Nicci French Books in Order (Frieda Klein, The Lying Room, The Unheard…)

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British author Nicci French is not one person, but a couple. It is the pseudonym of husband-and-wife team Nicci Gerrard and Sean French. Together, they write psychological thrillers like the Frieda Klein series. They started writing a decade before psychotherapist Frieda Klein started to work with the police to solve cases. Most of Nicci French’s bibliography is made of standalone novels. Also, this article is about Nicci Gerrard and Sean French’s work as “Nicci French,” but they also write books separately.

How to read Nicci French’s Books in Order?

Reading The Frieda Klein series in order

The series follows Frieda Klein as she becomes mixed up in numerous criminal investigations. The emphasis of each novel is often a stand-alone crime, but the series as a whole forms a larger narrative that centers on Frieda’s personal life and the painful experiences from her past.

1. Blue Monday (2011) – Five-year-old Matthew Faraday is abducted. His face is splashed across newspaper front pages. His parents and the police are desperate. Can anyone help find their little boy before it is too late? Psychotherapist Frieda Klein just might know something. She has a lead: a previous abduction, from twenty years ago. One that only Frieda, an expert on the minds of disturbed individuals, can uncover.
2. Tuesday’s Gone (2012) – A man’s decomposed body has been found in the flat of Michelle Doyce, a woman trapped in a world of strange mental disorder. The police don’t know who it is, how he got there or what happened – and Michelle can’t tell them. But DCI Karlsson hopes Frieda Klein can get access to the truths buried beneath her confusion.
3. Waiting for Wednesday (2013) – Psychotherapist Frieda Klein finds she has an unusually personal connection with DCI Karlsson’s latest case. She is no longer working with him in an official capacity, but when her niece befriends Ruth Lennox’s son, Ted, she finds herself in the awkward position of confidante to both Karlsson and Ted. When it emerges that Ruth was leading a secret life, her family closes ranks and Karlsson finds he needs Frieda’s help more than ever before.

4. Thursday’s Children (2014) – Twenty years ago teenager Frieda Klein was brutally attacked in her own home. No one believed her – not the police, not her mother, not her friends. She left town, trained as a psychologist and never went back. Now an old classmate has shown up. She wants help with her daughter, who claims to have been attacked at home. An attack eerily similar to the one on Frieda. No one else believes the girl’s story.
5. Friday on My Mind (2015) – When a bloated corpse is found floating in the River Thames the police can at least sure that identifying the victim will be straightforward. Around the dead man’s wrist is a hospital band. On it are the words Dr F. Klein . . . But psychotherapist Frieda Klein is very much alive. And, after evidence linking her to the murder is discovered, she becomes the prime suspect.
6. Saturday Requiem (2016, aka Dark Saturday) – Thirteen years ago eighteen year old Hannah Docherty was arrested for the brutal murder of her family. It was an open and shut case and Hannah’s been incarcerated in a secure hospital ever since. When psychotherapist Frieda Klein is asked to meet Hannah and give her assessment of her she reluctantly agrees. What she finds horrifies her. Hannah has become a tragic figure, old before her time.

7. Sunday Morning Coming Down (2017, aka Sunday Silence) – Frieda Klein has believed serial killer Dean Reeve escaped justice for years. Despite what the police say, she is convinced he’s still alive. And finally she has the evidence – under her floor is the rotting corpse of an ex-policeman she hired to hunt for Reeve. Whoever did this is clearly very dangerous and must be found. But they’re not finished with Frieda – or those she loves most . . .
8. Day of the Dead (2018) – A decade ago, psychologist Frieda Klein was sucked into the orbit of Dean Reeve — a killer able to impersonate almost anyone, a man who can disappear without a trace, a psychopath obsessed with Frieda herself. In the years since, Frieda has worked with — and sometimes against — the London police in solving their most baffling cases. But now she’s in hiding, driven to isolation by Reeve. When a series of murders announces his return, Frieda must emerge from the shadows to confront her nemesis. And it’s a showdown she might not survive.

