Sally Spencer

Author Information
Sally Spencer's Latest Book

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  • Bibliography:
    59 Books (5 Series)
  • First Book:
    September 1994
  • Latest Book:
    January 2023
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Full Series List in Order

The Blackstone Detective

1 - Blackstone and the Rendezvous with Death (Aug-2022)

A Chief Inspector Woodend Novel

1 - Fatal Quest (Dec-2008)
2 - The Salton Killings (Apr-1998)
3 - Murder at Swann's Lake (Jun-1999)
4 - Death of a Cave Dweller (Aug-2000)
5 - The Dark Lady (Jan-2001)
6 - The Golden Mile to Murder (Jul-2001)
7 - Dead on Cue (Jan-2002)
8 - The Red Herring (Jun-2002)
9 - Death of an Innocent (Dec-2002)
10 - A Death Left Hanging (May-2003)
11 - The Enemy Within (Nov-2003)
12 - The Witch Maker (May-2004)
13 - The Butcher Beyond (Dec-2004)
14 - Dying In The Dark (Jun-2005)
15 - Stone Killer (Jan-2006)
16 - A Long Time Dead (Jun-2006)
17 - Sins of the Fathers (Nov-2006)
18 - Dangerous Games (Jun-2007)
19 - Death Watch (Dec-2007)
20 - A Dying Fall (Mar-2008)

DCI Monika Paniatowski

1 - The Dead Hand of History (Nov-2009)
2 - The Ring of Death (May-2010)
3 - Echoes of the Dead (Mar-2011)
4 - Backlash (Sep-2011)
5 - Lambs To The Slaughter (Oct-2012)
6 - A Walk With the Dead (Mar-2013)
7 - Death's Dark Shadow (Mar-2014)
8 - Supping with the Devil (Oct-2014)
9 - Best Served Cold (Aug-2015)
10 - Thicker Than Water (Feb-2016)
11 - Death in Disguise (Aug-2016)
12 - The Hidden (Mar-2019)
13 - Dead End (May-2019)
14 - Poison (Nov-2021)
15 - The Final Beat of the Drum (Jan-2023)

Inspector Blackstone Mysteries

1 - A Rendezvous With Death (Nov-2003)
2 - Blackstone and the Tiger (Oct-2004)
3 - Blackstone and the Fire Bug (Sep-2005)
4 - Blackstone and the Golden Egg (May-2006)
5 - Blackstone and the Balloon of Death (Sep-2006)
6 - Blackstone and the Heart of Darkness (Mar-2007)
7 - Blackstone and the New World (Jun-2009)
8 - Blackstone and the Wolf of Wall Street (Oct-2010)
9 - Blackstone and the Great War (Mar-2012)
10 - Blackstone and the Endgame (Oct-2013)

A Jennie Redhead Mystery

1 - The Shivering Turn (Feb-2017)
2 - Dry Bones (Feb-2018)
3 - Daughters of Darkness (Jul-2020)

Book List in Order: 59 titles

  • Salt of the Earth

    The first novel in the wonderful East End saga from the author of UP OUR STREETBecky Taylor is born the last of seven children into a poor working class family during the heyday of the Industrial Revolution. Her mother is exhausted by poverty and chi...

  • The Salton Killings

    A Chief Inspector Woodend Novel - 2

    Scotland Yard’s Chief Inspector Charlie Woodend finds himself in a backwater village investigating a murder in this taut police procedural.  1950s Cheshire, England. When the strangled body of teenager Diane Thorburn is found buried in the sal...

  • Murder at Swann's Lake

    A Chief Inspector Woodend Novel - 3

    Chief Inspector Charlie Woodend and his loyal sergeant tackle a murder with as many suspects as there are clues in this tight puzzler.  Swann’s Lake, 1960. When Robbie Peterson, a criminal-turned-club-owner, is found dead in his office, a six...

  • Death of a Cave Dweller

    A Chief Inspector Woodend Novel - 4

    Chief Inspector Charlie Woodend enters the smoky dens of Liverpool to stop a killer stuck in a deadly groove.  Liverpool, 1960s. When Eddie Barnes, lead guitarist of the rising group The Seagulls is electrocuted on stage at the Cellar Club in f...

