Main line mysteries Books in Order
FictionMystery & DetectiveCrime
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🎧 Listen to The Norths meet murder on Audible
The Main Line Mysteries series, published between 1940 and 1993, follows various detectives and amateur sleuths as they solve crimes in suburban and small-town settings. Central to the series are the Norths, who investigate murders that often involve personal connections and unusual circumstances. The stories emphasize clever deduction, local characters, and the interplay between personal and professional investigations.
Books in this series
Ordered by first publication where known. The official numbering for this series is incomplete in our sources, so we don't show series numbers we can't verify.
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Buy on Amazon1940 · Frances Louise Davis Lockridge
Mrs. North decides an old top-floor studio would be a good party venue and takes her husband to check it out, only to open a door and find a murdered…
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Buy on Amazon1946 · Frances Louise Davis Lockridge
Dr. Andrew Gordon, an orderly man whose office staff can predict his every move, is found bludgeoned to death in his office, though no one was seen…
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Buy on Amazon1947 · Frances Louise Davis Lockridge
When Dorian Hunt visits the offices of the magazine Esprit to deliver drawings, she becomes entangled in death, kidnapping, fire, threats, and a ride…
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Buy on Amazon1948 · Edmund Crispin
In the village of Sanford Angelorum, Oxford professor and amateur detective Gervase Fen takes a break from academia to run for Parliament. The…
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Buy on Amazon1948 · Frances Louise Davis Lockridge
Playboy restaurateur Tony Mott is murdered, and his lovely, now wealthy widow is the obvious suspect. Pam and Jerry North, sleuths who first appeared…
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Buy on AmazonThe Case of William Smith (A Miss Silver Mystery)
1948 · Patricia Wentworth
William Smith is not certain of his true name, having wandered out of a Nazi hospital in 1942 after being given that name and sent to a concentration…
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Buy on Amazon1949 · Elizabeth Daly
Alice Dunbar, a proper upper East Side woman with a boring life, disappears shortly after the death of an elderly aunt. Henry Gamadge suspects there…
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Buy on Amazon1950 · Richard Lockridge
On a foggy afternoon, a child goes missing near the Victorian house where Marta and Scott Bromwell live with Scott's mother Lucretia. While…
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Buy on Amazon1950 · Frances Louise Davis Lockridge
Eccentric multi-millionaire J. K. Halder, who ran a Greenwich Village pet shop as a hobby, is found murdered and folded into one of the shop's cages.…
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Buy on Amazon1951 · Frances Louise Davis Lockridge
Pamela North's three maiden aunts, Thelma, Lucinda, and Pennina Whitsett, visit childhood friend Grace Logan and find her distraught. When Grace's…
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Buy on Amazon1952 · Frances Louise Davis Lockridge
Dr. Orpheus Preson, a mammologist and bestselling author, claimed someone was trying to drive him crazy, though police and family believed he staged…
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Buy on Amazon1952 · Richard Lockridge
Recovering from a gunshot wound, Captain Heimrich vacations at a seaside hotel in Key West but becomes involved in a new murder case. Suspects…
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Buy on Amazon1953 · Frances Louise Davis Lockridge
Byron Wilmot, known for elaborate practical jokes including once faking a kidnapping with a dummy realistic enough to fool police, invites Pamela and…
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Buy on Amazon1953 · Richard Lockridge
A beautiful blonde is dead when a handsome young Marine, just out of the service, meets her on a lane in Westchester County. She had a younger…
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Buy on Amazon1954 · Frances Louise Davis Lockridge
Respected lawyer Forbes Ingraham is found dead in his office, with a gold key to the firm's back door as the main clue. The key had belonged to the…
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Buy on Amazon1955 · Richard Lockridge
At a fiery town meeting in Van Brunt, disputes over zoning and local influence turn fatal when the town's fire house burns down, and town supervisor…
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Buy on Amazon1955 · Richard Lockridge
At a New Year's Eve party at John Halley's Westchester County country house, a snowstorm isolates the guests and the power fails before Halley's body…
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Buy on Amazon1955 · Patricia Wentworth
Althea Graham's hypochondriac mother rarely visits the gazebo on the family estate, now surrounded by suburban London, yet is found dead there one…
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Buy on Amazon1956 · Frances Louise Davis Lockridge
On the night his girlfriend agrees to marry him, John Hayward returns home to be accused of murdering a woman, Nora Evans, whom he has never met.…
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1956 · Frances Louise Davis Lockridge
Sailing to Havana and Nassau aboard the Carib Queen, Pamela North hopes for a break from crime but instead encounters a sword-bearing passenger,…
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Buy on Amazon1957 · Frances Louise Davis Lockridge
Ann Dillard is stood up by her fiancé Clark and receives a vague note, coinciding with the murder of playboy Sonny Underwood. Wondering if Clark's…
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Buy on Amazon1958 · Richard Lockridge
Professor Walter Brinkley hosts a cocktail party for the newly-wed Craigs, unaware it will lead to murder in quiet Westchester County. When Caroline…
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Buy on Amazon1958 · Frances Louise Davis Lockridge
Linda Parks brings dinner home to her Greenwich Village apartment expecting to share it with roommate Joyce Holbrook, but Joyce is gone, leaving a…
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Buy on AmazonThe Alington Inheritance (A Miss Silver Mystery)
1958 · Patricia Wentworth
Jenny, the illegitimate and orphaned daughter of a wealthy man, has been raised by her guardian Miss Garstone. When Miss Garstone is struck and…
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Buy on Amazon1958 · Frances Louise Davis Lockridge
The Long Skeleton is a mystery novel written by Frances Louise Davis Lockridge, first published in the Main Line mysteries series by Lippincott in…
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Buy on Amazon1959 · Frances Louise Davis Lockridge
Lois Williams watches old Mrs. Montfort sign her will, feeling only a small chill she attributes to the dampness of the house. Later she is startled…
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Buy on Amazon1959 · Frances Louise Davis Lockridge
Professor Jameson Elwell, whose book on hypnosis Jerry North had just published, is found dead after blondes emerge from empty closets and cats go…
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Buy on Amazon1960 · Richard Lockridge
Captain Heimrich and Susan Faye find actress Peggy Belford shot dead and Brian Collins, master of the house, slumped in a chair with a gun beneath…
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Buy on Amazon1960 · Frances Louise Davis Lockridge
Pam and Jerry North investigate the murder of a tennis official, and the case grows more complex when the chief suspect is also found murdered.
