Below is the complete list of Peter Grainger books in order. For each series, the chronological reading order is the same as the order of publication.
Publication Order of DC Smith Investigation Books
Publication Order of Willows and Lane Books
Publication Order of Standalone Books
Publication Order of Collections Books
as Robert Partridge
Publication Order of Robert Partridge Collections Books
as Robert Partridge
About Peter Grainger
Peter Grainger is the pen name of British crime writer Robert Partridge, best known for the long-running DC Smith and Kings Lake Investigation novels. A former sixth-form English teacher, Grainger spent years writing fiction before finding a large readership through independent publishing. His police procedurals are particularly associated with restrained plotting, understated humor, convincing workplace dynamics, and an emphasis on character rather than graphic violence or sensational twists.
Grainger began writing when he was young but returned to it more seriously later in life. Before crime fiction became his main focus, he wrote several novels concerned with relationships and midlife experience. His son helped him publish Afon digitally in 2012, followed by The Rink and Asher, all under his real name, Robert Partridge. The Peter Grainger pseudonym came from a character in Afon: an English teacher and aspiring novelist whose name Grainger decided to adopt for his subsequent work.
His move into detective fiction produced An Accidental Death in 2013. The novel introduced Detective Sergeant DC Smith, an experienced officer working from Kings Lake Central in a fictionalized version of the King’s Lynn area of Norfolk. Smith deliberately avoids many familiar detective-fiction stereotypes. He is observant, literate, dryly humorous, and professionally competent rather than defined by alcoholism, uncontrolled violence, or spectacular personal dysfunction.
Character development soon became the defining feature of the series. Individual investigations provide the structure, but Grainger gives substantial attention to how police officers actually work together: their judgments, office politics, friendships, frustrations, career decisions, and accumulated knowledge of one another. The Norfolk landscape is equally important. Coastal villages, marshes, beaches, farmland, and the flat East Anglian countryside create a subdued atmosphere that suits the measured pace of the novels.
What began as the DC Smith Investigation series eventually developed into the Kings Lake Investigation books as other members of the police team moved toward the foreground. Despite the change in series labeling, Grainger regards the DC Smith and Kings Lake novels as one continuous sequence and recommends reading them accordingly. Smith remains important even when he is no longer the serving detective around whom every investigation revolves, while characters such as Cara Freeman allow the police side of the story to evolve rather than remain permanently fixed.
The series grew largely through reader recommendations and audiobook success, with Gildart Jackson becoming closely associated with the audio editions. Grainger remained independently published for more than a decade while the books accumulated a substantial audience and sales exceeding one million copies. That unusual career path changed when Hutchinson Heinemann acquired rights to the existing series and new work. Some Sort of Justice, the seventeenth DC Smith/Kings Lake novel, appeared in 2026 as part of Grainger’s move into major traditional publishing.
Grainger has also written the Willows and Lane series, beginning with Lane. These books center on former detective inspector Emily Willows and Summer Lane and move the investigative emphasis away from Kings Lake Central while retaining Grainger’s interest in patient detection and character relationships.
Across his crime fiction, Grainger favors intelligence and credibility over spectacle. Crimes can involve violence, grief, corruption, and serious moral choices, but the books rarely depend on gruesomeness for their effect. His bibliography is best understood as character-led British procedural fiction in which investigations matter greatly, yet the enduring attraction lies just as much in watching experienced, recognizably human people think, work, age, and change over time.