  • The Dark Lady

    A Chief Inspector Woodend Novel - 5

    Chief Inspector Charlie Woodend will have to rely on his observational gifts to have a ghost of chance in solving his latest murder case.   The night after the mysterious appearance of the legendary Dark Lady on the road outside Westbury Park, ...

  • The Golden Mile to Murder

    A Chief Inspector Woodend Novel - 6

    When a bobby’s killed in Blackpool, Chief Inspector Charlie Woodend takes a ride through England’s wild side to get to the bottom of a mystery.   The investigation into the brutal murder of a Blackpool policeman during holiday season was ne...

  • Dead on Cue

    A Chief Inspector Woodend Novel - 7

    The latest Chief Inspector Woodend mystery With the newspapers screaming for a quick solution, this is a case no one wants to touch -- so naturally it is Chief Inspector Woodend who finds himself left holding the baby. With his usual panache, Cloggin...

  • The Red Herring

    A Chief Inspector Woodend Novel - 8

    The discovery of the body of a young, red-haired school mistress, lying in a pig-pen with her face half-eaten away, is the beginning of a new investigation for Charlie Woodend. But it is to be an investigation he is soon ordered to abandon when Helen...

  • Death of an Innocent

    A Chief Inspector Woodend Novel - 9

    'Superior work from a best-selling British author' - Library Journal A man and a young woman are found blasted away by a rifle in a remote farmhouse on the Yorkshire moors. But where is the farmer, why did he have such swanky furniture in his livi...



  • A Death Left Hanging

    A Chief Inspector Woodend Novel - 10

    'Spencer's latest is her best: an ingenious puzzle that goes straight to the heart' - Kirkus Starred Review A miscarriage of justice for DCI Woodend Though it is thirty years since Margaret Dodds was tried and executed for the brutal murder of ...

  • The Enemy Within

    A Chief Inspector Woodend Novel - 11

    'a standout among her reliably entertaining procedurals' - Kirkus Starred Review The tenth in the acclaimed Inspector Woodend series There had never been a murder in Whitebridge like this one. What kind of man would decide to slash the throat o...

  • A Rendezvous With Death

    Inspector Blackstone Mysteries - 1

    As the fog clears, a brutally murdered corpse turns up, caught in the ropes of a barge in the Thames. Ordinarily, this would be a run-of-the-mill incident, but in this particular case, inspector Blackstone quickly realizes he is well and truly out of...

  • The Witch Maker

    A Chief Inspector Woodend Novel - 12

    A village with a dark code for Woodend to crack To be Witch Makers in the moorland village of Hallerton is both a great honour and a heavy burden. It is he who, after years of painstaking apprenticeship, constructs the effigy of Meg Ramsden - he w...

  • Blackstone and the Tiger

    Inspector Blackstone Mysteries - 2

    The first in the series of kidnappings was amateur, but the spectacular abduction of a young Indian crown prince from a London street forces Inspector Blackstone to accept that this is no ordinary gang he is dealing with. It becomes plain that it is ...

  • The Butcher Beyond

    A Chief Inspector Woodend Novel - 13

    DCI Woodend's first foreign holiday, in General Franco's Spain, ends abruptly when he sees a fellow guest plunge mysteriously from his hotel balcony to the rocky beach below With the help of Paco Ruiz a former policeman, living in disgrace since the ...

  • Dying In The Dark

    A Chief Inspector Woodend Novel - 14

    It is one of the most brutal murders Chief Inspector Woodend has ever encountered . . . Pamela Rainsford, found on a lonely canal path in the middle of a dark night, has not only been raped and strangled, but her face has been hacked to pieces. At ...

  • Blackstone and the Fire Bug

    Inspector Blackstone Mysteries - 3

    Rivalling Anne Perry, the fourth in the Victorian series by the author of the much-loved Sally Spencer DCI Woodend books If the Fire Bug's true purpose is to make the government hand over one hundred thousand pounds, why does he seem so reluctant to ...

