Louis Kincaid Books in Order: How to read P.J. Parrish’s series?
Some mystery thriller novels, from Michigan to Florida.
What is the Louis Kincaid series about?
Written by Detroit-born sisters Kelly Nichols and Kristy Montee under the pseudonym P. J. Parrish, the Louis Kincaid series is a mystery series set during the 1980s.
The story revolves around the biracial police Detective and later private investigator Louis Kincaid and the action takes place at first in Michigan but soon moved to Florida.
The series follows Kincaid’s investigations, as he solves crimes while facing prejudice and confronting the ghosts of his past. As the series progresses, he develops an alliance and ultimately a friendship with Sheriff Sam Dodie, and Mel Landeta, an experienced cop that is going blind, who introduces him to Joe Frye, a woman cop with whom he develops a romantic relationship.
How to read the Louis Kincaid Books in Order?
Every book in the Louis Kincaid series works as a standalone story, but the lives of the different characters evolve from one novel to the other. It is recommended to read the books in order as the character developments play a big part.
- Dark of the Moon – Louis Kincaid, the son of a black mother and white father, returns to Black Pool, Mississippi, to care for his dying mother, taking a temporary job with the local sheriff’s department, only to find himself torn between two worlds as he investigates a brutal lynching that had taken place many years earlier.
- Dead of Winter – A vicious psychopathic killer stalks the streets of the quiet tourist town of Loon Lake, Michigan, leaving a series of victims and mysteriously coded death cards in his wake, and Detective Louis Kincaid must make a terrifying journey through the town’s dark secrets into the mind of a madman in order to stop the murders.
- Paint It Black – Florida’s Gulf Coast community of Sereno Key has been shaken to the core by a grisly ritualistic murder. Though an arrest is quickly made, Detective Louis Kincaid feels strangely unsettled. His uncertainty is confirmed as a second body is discovered, and then a third–each branded with the bizarre trademarks of a serial killer whose blood lust is growing.
- Thicker Than Water – Twenty years after the brutal rape and murder of a woman in Florida, the man convicted of the crime is released from prison–only days before another horrifying murder is committed. Detective Louis Kinkaid finds himself digging into a decades-old case when he’s asked to clear the suspect of the more recent slaying.
- Island of Bones – When the bullet-ridden body of a woman, identified only by a strange ring made out of the bone on her finger, and a tiny skull wash up on shore, Detective Louis Kincaid makes a connection between the two that takes him to a remote island rife with evil and betrayal where nothing is what it seems.
- A Killing Rain – While working on a seemingly routine case, Detective Louis Kincaid is drawn into the twisted world of a serial killer who keeps trophies of his victims deep within the Florida Everglades.
- Unquiet Grave – The body in Claudia Olsen’s grave is that of a stranger who died horribly. This much Louis Kincaid knows. But what happened to the woman who should be buried there? It’s a question no one will answer, one that leads Kincaid to the long, dark tunnels below the asylum and crimes of unimaginable depravity.
- A Thousand Bones – The bones found in the woods of Echo Bay were the first clue to a string of brutal murders of young women. Plunged into a heated inquiry to find a dangerous predator, rookie cop Joe Frye finds herself battling both the killer and the bureaucracy. Worse still, the killer’s sights are now firmly fixed on Joe.
- South of Hell – With one phone call from a man he barely recalls meeting years ago, Louis Kincaid heads to the Michigan town of his college days to reopen a disturbing cold case — and finds himself confronting his own painful past secrets…secrets that risk his future with the woman he loves, Joe Frye.
- The Little Death – Most people would kill to live in Palm Beach, with its beautiful women and dazzling coast. But most people don’t know what goes on in the bedrooms of the rich and famous. Mark Durand did. But he was beheaded and left in an abandoned cattle pen, miles from the gilded mansions. Plunged into the gruesome homicide, PI Louis Kincaid agrees to help an aging ‘walker’, who may or may not have been the victim’s lover.
- Claw Back (novella) – Her name is Grace. She’s eight years old. And she’s missing in the Florida Everglades. Can Louis Kincaid find her in time to save her — and himself?
- Heart of Ice – A trip with ten-year-old Lily, the daughter he only recently learned existed, to enchanting Mackinac Island turns grim for Louis Kincaid when the child falls on a pile of old bones; the dangerous discovery reopens the cold case of Julie Chapman, a teenager from one of the wealthy summer families, who vanished two decades ago.
- The Damage Done – Louis Kincaid is wearing a badge again – as part of an elite homicide squad. But the return to his Michigan home comes at the bidding of a man who once vowed to destroy him. When the cold case deaths of two little boys collide with the white-hot murder of a mega-church minister, Louis finds himself fighting to unearth the secret past of his police captain – and the demons of his own childhood.
If you like our article about the Louis Kincaid series in order, don’t forget to bookmark it! You may also be interested in the Dave Robicheaux novels by James Lee Burke.