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Reading Nicci French’s Standalone novels

• The Memory Game (1997) – When a skeleton is unearthed in the Martellos’ garden, Jane Martello is shocked to learn it’s that of her childhood friend, Natalie, who went missing twenty-five years before. Jane is encouraged by her therapist to recover what really took place when she was a child – and what happened to Natalie. But as Jane learns the truth about her past, is she putting her own future at terrible risk?
• The Safe House (1998) – Samantha Laschen is a doctor specialising in post-traumatic stress disorder. She’s moved to the coast to escape her problems and to be alone with her young daughter. But now the police want her to take in Fiona Mackenzie, a girl whose parents have been savagely murdered. Yet by allowing Fiona in, Sam is exposing herself – and her daughter – to risks she couldn’t possibly have imagined . . .
• Killing Me Softly (1998) – Alice Loudon couldn’t resist abandoning her old, safe life for a wild affair. And in Adam Tallis, a rugged mountaineer with a murky past, she finds a man who can teach her things about herself that she never even suspected. But sexual obsession has its dark side and so does Adam. Soon both are threatening all that Alice has left. First her sanity. Then her life.

• Beneath the Skin (2000) – Zoe, Jennifer and Nadia are three women with nothing in common. Except for the man who wants to kill them. He sends them terrifying letters – promising to bring their lives to a violent, horrible end. But not before he has enjoyed himself. He delights in watching the women suffer, thrilled by his power to leave them utterly helpless, alone and in terror. Except they’re not all as helpless as he thinks . . .
• The Red Room (2001) – After psychologist Kit Quinn is brutally attacked by a prisoner, she is determined to get straight back to work. When the police want her help in linking the man who attacked her to a series of murders, she refuses to simply accept the obvious. But the closer her investigation takes her to the truth behind the savage crimes, the nearer Kit gets to the dark heart of her own terror.
• Land of the Living (2002) – Abbie Devereaux doesn’t know where she is or how she got there. She’s so terrified she can barely remember her own name – and she’s sure of just one thing: that she will survive this nightmare.But even if she does make it back to the land of the living, Abbie knows that he’ll still be out there, looking for her. And next time, there may be no escape…

• Secret Smile (2003) – You have an affair. You finish it. You think it’s over. You’re dead wrong …Miranda Cotton thinks she’s put boyfriend Brendan out of her life for good. But two weeks later, he’s intimately involved with her sister. Soon what began as an embarrassment becomes threatening – then even more terrifying than a girl’s worst nightmare. Because this time Brendan will stop at nothing to be part of Miranda’s life – even if it means taking it from her.
• Catch Me When I Fall (2005) – You’re a whirlwind – a success. You’re living life on the edge. But who’ll catch you when you fall? Holly Krauss is a city girl burning the candle at both ends. Despite a comfortable home life, a tough job and friends who admire her, she secretly enjoys taking reckless, dangerous walks on the wild side. But Holly can’t keep those worlds separate forever. Soon enough her secret life bleeds into her safe one and everything spirals out of control.
• Losing You (2006) – Nina Landry awakens on her fortieth birthday, anticipating a day filled with excitement. She, her new boyfriend, and her two children are taking a trip. As soon as her fifteen-year-old daughter, Charlie, returns from a sleepover, they can get ready to leave. But Charlie doesn’t come home at the expected time. As minutes and then hours tick by, Nina’s annoyance soon changes to concern, and then to a chilling certainty that something terrible has happened.

