DI Nikki Galena Books in Order: How to read Joy Ellis’s series?

The DI Nikki Galena series is written by Joy Ellis, an English crime writer who’s also the author of the DI Jackman and DS Marie Evans series, and the Detective Matt Ballard series.

At the beginning of the series, DI Nikki Galena is a police detective who gets a bit too tough on some criminals. As her career could come to a premature end, she has to work with a new sergeant, DS Joseph Easter, or she’s out. As the series progresses, she will have to face even more challenges.

How to read the DI Nikki Galena Series in Order?

Each entry in the DI Nikki Galena book series offers a standalone story, but the lives of the different characters evolve from one book to the other.

1. Crime on the Fens (previously known as Mask Wars) – The town is being terrorised by gangs of violent thugs, all wearing identical hideous masks. Then a talented young female student goes missing on the marsh and DI Nikki Galena and DS Joseph Easter find themselves joining forces with a master criminal in their efforts to save her. They need to look behind the masks, but when they do, they find something more sinister and deadly than they ever expected . . .
2. Shadow over the Fens (previously known as Shadowbreaker) – A man is found executed on a piece of wasteland in Greensborough town. The cold-blooded murder triggers terrible memories for DS Joseph Easter. Just when things seemed to be going well for DS Easter, he realises that the nightmare is coming back, threatening his career, his sanity, and maybe his life. In a breath-taking conclusion, even Nikki Galena begins to doubt DS Easter as he faces a race against time to save someone very close to him.
3. Hunted on the Fens – Can DI Nikki Galena save her team and herself from a cruel and determined adversary who will stop at nothing to harm Nikki and her colleagues? First, she must work out who wants revenge against her or one of her detectives. Full of twists and turns, this is a crime novel that will have you turning the pages until the stunning ending.

4. Killer on the Fens – DI Nikki Galena must fulfil her father’s dying wish and discover who the mysterious Eve is. Meanwhile, a dead drug dealer is found on an abandoned airfield that the locals say is haunted. The trail of both mysteries will lead to the most shocking discovery of Nikki’s career and put her whole team in mortal danger.
5. Stalker on the Fens – DI Nikki Galena’s close friend Helen Brook is involved in a serious accident where she is trapped in a collapsed cellar. After her hard-won recovery, Helen is still getting flashbacks to a man she says was down there with her and who confessed to a murder. But no trace of this man can be found.
6. Captive on the Fens – A young woman’s body is found in a remote barn on the fens. Before she was killed, one of her fingers had been cut off. Who is inflicting this violence and why? Can DI Nikki Galena stop them before anyone else suffers?

7. Buried on the Fens – A skeleton is found in a shallow grave in the churchyard. but this was not an official burial. the victim was murdered decades ago. At the same time, Detective Nikki Galena and her team are investigating the brutal slaying of local businesswoman Madeline Prospero. She was a member of an exclusive and secretive drinking club called The Briar Patch. But they’ve got no suspects and no one is telling them the truth.
8. Thieves on the Fens – DI Nikki Galena gets a series of anonymous calls. She is told the place, time, and who will die. But the messages are in a secret language used only by villains. Nikki and her team must decode the riddles and work out where the threats are coming from. Meanwhile, the fens have been hit by a series of “designer burglaries.” It appears that a new gang of thieves are stealing to order.
9. Fire on the Fens – The fens are burning and detective Nikki Galena faces a cat-and-mouse battle with a killer. Someone is lighting fires. First they target homes and businesses, but then a body is found at one of the crime scenes. More fires are lit. And at each one, a single person dies. But the victims have led spotless lives and apparently, there’s no connection between them.

10. Darkness on the Fens – Revellers are flocking into Greenborough for the yearly Dark Greenborough Festival, a three-day event celebrating local folklore, superstition and the darker side of life. What the public doesn’t know is that there has been a warning sent to the police, saying that Greenborough will be a very dangerous place this year. The anonymous letter ends with the Latin phrase, Mors certa, hora incerta: Death is certain, the hour uncertain.
11. Hidden On the Fens – The farm-owner’s wife has been receiving sinister pagan artefacts, including a witch’s knife. Are they some sort of warning or message? Joseph and his daughter search the cottage and find an old satchel. Inside are photos of a beautiful girl, Jennifer Cowley. She went missing fifteen years ago. She’d been stalked by a young man, who was convicted of her murder, even though her body was never found. When DI Nikki Galena examines the cottage, she finds something far worse.
12. Secrets On the Fens – One moonlit night, the bodies of two young people are discovered lying entwined on a blanket in the woods. The young man is clutching a red rose. It appears to be a lovers’ suicide pact . . . Until Detective Nikki Galena and DS Joseph Easter look more closely. Romeo and Juliet, as they decide to call them, were murdered somewhere else and brought to the woods. But why?

13. Fear On the Fens – In the beautiful gardens of Shelley House, a shocking discovery is made. A blackened hand dangles over the side of a wheelbarrow. The horrific scent of burnt flesh lingers in the air. Detective Nikki Galena and Joseph Easter are called in to investigate. They must find a man who’s been missing for two decades and unravel the painful past of a broken family before anyone else dies.
14. Graves On the Fens – It arrives in the morning. An old-fashioned airmail envelope addressed to Detective Nikki Galena. Inside, on a single sheet of blue airmail paper, are three words: You failed me. The second airmail envelope arrives at Nikki’s home address. The same message. Only this time, it’s followed by four names: Alexandra Cornfield, Ruth Baker, Bethany Lyons, Leanne Delaney. Four missing women. Four local women whose bodies were never found. The contents of the third letter, delivered by a motorcycle courier, are even more disturbing. The letter leads directly to the discovery of a body buried in a shallow grave out on the Fens. And Nikki and her partner Detective Joseph Easter are plunged into a baffling murder investigation.

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