Should the DI Andy Horton novels be read in order?

I'm often asked if the DI Andy Horton marine mystery series needs to be read  order. The answer is they don't. In each DI Andy Horton novel there is an element of the main character’s personal life to follow, which to some extent, has an impact on the plots, but each novel contains a new murder mystery to be solved and that mystery is resolved at the end of each book

It can never be determined which book in the series a reader might pick up first.. Some readers have told me that they've discovered Andy Horton in a later book in the series and then having done so have gone back to the beginning and read them in sequence.  

There are now now eleven in the DI Andy Horton series  with Shroud of Evil  the latest published in 2014.  The thirteenth in the series, Fatal Catch will be published in September 2015.



So DI Horton has come a long way since first appearing in Tide of Death in 2006. 

In DI Andy Horton number one, Tide of Death, Andy is back in CID after being suspended for eight months on a gross misconduct charge.  His marriage has broken up and he's living on board his yacht in a marina in Portsmouth on the South Coast of England. He has a murder to solve and is determined to clear his name and re-establish his reputation as a good cop and try and save his marriage, but is it too late for that?


The first in the DI Andy Horton Marine Mystery Series

In DI Andy Horton number three, The Suffocating Sea, Horton discovers something about his mother's disappearance thirty years ago which sets  him on a mission to discover why she abandoned him at the age of ten, where she went and what subsequently happened to her.  This thread is followed  throughout the subsequent novels but if the reader picks up and reads the novels out of sequence he or she should be able to follow the thread of Andy's private investigation in each novel.
 




The third in the DI Andy Horton Marine Mystery Series



As well as the back story there is of course a different major murder investigation to solve in each novel with plenty of action and detective work.  Horton is often joined by Sergeant Cantelli and works with the Major Crime Team headed by Detective Superintendent Uckfield.  Horton is also often in conflict with his abrasive alpha female boss, DCI Lorraine Bliss.

The DI Andy Horton novels in order then with the first in the series listed at the top, are:

Tide of Death (1)
Deadly Waters (2)
The Suffocating Sea (3)
Dead Man's Wharf (4)
Blood on the Sand (5)
Footsteps on the Shore (6)
A Killing Coast (7)
Death Lies Beneath (8)
Undercurrent (9)
Death Surge   (10)
Shroud of Evil (11)

Read more about each DI Andy Horton novel.

I enjoy writing the DI Andy Horton series and seeing the characters' lives unfold. I've already written the first draft of DI Andy Horton number 13 so a lot more yet to come.



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