• Until It’s Over (2007) – Astrid is on her way home one day when her neighbor accidentally knocks her off her bike. Suffering a few bruises, her roommates help her home. The next day, they learn that same neighbor was bludgeoned to death only hours after the accident. Each of them tells the police what little they know and are dismissed. Then a few days later, Astrid is asked to pick up a package from a wealthy woman called Ingrid de Soto. When she arrives, the client is lying in the hall of her luxurious home-and it’s apparent she’s also been murdered.
• What to Do When Someone Dies (2008) – Ellie Falkner’s world has been destroyed. Her husband, Greg, died in a car crash–and he wasn’t alone. In the passenger seat was the body of Milena Livingstone, a woman Ellie’s never heard of. But Ellie refuses to leap to the obvious conclusion, despite the whispers and suspicions of those around her. Maybe it’s the grief, but Ellie has to find out who this woman was–and prove Greg wasn’t having an affair. And soon she is chillingly certain their deaths were no accident.
• Complicit (2009, aka The Other Side of the Door) – Bonnie Graham is in her friend’s flat. She is alone, except for the dead body lying in a pool of blood. What happened? What will she do? And is any or all of it her fault? Bonnie is a music teacher who has spent a long, hot summer in London rehearsing with a band. It was supposed to be fun, but the tricky knots of the band’s friendships unravel with each passing day. What was meant to be a summer of happiness, music, and love turns deadly as lovers betray, passions turn homicidal, and friendship itself becomes a crime.

• The Lying Room (2019) – It should have been just a mid-life fling. A guilty indiscretion that Neve Connolly could have weathered. An escape from twenty years of routine marriage to her overworked husband, and from her increasingly distant children. But when Neve pays a morning-after visit to her lover, Saul, and finds him brutally murdered, their pied-à-terre still heady with her perfume, all the lies she has so painstakingly stitched together threaten to unravel.
• House of Correction (2020) – When a body is discovered in Okeham, England, Tabitha is shocked to find herself being placed in handcuffs. It must be a mistake. She’d only recently moved back to her childhood hometown, not even getting a chance to reacquaint herself with the neighbors. How could she possibly be a murder suspect? As Tabitha is shepherded through the system, her entire life is picked apart and scrutinized and she begins to question if she knows what kind of person she is after all. The world is convinced she’s a killer. Tabitha needs to prove them all wrong.
• The Unheard (2021) – Tess’s number one priority has always been her three-year-old daughter Poppy. But splitting up with Poppy’s father Jason means that she cannot always be there to keep her daughter safe. When she finds a disturbing drawing, dark and menacing, among her daughter’s brightly colored paintings, Tess is convinced that Poppy has witnessed something terrible. Something that her young mind is struggling to put into words. But no one will listen. It’s only a child’s drawing, isn’t it?

• The Favor (2022) – When Liam unexpectedly turns up in Jude’s life after ten years of no contact, asking her for a favor, she just can’t say no. He was her first love, and even though she is now a successful doctor and about to get married, he will always be someone special to her. But after she does the favor, she is contacted by the police, informing her that Liam has been found dead, and suddenly she is caught up in a murder investigation. And she realizes this one decision could cost her everything–even her life…
• Has Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter? (2024) – On the day of Alec Salter’s fiftieth birthday party, his wife, Charlotte, vanishes. Most of the small English village of Glensted is at the party for hours before anyone realizes she is missing. While Alec brushes off her disappearance, their four children—especially fifteen-year-old Etty—grow increasingly anxious as the cold winter hours become days and she doesn’t return. Then Etty and her friend Morgan find the body of Morgan’s father—and the Salters’ neighbor— Duncan Ackerley, floating in the river. The police conclude that Duncan and Charlotte were having an affair before he killed her and committed suicide. Thirty years later, Morgan Ackerley returns to Glensted with his older brother to make a podcast based on their shared tragedy with the Salters. Alec, stricken with dementia, is entering an elder care facility while Etty helps put his affairs in order. But when the Ackerleys ask to interview the Salters, the entire town gets caught up in the unresolved cases.

If you like the Nicci French reading order, you may be interested in Sophie Hannah‘s novels, author of the Culver Valley Crime series, or Tana French‘s books, author of the Dublin Murder Squad.