  • Stone Killer

    A Chief Inspector Woodend Novel - 15

    'Spencer continues to display her mastery of the British procedural and this one... is one of her best yet' - Booklist Starred Review 'Spencer expertly balances personal and prfessional angst in this tense, compelling tale' - Kirkus Starred Review...

  • Blackstone and the Golden Egg

    Inspector Blackstone Mysteries - 4

    Blackstone's most dangerous case yet The theft of a Faberg? egg from a Russian country estate goes far beyond the bounds of mere robbery. The egg was a gift to the Prince of Wales from the Tsar and the offence caused by the Prince's carelessness coul...



  • A Long Time Dead

    A Chief Inspector Woodend Novel - 16

    The latest DCI Woodend mystery. Captain Robert Kineally disappeared from Haverton American Army base in Devon in 1944. Twenty years later, a body is found. Woodend knew and liked Kineally. He knew, and heartily disliked, Douglas Coutes, the man accus...

  • Blackstone and the Balloon of Death

    Inspector Blackstone Mysteries - 5

    Though five hundred people witnessed the murder, nobody knows who did it! On the face of it, this is the simplest murder Blackstone has ever had to solve. The entire audience at the George Theatre saw Charlotte Devaraux stab William Kirkpatrick with ...

  • Sins of the Fathers

    A Chief Inspector Woodend Novel - 17

    Politician spills his guts ? all over the road! The discovery of Bradley Pine's body off a busy road signals the end of his bid to win a local election. But why would the killer risk dumping the body so publicly? And why should he not only reduce the...

  • Blackstone and the Heart of Darkness

    Inspector Blackstone Mysteries - 6

    The new Sam Blackstone adventure - It is a worried letter for Tom Yardley, an old army comrade who once saved his life, that takes Inspector Sam Blackstone to the salt mining village of Marston. But by the time he arrives there, Yardley is already de...

  • Dangerous Games

    A Chief Inspector Woodend Novel - 18

    Five little Englishmen, feeling quite secure, one went and lost his head, and then there were four. When Terry Pugh's headless body is found floating in the canal, DCI Woodend at first believes that Pugh had merely miscalculated the amount of rope he...

  • Death Watch

    A Chief Inspector Woodend Novel - 19

    This is the new Charlie Woodend mystery... Angela Jackson, a young girl abducted from Whitebridge Corporation Park, has been missing for over twenty-four hours and, in the opinion of Dr Stevenson, the psychiatrist who Woodend turns to for advice, ...

  • A Dying Fall

    A Chief Inspector Woodend Novel - 20

    'This is a cracking good series, with this latest entry quite possible being the best yet' - Booklist Starred Review This is the latest DCI Charlie Woodend mystery... A charred body is discovered in an abandoned cotton mill, and the crime scene...

  • Fatal Quest

    A Chief Inspector Woodend Novel - 1

    After the dramatic events in Dying Fall, Woodend reminisces on his long career in a brand new story... 'You should have worked out by now that nobody wants this case solved!' These words, delivered by Eddie, a Liverpool thug brought down to Lon...

  • Blackstone and the New World

    Inspector Blackstone Mysteries - 7

    The new Inspector Sam Blackstone mystery.

    July 1900, New York City. Sam Blackstone has gone to New York to pick up a prisoner, but he soon finds himself drafted in to investigate the murder of Inspector O'Brien who is famed for rooting out pol...

  • The Dead Hand of History

    DCI Monika Paniatowski - 1

    The first in a new series featuring Charlie Woodend's protege, DCI Monika Paniatowski

    It will be no easy task to fill DCI Charlie Woodend's shoes, the newly-promoted Monika Paniatowski tells herself, but, given a little time, she thinks she ca...



  • The Ring of Death

    DCI Monika Paniatowski - 2

    Nothing could have prepared DCI Monika Paniatowski for this. It’s not that the man’s throat has been cut, or that he is naked, that shocks her--it’s the way his corpse has been so carefully posed. Is the killer sending a message? If so, to who?...

