The Shropshire Mysteries
Step into the Shropshire Hills, where ancient hillforts, isolated villages, and secrets buried for generations wait for DI Georgie Fraser to dig them up.
In Death at the Devil's Chair, the series opens on the windswept moorland that gives the book its name, drawing Georgie into the kind of case that will define her career: one where the landscape itself seems to be hiding the truth.
Death by Relic takes the investigation into the world of antiquities and obsession, where a discovery too valuable to lose becomes a motive worth killing for.
By Lies Beneath the Mynd, Georgie is contending with a community that closes ranks as tightly as the hills close in — a mystery where every alibi hides another lie.
And in Bones of Caer Caradoc, the series builds to its most ambitious case yet, unearthing a mystery as old as the hillfort itself and forcing Georgie to confront how far the past reaches into the present.
Atmospheric, meticulously plotted, and steeped in the folklore and geography of the Welsh Marches, the Shropshire Mysteries are perfect for readers who love their crime fiction with a strong sense of place — think close-knit rural communities, long-buried history, and a detective who won't stop until the ground gives up its secrets.
Reading order
The Shropshire Mysteries are best read in order, though each novel resolves its own case. This is the full series to date, oldest first.
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Book 1
Death at the Devil's Chair
A body found in a bottomless pool. A second victim, meticulously staged and left for dead. In the desolate hills of Shropshire, a killer has…
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Book 2
Death by Relic
A body is discovered at the Shropshire Geoscience Trust, spread-eagled beneath a twelve-foot mammoth skeleton, drained of blood and stabbed with Bronze Age artefacts in what looks like a ritual sacrifice. DI Georgie…
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Book 3
Lies Beneath the Mynd
On a frozen Sunday morning in the Shropshire hills, a silver car is found wrecked at the bottom of Devil's Mouth Hollow. The driver—missing teenager Sam Gray—is nowhere to be found. As DI Georgie Fraser investigates a…
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Book 4
Bones of Caer Caradoc
When a body is found on an Iron Age hillfort, DI Georgie Fraser is excluded from the case. Then an archaeological dig turns up a second set of bones. Fraser and DS Corby must find out who is out for revenge before Caer…
The novella
Novella
Lady's Rock
A Shropshire Mysteries novella, available free and exclusively to subscribers of Saskia van der Zee's newsletter.
About the series
- Author
- Saskia van der Zee
- Publisher
- Dove Cottage Press
- Genre
- Crime Fiction, Mystery, Thriller, Detective Fiction
- Setting
- The Shropshire Hills, England
- Books in series
- 4
- For readers of
- Ann Cleeves, Elly Griffiths