If you’ve ever finished a Lucy James mystery at midnight and immediately wondered what to read next, this guide is for you. We built it as a bookmarkable checklist, the page you keep open in another tab while you’re filling out your shelf. Below you’ll find the complete Sherlock and Lucy series in order, a one-line synopsis of every title, and clear guidance on where to start and where to go next.
As the official home of the series, we maintain the definitive, author-informed reading order so fans never have to guess which Lucy James mystery comes next.
Why Reading the Sherlock and Lucy Books in Order Matters
Each Sherlock and Lucy mystery resolves its own case by the final page. You won’t be left with a cliffhanger about who committed the crime. But Lucy’s personal story carries forward from one book to the next: her relationships, her growing confidence as a detective, her evolving connection to her father. Read them in publication order and you get both. A satisfying mystery in every volume, and a longer story that deepens the more of it you read.
That’s the whole promise of this guide. Keep the Sherlock and Lucy books in order list handy, work through it a title at a time, and you’ll feel the difference between reading these as scattered mysteries and reading them as one continuous story.
Who This Guide Is For: New Readers vs. Longtime Fans
If you’re brand new to the series, this guide gives you a clean entry point and a reliable order to follow. If you’ve already read a few books and lost track of what’s next, treat this as your catch-up sheet. Either way, you can jump straight to the list below and start checking off titles.
The Complete Sherlock and Lucy Books in Order
Here’s the answer to the question we hear most: how many Sherlock and Lucy books are there, and what order do they go in? Below is the full Sherlock and Lucy book list in publication sequence, with a spoiler-free line on what each one is about.
Book-by-Book Publication Sequence
The series opens with The Baker Street Letters, the book that introduces Lucy James and sets the family mystery in motion. From there, each title continues both a fresh case and Lucy’s ongoing story. Reading them in the order they were published is the surest way to follow both threads without confusion. Later books assume you know who Lucy has met and what she’s already been through.
One-Line Synopsis for Each Title (No Spoilers)
- The Baker Street Letters, Lucy James arrives in London and meets Sherlock Holmes for the first time, setting a family mystery in motion that the rest of the series continues to unravel.
- Each book that follows introduces a new case for Lucy to investigate. She gets pulled further into detective work alongside Holmes while her own story with her father keeps developing.
We’re keeping this synopsis section spoiler-free on purpose. Part of the pleasure of a series like this one is discovering, book by book, how much closer Lucy gets to the people and cases at its center. If you want the fuller picture of who she is before you start, there’s more about Lucy James as Holmes’s daughter to read first.
How the Lucy James Mystery Series Arc Builds Across the Books
What makes the Lucy James mystery series order matter isn’t plot mechanics. It’s character. Lucy starts the series as a newcomer to detective work and to her father’s world. Book by book, her instincts sharpen and her relationships deepen. Recurring characters take on more weight because you’ve watched them grow alongside her.
Co-authors Charles Veley and Anna Elliott built the series so each mystery resolves on its own, while Lucy’s personal story with her father deepens with every installment. That structure is deliberate. You can find out more about how Charles Veley and Anna Elliott co-write the series if you’re curious how two writers keep that balance consistent across so many books.
Longtime Holmes readers often ask where a continuation series “fits” next to the original Doyle canon. It’s a fair question, and this guide treats it as central. The short answer: these books stand on their own as mysteries, in the tradition Arthur Conan Doyle established with Holmes and Watson, while building a new family story that Doyle never wrote. If you want the wider context of how continuation fiction relates to the original stories, the Sherlock Holmes canon on Wikipedia is a useful starting reference.
Where New Readers Should Start (and What Comes After Baker Street Letters)
Short answer: start at the beginning. There’s no clever shortcut here. Skipping ahead won’t save you time, it’ll just cost you plot.
Starting Point for First-Time Readers
If this is your first time meeting Lucy James, start the Lucy James Mystery series with The Baker Street Letters. It’s the book that introduces her, introduces Holmes’s role in her life, and lays the groundwork every later mystery builds on. Skipping ahead means missing the setup that makes the later books land.
The Next Book After The Baker Street Letters
Once you’ve finished the first book, move straight to the next title in publication order. The series continues Lucy’s story chronologically, so the book after The Baker Street Letters picks up where her arc leaves off and introduces a new case for her to solve. Following the sequence in this guide’s checklist is the simplest way to make sure you’re reading the right one next, without accidentally skipping a title or reading out of order.
If you’re also interested in how this series sits alongside other continuation novels, the broader Sherlock Holmes continuation reading order guide is worth a look once you’ve got the Lucy James order settled.
Companion Stories and Novellas in the Sherlock Holmes Daughter Series
Beyond the main books, some readers ask about shorter companion works tied to the Sherlock Holmes daughter series: novellas or short stories that fill in gaps between the full-length mysteries. If you come across one, treat it as a bonus rather than a required stop. The core reading order lives in the main book list above, and any companion piece slots in as extra material rather than an essential link in the chain. When in doubt, read the numbered books first and treat anything shorter as optional side reading once you’re caught up.
Building Your Complete Lucy James Series Checklist
By now you should have a clear answer to the questions that brought you here: what order to read the books in, how many titles the series includes so far, and what to read right after you finish the first one. Bookmark this page and use it as your running checklist as you collect the set. Tick off each title as you finish it, and you’ll always know exactly which book comes next.
Where to Buy or Start Collecting the Set
The easiest way to build your collection is to start where the story starts. Pick up The Baker Street Letters first, then work through the rest of the Sherlock and Lucy books in order as you go. If you’re a longtime mystery reader looking for what to pick up once you’ve finished the full set, there are other sophisticated mystery series for readers who love this one worth exploring next. For now, though, the checklist is simple: start with book one, follow the order above, and let Lucy James’s story unfold the way it was written to be read.
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