Below is the complete list of Lee Hollis books in order. For each series, the chronological reading order is the same as the order of publication.
Publication Order of Desert Flowers Mysteries Books
Publication Order of Downeast Maine Mystery Books
Publication Order of Jarrod Jarvis Mystery Books
Publication Order of Maya and Sandra Mysteries Books
Publication Order of Standalone Books
Publication Order of A Knit & Nibble Mystery Books
with Leslie Meier, Peggy Ehrhart
Publication Order of Hayley Powell Food and Cocktails Mysteries Books
with Leslie Meier, Peggy Ehrhart
Publication Order of Lucy Stone Books
with Leslie Meier, Barbara Ross, Peggy Ehrhart
About Lee Hollis
Lee Hollis is the pen name associated with mystery writer and screenwriter Rick Copp, whose cozy fiction includes the Hayley Powell Food & Cocktails Mysteries, the Desert Flowers Mysteries, and the Maya & Sandra Mysteries. The Hayley Powell books are a collaboration with Copp’s sister, Holly Simason, whose background as a food-and-cocktails columnist supplies the recipes and culinary columns woven into the series. Together, their work under the Hollis name has become closely identified with humorous mysteries built around distinctive communities, recurring families, food, friendship, and amateur sleuths who rarely manage to stay clear of murder.
Copp grew up in Bar Harbor, Maine, before studying at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. His first major professional break came in 1988, when, at twenty-four, he joined the writing staff of The Golden Girls. He subsequently wrote for television series including Wings, Dream On, Barbershop, and animated productions such as Teen Titans. With screenwriter Laurice Elehwany, he co-wrote The Brady Bunch Movie, and his television career has also included producing, acting, pilot development, and work in children’s programming.
Long before Lee Hollis appeared on a book cover, Copp was publishing mysteries under his own name. The Actor’s Guide to Murder introduced former child star Jarrod Jarvis and was followed by The Actor’s Guide to Adultery and The Actor’s Guide to Greed. He later wrote the stand-alone mystery Fingerprints & Facelifts, centered on a group of once-famous female private investigators reunited when someone begins threatening their families. These Hollywood mysteries reflect Copp’s professional familiarity with actors, television production, and the entertainment business.
The Lee Hollis identity emerged from a different part of his life. Holly Simason had become an award-winning food columnist for the Mount Desert Islander in their Maine hometown. Copp saw the potential in combining his mystery plotting with his sister’s culinary writing, and the collaboration produced Death of a Kitchen Diva in 2012. The novel introduced Hayley Powell, a divorced mother and newspaper employee in Bar Harbor who unexpectedly becomes a food columnist and amateur investigator. Simason contributes the food-and-cocktail columns and recipes, while the siblings’ knowledge of Mount Desert Island gives the series a setting rooted in an actual Maine community.
Copp later expanded Lee Hollis beyond the Hayley Powell collaboration. The Desert Flowers Mysteries follow Poppy Harmon, a retired actress in Palm Springs who reinvents herself as a private investigator. The series draws on another environment Copp knows well—he lives in Palm Springs—and combines Hollywood history, retirement-community life, and traditional cozy detection. The Maya & Sandra Mysteries move back toward Maine, pairing two women with markedly different personalities and backgrounds as amateur investigators.
The Hollis bibliography has continued to grow beyond those established series, with Kensington crediting the name with more than thirty novels and multiple novellas. Holiday stories and multi-author cozy collections are another significant part of the catalog, often placing Hollis alongside writers such as Leslie Meier, Barbara Ross, and Peggy Ehrhart.
Lee Hollis is therefore best understood not as a conventional individual author identity but as the name under which Copp developed a substantial cozy-mystery career, with Simason playing an essential collaborative role in the Hayley Powell books. The recurring strength of the fiction is its sense of community: whether the setting is coastal Maine or Palm Springs, murder disrupts a world already populated by families, friendships, rivalries, careers, and everyday routines worth returning to.