Museum Mysteries Books in Order: How to read Jim Eldridge’s series?

The Museum Mysteries is a historical mystery series by Jim Eldridge that revolves around Daniel Wilson. Former Detective Inspector, he now works as a private inquiry agent assisted by his partner, archaeologist-cum-detective Abigail Fenton. Together, they are dubbed the “The Museum Detectives” as they often investigate museum-related crimes.

How to read the Museum Mysteries Series in Order?

Every entry in the Museum Mysteries book series works as a standalone story, but the lives of the different characters evolve from one novel to the other.

1. Murder at the Fitzwilliam – After rising to prominence for his role investigating the case of Jack the Ripper, former Detective Inspector Daniel Wilson is now retired. Known for his intelligence, investigative skills, and most of all his discretion, he’s often consulted when a case must be solved quickly and quietly. So when a body is found in the Egyptian Collection of the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, Wilson is called in.
2. Murder at the British Museum – 1894. A well-respected academic is found dead in a gentlemen’s convenience cubicle at the British Museum, the stall locked from the inside. Professor Lance Pickering had been due to give a talk promoting the museum’s new ‘Age of King Arthur’ exhibition when he was stabbed repeatedly in the chest. Having forged a strong reputation working alongside the inimitable Inspector Abberline on the Jack the Ripper case, Daniel Wilson is called in to solve the mystery of the locked cubicle murder, and he brings his expertise and archaeologist Abigail Fenton with him.
3. Murder at the Ashmolean – 1895. A senior executive at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford is found in his office with a bullet hole between his eyes, a pistol discarded close by. The death has officially been ruled as suicide by local police, but with an apparent lack of motive for such action, the museum’s administrator, Gladstone Marriott, suspects foul play. With his cast-iron reputation for shrewdness, formed during his time investigating the case of Jack the Ripper alongside Inspector Abberline, private enquiry agent Daniel Wilson is a natural choice to discreetly explore the situation, ably assisted by his partner, archaeologist-cum-detective Abigail Fenton.

4. Murder at the Manchester Museum – 1895. Former Scotland Yard detective Daniel Wilson, famous for working the notorious Jack the Ripper case, and his archaeologist sidekick Abigail Fenton are summoned to investigate the murder of a young woman at the Manchester Museum. Though staff remembers the woman as a recent and regular visitor, no one appears to know her and she has no possessions from which to identify her.
5. Murder at the Natural History Museum – 1895. When the newly dubbed ‘Museum Detectives’ are asked to investigate deliberate damage to a dinosaur skeleton at the Natural History Museum, there is evidence that the fossil-hunting mania of the notorious Bone Wars in America may have reached their shores. But for Daniel Wilson, famed for his involvement in the Jack the Ripper case, and renowned archaeologist Abigail Fenton, events soon take a sinister turn.
6. Murder at Madame Tussauds – London, 1896. Madame Tussauds opens to find one of its nightwatchmen decapitated and his colleague nowhere to be found. To the police, the case seems simple: one killed the other and fled, but workers at the museum aren’t convinced. Although forbidden contact by his superior officer, Scotland Yard detective John Feather secretly enlists ‘The Museum Detectives’ Daniel Wilson and Abigail Fenton to aid the police investigation.

7. Murder at the National Gallery – 1897, London. The capital is shocked to learn that the body of a woman has been found at the National Gallery, eviscerated in a manner that recalls all too strongly the exploits of the infamous Jack the Ripper. Daniel Wilson and Abigail Fenton are contacted by a curator of the National Gallery for their assistance. The dead woman, an artist’s model and lady of the night, had links to artist Walter Sickert who was a suspect during the Ripper’s spree of killings. Scotland Yard have arrested Sickert on suspicion of this fresh murder but it is not the last.
8. Murder at the Victoria and Albert Museum – London, 1899. Queen Victoria lays the foundation stone on the site of a new museum being built, which she names as The Victoria and Albert Museum. Shortly after, Daniel Wilson and Abigail Fenton are called to the site because the dead body of a man, curator Andrew Page, has been found in one of the trenches.
9. Murder at the Tower of London – London, 1899. Daniel Wilson and Abigail Fenton, the museum detectives, are called upon to investigate a bizarre murder at the White Tower, the heart of the Tower of London. The dead body of a Yeoman is found inside a suit of armour belonging to Henry VIII, having been run through with a sword. When details of this suspicious outrage are reported to the Prince of Wales, he fears this may be an expression of Republican unrest and calls upon Wilson and Fenton to investigate further.

10. Murder at the Louvre – Paris, 1899. Abigail Wilson has received an invitation from Alphonse Flamand, a prominent French Professor of Archaeology, to join him on a dig in Egypt. Overjoyed to be presented with such an opportunity, Abigail and her husband, Daniel, travel to Paris to meet him to discuss plans. However, when Abigail goes to the appointment at Flamand’s office in the Louvre, she finds him dead with a knife in his chest. In a whirl of confusion and despite her pleas of innocence, Abigail is arrested. Determined to prove that she has been framed for Flamand’s brutal murder, the Museum Detectives will delve far into the shadowy corners of the City of Light for the truth.

If you like our article about the Museum Mysteries reading order, don’t forget to bookmark it! You may also be interested in The Railway Detective series by Edward Marston or the Blitz Detective series by Mike Hollow.