to kill Angela, or had she just been sick? Curious, Rona turns up th...

  • A Trifling Murder

    A Cookies & Kilts Mystery - 2

    The annual Robert Burns Birthday Dinner celebration is underway in the small Missouri town of Beaudin Trace. Guests gather to honor Scotland's national poet with bagpipes and haggis and a trifle for dessert. But everything isn't as smooth as Scotch w...

  • Dark Deed on a Dark Moor

    Under usual circumstances, being a beneficiary in a person's will is heart-warming and perceived as an honor. However, this circumstance is not usual, for the bequest is a two-ton granite millstone. And the beneficiary of this gift wants former polic...

  • A Drizzle of Trouble

    A Cookies & Kilts Mystery - 3

    Nero may have fiddled while Rome burned, but at least he wasn't murdered while playing his harp. At any rate, that's the police conjecture when mayor of Beaudin Trace, Missouri is found dead in his living room, lying next to his beloved instrument.Th...

  • The Low Road

    Former police detective Michael McLaren arrives in Scotland, ready to immerse himself in the fun of the Highland Games and to enjoy a holiday with Melanie. But the old saying of plans oft going awry rears its ugly head: Simon Shaw, a member of McLare...

  • Overdue

    A spate of three murders in as many months has Derbyshire's local police and populace in near panic. And there will most likely be a fourth killing in two weeks unless something happens to stop the cycle.Former police detective Michael McLaren is tha...



  • The Cottage

    Former police detective Michael McLaren is at the home of his lady friend, Melanie. The house is sold, the removal van is booked.  All that is left is to help her pack her belongings for her move to his village. But the laborious task is interru...

  • Christmas at Corbie Hall

    Former police detective Michael McLaren is looking forward to spending Christmas at his grandfather's ancient Hall. Not only because it will be his first holiday with his grandfather and uncle, but also with his lady love, Melanie.Everything seems pe...

  • The Swim

    The Swim is  a prequel novella giving a picture of former police detective Michael McLaren's life from teenager to the strong man he is today. He's been through a lot from his ordeal beginning with the swim, his move from the...

  • An Old Remedy

    • / Mystery
    • Buy Buy

    Year after year, the villagers near Stanton Moor celebrate May Day with bonfires and the laying of rowan branches to seek protection for home and cattle.  But the men who gathered this May evening hadn't come for blessings.  They ...

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Jo A. Hiestand has published 53 books.

Jo A. Hiestand does not have a new book coming out soon. The latest book, The Swim, was published in February 2024.

The first book by Jo A. Hiestand, Death of an Ordinary Guy, was published in September 2004.

Yes. Jo A. Hiestand has 4 series.
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