Beverly Connor Books in Order

Beverly Connor is an American crime and mystery author whose former archaeological career directly influenced her later writing. As an archaeologist, she performed fieldwork at excavation sites in Georgia and South Carolina, and also analyzed skeletal remains. Her two main series, Lindsay Chamberlain and Diane Fallon, are related to her background and also loosely connect to each other.

She also co-authored Murder in Macon and The Poplar Creek Murders with her husband, Charles Connor. This page lists all Beverly Connor books in order, including her series and standalone novel.

A printable book list is available below. You can print it or save it as a PDF.

Where to Start with Beverly Connor

• Start with A Rumor of Bones (Lindsay Chamberlain #1) if you like reading about archaeological digs and recently buried remains that lead to a crime case. Lindsay is working on an excavation site when the sheriff asks her to identify human remains found in a shallow grave.
• If you’re more interested in broader forensic investigations, museum settings, and closer work with the police, read One Grave Too Many (Diane Fallon #1) first. Diane starts the series as director of the RiverTrail Museum, and when Detective Frank Duncan asks her to examine a bone that was found in the woods, she returns to forensic work.
• When planning to read both series, start with the five Lindsay Chamberlain books and then the nine Diane Fallon novels, as Lindsay enters the Diane Fallon series in One Grave Less (Diane Fallon #9) as a main character.

Lindsay Chamberlain is an archaeologist and forensic anthropologist who works at excavation sites and in a University of Georgia lab. When the police need to identify remains or understand what the bones, artifacts or the burial sites themselves reveal, Lindsay assists as an outside specialist. The books take place in various locations, such as caves, the wreck of a Spanish galleon off the Georgia coast, and an 1830s farm near Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

Reading note:

• Kill Site was originally announced as a planned Lindsay Chamberlain novel, but it was never published.

For the full Lindsay Chamberlain reading order and series info, see Lindsay Chamberlain Books in Order.

Diane Fallon is a forensic anthropologist who works in Georgia as the director of the RiverTrail Museum and beginning with Dead Guilty, also as the director of its forensic lab. She settles in her new job after leaving the investigating human-rights abuse cases in South America. At the museum, while she continues practicing forensic anthropology, she also helps police through the forensic lab at the museum.

Reading note:

• Blood Evidence was announced as the 10th book in the series, but it was never published.

For the full Diane Fallon reading order and series info, see Diane Fallon Books in Order.

How the Lindsay Chamberlain and Diane Fallon Series Connect

The Lindsay Chamberlain series was published earlier than the Diane Fallon series, and the two are independent of each other, so they can be read separately. However, reading Lindsay’s series helps readers understand her background, as the two series cross in One Grave Less, the ninth Diane Fallon book, where Lindsay becomes a major character.

The novel alternates the chapters between Diane’s and Lindsay’s perspectives, and it also brings Diane back to the earlier human-rights work in South America.

Frank Hayes is a young man who starts working at City Hall in a racially divided Macon, in Georgia, in 1970. When an elderly Black resident, Mr. Glover, asks him to interpret a condemnation order against his house and tell him what to do, Frank discovers that five of the six months allowed for repairs have already passed, and Mr. Glover had only one month left before he risked losing his home. However, this investigation becomes murkier and brings him real trouble when he and his two companions are accused of killing a rich property developer.

About Beverly Connor

Beverly Connor was born in Detroit, Michigan, in 1948 and moved with her family to Oak Ridge, Tennessee, at the age of three. She considers Oak Ridge her home. She attended East Tennessee State University for three years, where she met her future husband, Charles Connor. Later, she studied geology, anthropology, sociology and archaeology at the University of Georgia, earning a master’s degree in archaeology. She started a doctorate in instructional design, but she decided not to continue with the dissertation.

She began working as a graduate assistant and later a practicing archaeologist in Georgia and South Carolina, doing both fieldwork and lab analysis. She specialized in identifying bones and the fragments left behind when stone tools are made.

She started writing seriously in the 1980s. During her work on excavating burial sites, she often wondered whether unearthed remains belonged to a modern murder victim. This led her to write her first book, A Rumor of Bones, which was sold by her agent as part of a five-book contract. It was published in 1996 as the beginning of the five-novel Lindsay Chamberlain series about the forensic anthropologist working on dig sites and at a university laboratory.

A few years later, she signed another contract with Penguin. The publisher wanted a new series with a new protagonist. She created Diane Fallon, the director of a natural history museum who would later oversee its forensic lab. The series is somewhat harder-edged than the Lindsay Chamberlain books.

She also co-wrote Murder in Macon and The Poplar Creek Murders with her husband, Charles. After living for over thirty years in Athens, Georgia, they moved back to Oak Ridge, where they became involved with Tennessee Mountain Writers and its annual writing conference. Charles had previously founded and led the Harriette Austin Writers’ Conference in Georgia.

Beverly Connor’s books have been translated into several languages, including German, Dutch and Czech.

Major Awards and Honors

• Career Achievement Award in Suspense, RT BOOKClub magazine (2004)
• One Grave Less – RT Reviewers’ Choice Award for Suspense/Thriller (2010)

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