  • Blackstone and the Wolf of Wall Street

    Inspector Blackstone Mysteries - 8

    William Holt, a reclusive millionaire, has been kidnapped from his grand Coney Island home after the brutal murder of his two bodyguards. Soon, a huge ransom is demanded. Inspector Sam Blackstone and his partner, Alex Meade, are charged with solving ...

  • Echoes of the Dead

    DCI Monika Paniatowski - 3

    When a recently released prisoner claims in a deathbed confession that he is innocent of the rape and murder of a young girl for which he was convicted twenty-two years earlier, DCI Monika Paniatowski is tasked to lead an unofficial investigation int...

  • Backlash

    DCI Monika Paniatowski - 4

    DCI Monika Paniatowski has a bitter personal history with Chief Superintendent Kershaw, but that is not the only reason she doesn’t want the investigation into the sudden disappearance of his wife, Elaine, landing on her desk. A young prostitute, G...

  • Blackstone and the Great War

    Inspector Blackstone Mysteries - 9

    France, World War One. Inspector Blackstone thought he was done with army, but when a general he served with requests he investigate the brutal murder of his grandson -- a young British officer in the trenches -- Blackstone feels he can't say no....

  • South Of The River

    A tale of courage, warmth and grit, continuing the South London saga begun in old Father Thames.In turn of the century Southwark, times are changing. Traffic on the river is waning, replaced by the railways, and the mass of new inventions - the tel...

  • Old Father Thames

    A nostalgic East End saga of the Clarke family and their new neighbours, the Taylors, who featured in Salt of the Earth and Up Our Street.Sam Clarke and his wife Lil are a devoted couple - despite the odd argument that so often stems from Sam's quick...

  • Picnic In Eden

    Warm, powerfully engrossing saga from the author of SALT OF THE EARTHIt was freezing cold on the day of the funeral,but as two young men looked down at the coffin containing the body of their best friend,it was not the temperature that made them shiv...

  • Those Golden Days

    Continuing the brilliant East End saga featuring Becky and her family, from the author of UP OUR STREETThe shadow of war hangs over the village of Marston, and Becky worries that her hot-headed son Billy will enlist the army. Her daughter Michelle is...

  • Up Our Street

    Glorious East End saga from the author of SALT OF THE EARTHA nostalgic saga set in Cheshire which continues the story of Becky Taylor - the gutsy heroine introduced in SALT OF THE EARTH - and her family as they struggle against the odds to find happi...



  • Lambs To The Slaughter

    DCI Monika Paniatowski - 5

    A small mining village is rocked by a shocking murder in the latest Monika Paniatowski mystery.... Tensions are running high in the small mining village of Bellingsworth. There has been a call for further strikes, and retired miner Len Hopkins, w...

  • A Walk With the Dead

    DCI Monika Paniatowski - 6

    A killer who can’t be classified -- a killer who can’t be profiled . . . When a young girl, Jill Harris, is murdered, the case soon becomes personal for Monika Paniatowski. She saw the victim looking distressed only hours before she was killed, a...

  • Blackstone and the Endgame

    Inspector Blackstone Mysteries - 10

    December, 1916. Inspector Sam Blackstone is suspicious when he is called to the office of Superintendent Brigham -- the new head of special branch -- and confused that Brigham seems to want to see him as little as Sam himself wishes to be there. An ...

  • Death's Dark Shadow

    DCI Monika Paniatowski - 7

    A nameless victim. An unknown killer. An impossible case for Monika Paniatowski. Before she can even begin to track down the killer of the old woman dumped by the lonely canal, Monika Paniatowski needs to find out who she is - and no one seems to ...

  • Supping with the Devil

    DCI Monika Paniatowski - 8

    Monika Paniatowski’s boss is trying to destroy her career, but the dead end case he assigns her turns out to be something else entirely... DCI Monika Paniatowski recognizes her latest assignment as advisor to the Earl of Ridley’s rock festival...

  • Best Served Cold

    DCI Monika Paniatowski - 9

    On the night the Whitebridge Players staged their last ever performance, the idealistic young actors in the company resolved that twenty years on they would return to the same theatre and stage the same play. But two decades later, old resentment...

