Below is the complete list of Elly Griffiths’ Brighton Mysteries books in publication order. For this series, the chronological reading order is the same as the order of publication.
Brighton Mysteries Books in Publication Order
- The Zig Zag Girl (2014)
The Zig Zag Girl was published in 2014 and is listed as book #1 in the Brighton Mysteries series. - Smoke and Mirrors (2015)
Published in 2015, Smoke and Mirrors is listed as book #2 in the Brighton Mysteries series. - The Blood Card (2016)
The Blood Card is a 2016 release and appears as book #3 in the Brighton Mysteries series. - The Vanishing Box (2017)
In the Brighton Mysteries series, The Vanishing Box is book #4 and was published in 2017. - Now You See Them (2019)
Now You See Them was first published in 2019; within the Brighton Mysteries series, it is listed as book #5. - The Midnight Hour (2021)
The Midnight Hour was published in 2021 and is listed as book #6 in the Brighton Mysteries series. - The Great Deceiver (2023)
Published in 2023, The Great Deceiver is listed as book #7 in the Brighton Mysteries series.
About Brighton Mysteries
Elly Griffiths’ Brighton Mysteries occupy a distinct corner of her bibliography because they let her step away from contemporary forensic crime and into postwar historical mystery without losing the qualities that make her work recognizable. These books are not simply retro detective stories dressed in period detail. They are built around performance, wartime memory, hidden identities, and the uneasy afterlife of old loyalties. Set in Brighton in the 1950s, the series uses the city’s faded glamour and seaside theatricality to create a world that feels both lively and quietly haunted.
At the center are DI Edgar Stephens and magician Max Mephisto, one of the most appealing partnerships in Griffiths’ fiction. Edgar is a police detective, grounded, practical, and shaped by wartime experience. Max, by contrast, belongs to the world of illusion, variety acts, and theatrical performance. He is a former stage magician still attached to the old entertainment circuit at a moment when that world is beginning to fade. The contrast between them gives the series much of its texture. Edgar looks for evidence and motive; Max understands deception from the inside. Together they turn each case into something a little stranger and more atmospheric than a standard historical procedural.
Publication order matters here because this is not a static detective setup. The first novel, The Zig Zag Girl, does more than introduce a murder. It establishes the relationship between Edgar and Max, their shared wartime past in the Magic Men unit, and the larger emotional logic of the series. The books that follow deepen that foundation rather than starting over. As the series continues, the partnership becomes richer, the recurring cast gains more weight, and the postwar setting itself starts to feel increasingly lived in. The pleasure is not only in solving each crime, but in returning to a world that grows more layered with every book.
The Brighton setting is especially important. Griffiths uses it brilliantly as a place of transition: glamorous but shabby, public-facing yet full of shadows, shaped by performance, tourism, and the lingering strain of the war years. The theatres, boarding houses, piers, pubs, and backstage spaces are not decorative. They are part of the moral atmosphere of the books. Brighton becomes a city where people reinvent themselves, hide their histories, and perform versions of who they want to be. That makes it the ideal setting for mysteries built on illusion, disguise, and old secrets resurfacing.
Another of the series’ strengths is its supporting cast, especially the women around Edgar and Max. Griffiths is too good a novelist to let the books become a simple male double act. The recurring female characters bring warmth, intelligence, frustration, and social perspective, and they help widen the series beyond murder mechanics. That, in turn, is part of why reading in order pays off. Relationships evolve, professional roles shift, and the broader social world of the series becomes more emotionally resonant over time.
Tonally, the Brighton Mysteries sit somewhere between classic period detection and more modern character-driven crime fiction. They have charm, wit, and a clear affection for theatrical life, but they are never merely cosy. Griffiths understands that postwar Britain carried exhaustion, displacement, and damaged memory under its surface, and she lets that reality shape the books. The past is never really gone in this series. It lingers in friendships, in wartime units, in old betrayals, and in the performances people continue giving long after peace has officially returned.
For readers who already have the list above, the best way to think about the Brighton Mysteries is as a true historical-crime series built on atmosphere, partnership, and the long shadow of performance. Read in publication order, the books become more than a string of period murders. They form a sustained portrait of postwar Brighton, where the stage lights are still on, the audience is still watching, and someone behind the curtain almost always has something to hide.