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Buy on Amazon1962 · Richard Lockridge
Old Tom, a thin and shabby handyman known as the self-appointed gardener of Van Brunt, New York, collapses on the driveway of Captain Merton Heimrich…
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Buy on Amazon1962 · Frances Louise Davis Lockridge
Physicist Evans Parten invites Alison Kent, a woman he meets on Fifth Avenue, to lunch, but when he arrives the redhead who answers denies knowing…
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Buy on Amazon1963 · Frances Louise Davis Lockridge
Pam and Jerry spend February in Florida, escaping snowstorms but not sudden death. The body count is low since the couple is on vacation, but there…
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Buy on Amazon1964 · Richard Lockridge
Stuart Fleming, a former Dyckman University football player laid up with a broken leg, calls police with a story about gamblers targeting current…
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Buy on Amazon1967 · Richard Lockridge
In North Wellwood, New York, tensions rise after African American lawyer Thomas Peters plans to open a desegregated country club. Opponents harass…
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Buy on Amazon1968 · Richard Lockridge
At a cocktail party for The Guardian's editorial staff, most attendees are privately told their services will no longer be needed by the magazine's…
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Buy on Amazon1970 · Richard Lockridge
Professor Emeritus Walter Brinkley finds General Philip Armstrong's body in the back seat of his car after a university dinner, his head bashed in…
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Buy on Amazon1971 · Richard Lockridge
Inspector Merton Heimrich takes a rare vacation, a Mediterranean cruise, after his wife Susan contracts pneumonia. Among the passengers is Sir Ronald…
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Buy on Amazon1971 · Edmund Crispin
Castrevenford school prepares for Speech Day, and English professor and amateur sleuth Gervase Fen is asked to present the prizes. The night before,…
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Buy on Amazon1974 · Richard Lockridge
Clayton Carter, a top reporter and head of IBC's news department, is killed when his personal television-monitoring gadget is tampered with.…
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Buy on Amazon1976 · Richard Lockridge
Sam Jackson is run over twice in a country inn parking lot on an icy December night. Inspector M. L. Heimrich has a personal stake, as Jackson was a…
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Buy on AmazonYear unknown · Richard Lockridge
Winifred and Orson Otis go swimming nude before dawn only to later discover the dead body of Winifred's uncle, followed by another corpse. Captain…
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Buy on AmazonEternity Ring (A Miss Silver Mystery)
Year unknown · Patricia Wentworth
In the small village of Deeping, where residents share a party phone line, Scotland Yard inspector Frank Abbott is vacationing with family when a cry…
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Buy on AmazonYear unknown · Richard Lockridge
In Los Angeles in fall 1947, war widow Jane Phillips, after four years in the WAVES, prepares to return to her rich aunt's home in Westchester, New…
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Buy on AmazonYear unknown · Patricia Wentworth
On vacation in the village of Melling, visiting an old school friend, Miss Silver finds her business is murder even away from home. The town's…
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Buy on AmazonYear unknown · Patricia Wentworth
During a visit to Field End, Frank Abbott's vacation is cut short when Jonathan Field's niece finds him dead of an apparent gunshot suicide, revolver…
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Frequently asked questions
What order should I read the Main line mysteries books in?
Read them in publication order — the list above is sorted by first publication where known, starting with “The Norths meet murder”.
How many books are in the Main line mysteries series?
We list 67 books by Richard Lockridge , published between 1940–1977.
Where can I buy the Main line mysteries books?
Each title above links to Amazon. See our affiliate disclosure.
More series like Main line mysteries
Reading order compiled from author/publisher guidance and verified bibliographic data. Spotted a wrong order, a missing book, or any other mistake? and we'll correct it.