G.M. Malliet Collection

The Author

G.M. Malliet is the Agatha Award-winning author of the St. Just and Max Tudor mysteries as well as the standalone suspense novel WEYCOMBE. She lives on the East Coast of the US but all of her books are set in the UK, her home away from home for part of every year.

She received an M.Phil. from the University of Cambridge and did further graduate work at Oxford University. Upon her return to the US, determined to pursue her lifelong dream of being a published author, she began rising at 4 a.m. to write her short stories and novels before the start of her day job. After the unexpected success of her first book, she left a career writing for corporations like USA Today and PBS to focus full time on her own writing. With five Agatha and three Anthony nominations, she’s also been shortlisted for the Macavity, Left Coast Crime, IPPY, Daphne, David, and Dilys awards. The audio version of her second novel, read by Davina Porter, was a 2014 Anthony nominee.

Her short stories have appeared in several anthologies, Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, and The Strand. She still regards the short story as the most difficult yet satisfying form of writing.

Her series from Macmillan featuring Max Tudor, a former MI5 agent turned vicar of a small English village, debuted in the autumn of 2011. Of the fourth book in the series, Cleveland.com raved: "[Malliet] may be the best mystery author writing in English at the moment (along with Tana French). She's certainly the most entertaining."

The Books

Max Tudor series

What could be more dangerous than cozy village life in the English countryside?

Max Tudor has adapted well to his post as vicar of St. Edwold's in the idyllic village of Nether Monkslip. The quiet village seems the perfect home for Max, who has fled a harrowing past as an MI5 agent. Now he has found a measure of peace among urban escapees and yoga practitioners, artists and crafters and New Agers. But this new-found serenity is quickly shattered when the highly vocal and unpopular president of the Women's Institute turns up dead at the Harvest Fayre. The death looks like an accident, but Max's training as a former agent kicks in, and before long he suspects foul play.

Max has ministered to the community long enough to be familiar with the tangled alliances and animosities among the residents, but this tragedy surprises and confounds him. It is impossible to believe anyone in his lovely village capable of the crime, and yet given the victim, he must...

The books in suggested reading order
Wicked Autumn
A Fatal Winter
Pagan Spring
A Demon Summer
The Haunted Season
Devil's Breath
In Proir's Wood

St Just series

From deep in the heart of his eighteenth century English manor, millionaire Sir Adrian Beauclerk-Fisk writes mystery novels and torments his four spoiled children with threats of disinheritance. Tiring of this device, the portly patriarch decides to weave a malicious twist into his well-worn plot. Gathering them all together for a family dinner, he announces his latest blow – a secret elopement with the beautiful Violet... who was once suspected of murdering her husband.

Within hours, eldest son and appointed heir Ruthven is found cleaved to death by a medieval mace. Since Ruthven is generally hated, no one seems too surprised or upset – least of all his cold-blooded wife Lillian. When Detective Chief Inspector St. Just is brought in to investigate, he meets with a deadly calm that goes beyond the usual English reserve. And soon Sir Adrian himself is found slumped over his writing desk – an ornate knife thrust into his heart. Trapped amid leering gargoyles and stone walls, every member of the family is a likely suspect. Using a little Cornish brusqueness and brawn, can St. Just find the killer before the next-in-line to the family fortune ends up dead?

The books in suggested reading order
Death of a Cozy Writer
Death and the Lit Chick
Death at the Alma Mater