  • Thicker Than Water

    DCI Monika Paniatowski - 10

    DCI Monika Paniatowski investigates a case that could be the making -- or, more likely, breaking -- of her career DCI Monika Paniatowski has only been back from maternity leave for three days when she is called in to investigate a nightmare of a ...

  • Death in Disguise

    DCI Monika Paniatowski - 11

    DCI Monika Paniatowski investigates the killing of an American guest -- and uncovers a link to a 50-year-old murder. When the body of an American woman is found in the Prince Alfred suite at the Royal Victoria Hotel, DCI Monika Paniatowski is fac...

  • The Silent Land

    Spanning 80 tumultuous years, the incredible story of a peasant girl who became the Red Princess of the Russian Revolution. Anna Mayakovsky is now a penniless old woman living in London, but no one can take away the vivid memories of her past: th...

  • The Shivering Turn

    A Jennie Redhead Mystery - 1

    Introducing Oxford-based private investigator Jennie Redhead in the first of a brand-new mystery series. 'My daughter's not just run away - she's dead!'  When Mary Corbet walks into private investigator Jennie Redhead's rundown Oxford office on...



  • Dry Bones

    A Jennie Redhead Mystery - 2

    Private investigator Jennie Redhead finds her loyalties divided when she investigates the decades-old murder of a college student. Oxford, 1974. In the cellars beneath St Luke's College, a sealed medieval ventilation shaft is opened up to reveal hum...

  • The Hidden

    DCI Monika Paniatowski - 12

    Monika Paniatowski knows exactly who the killer is -- but there’s no way she can tell anyone else! DCI Paniatowski’s team are increasingly convinced that the girl found dead in the woods is the victim of a ritual killing, carried out by a sec...

  • Dead End

    DCI Monika Paniatowski - 13

    "Brings a creepy new note to Spencer’s long-running series" Kirkus Reviews The discovery of a body on a local allotment site re-opens an unresolved cold case for Monika Paniatowski and her team. He was going to have to terminate Monika, he decide...

  • A Conspiracy of Aunts

    A twist-filled thriller about a dark and deeply buried secret by an “accomplished” master of suspense (Publishers Weekly).   After his mother was drowned at sea, young Robert -- a child prodigy at bridge -- was raised by her four sisters: Jacque...

  • Daughters of Darkness

    A Jennie Redhead Mystery - 3

    Private investigator Jennie Redhead is hired to investigate a murder that's left the police baffled, in this gripping historical mystery set partly in 1970's Oxford and partly in war-torn 1940's London. Oxford, 1975. Three years ago, w...

  • The Company

    In this hard-hitting standalone thriller from Sally Spencer, a crash survivor discovers dark family secrets as he tries to stay alive. Bristol, 1991. Crammed into a hire car, on their way to a vital appointment, five representatives of Conroy Ent...

  • Poison

    DCI Monika Paniatowski - 14

    DCI Monika Paniatowski faces an old enemy " and makes a fatal mistake with the potential to poison her whole career. Jordan Gough is an important man. He’s the town’s biggest benefactor. He is the proprietor of the Whitebridge Evening Telegra...

  • Blackstone and the Rendezvous with Death

    The Blackstone Detective - 1

    The body of a young man fished out of the Thames is of little interest to Londoners caught up in the excitement of Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee celebrations.Yet to Inspector Sam Blackstone, the case is as puzzling as any he has ever come across. ...

  • The Final Beat of the Drum

    DCI Monika Paniatowski - 15

    DCI Monika Paniatowski is forced to think the unthinkable: could a good friend and long-standing colleague be guilty of murder?"Spencer gives Monika Paniatowski the send-off she richly deserves" - Kirkus Reviews Starred ReviewOn the day of her offici...

  • The Paradise Job

    • / General Fiction
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Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Sally Spencer has published 59 books.

Sally Spencer does not have a new book coming out soon. The latest book, The Final Beat of the Drum, was published in January 2023.

The first book by Sally Spencer, Salt of the Earth, was published in September 1994.

Yes. Sally Spencer has 5 series.
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