P.J. Parrish Books In Order – Complete List

P.J. Parrish is a pseudonym that two sisters Kristy Montee and Kelly Nichols use as an alias for their books. The author duo is most popular for their Louis Kincaid crime mystery series, featuring the biracial Michican-based police detective, who eventually becomes a private detective.

Here are the P.J. Parrish books in order for their popular series of crime fiction mystery thriller novels, and their standalone books.

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Louis Kincaid Books In Publication Order

1. Dark Of The Moon (#1), 1999
2. Dead of Winter (#2), 2001
3. Paint It Black (#3), 2002
4. Thicker Than Water (#4), 2003
5. Island of Bones (#5), 2004
6. A Killing Rain (#6), 2005
7. Unquiet Grave (#7), 2006
8. A Thousand Bones (#8), 2007
9. South of Hell (#9), 2008
10. The Little Death (#10), 2010
11. Claw Back (#10.5), 2012
12. Heart of Ice (#11), 2013
13. The Damage Done (#12), 2018

Harold Middleton Books In Publication Order

• The Chopin Manuscript, 2008
• The Copper Bracelet, 2010

Anthologies in Books In Publication Order

• Mystery Writers of America Presents Death Do Us Part: New Stories about Love, Lust, and Murder, 2006 (edited by Harlan Coben)
• Detroit Noir, 2007 (part of the Akashik Noir books)
• In the Shadow of the Master, 2008 (edited by Michael Connelly)
• Mystery Writers of America Presents On a Raven’s Wing: New Tales in Honor of Edgar Allan Poe, 2009
• These Guns for Hire: 31 Short Stories about Hitmen, 2009
• Edgar & Shamus Go Golden, 2022

Standalone Novels Books In Publication Order

• The Killing Song, 2011
• She’s Not There, 2015

P.J. Parrish Biography

The New York Times bestselling author and Edgar-nominee P.J. Parrish is the pseudonym used by the writing team of sisters Kristy Montee and Kelly Nichols. They have written a series of mystery novels featuring Louis Kincaid, a biracial detective who solves mysteries and crimes.

Kelly Nichols loved writing from a very young age. At the age of 10 she wrote a few pages crime thriller with her only critic being her father. When she was in junior high, she was writing crime stories in her spiral journals.

She graduated from the Northern Michigan University, after which she moved to Arizona, followed by Last Vegas where she worked in the gaming industry as a blackjack dealer and later a human resource manager at a casino. She spent 20 years doing everything but writing, however the itch to put words on paper remained. She started writing the first Louis Kincaid on her own, however soon she teamed up with her sister and finished the book together.

She lives in Houghton Lake, Michigan where she is collaborating with her sister on new books.

Kristy Montee had also a knack for writing from her early childhood. Her first short story under the title The Cat Who Understood, was written whens he was in the 8th grade.

She attended the Eastern Michigan University where she got a teaching degree, following which she worked as a journalist in Michigan and then in Fort Lauderdale, working as a assistant managing editor at the Sun Sentinel, where she ended up writing all sorts of things and jumping from a police reporter to a ballet critic, and everything else in between.

After a few career hickups, she decided to follow her dream of becoming an author, so she left the newspaper industry and started writing books.

Her first 4 novels were in the romance genre, which she soon found boring. She really found true self in the mystery genre, when she start working together with her sister on their first series.

The Harold Middleton series is co-authored by 15 of the world’s greatest thriller writers, including P.J. Parrish as well.

In terms of latest news about the author duo P.J. Parrish, they are regularly contributing to The Kill Zone Blog, a site focused on writing about crime fiction, mystery, suspense, and thrillers. The blog basically rotates bestselling and award-winning authors who share tips, insights, and personal experiences not only about their own writing but also about industry news.

In September 2023, Kristy Montee wrote on that blog an article titled It’s Time To Stop, where she talks about her last 30 years of writing. She discusses her challenges of basically staying relevant and mentions that she will stop writing novels. This piece is relevant since this decision seems to be final, and there will be no more P.J. Parrish books for the loyal readers in the future. The authors’ last novel was The Damage Done, the latest Louis Kincaid novel.

P.J. Parrish is chair of the annual Mystery Writers of America’s Edgar Awards, which will this, in 2025, will be the 80th anniversary of the Mystery Writers of America (MWA) as an organization, while it will hold the the the 79th Annual Edgar Awards.

Kristy wrote another article on The Kill Zone site in March 2025, titled AI And The Novel: Can A Million Monkeys Be Wrong?

With the emergence of the AI in our lives for the last few years, the article is extremely relevant. While she acknowledges that AI in writing is a useful tool in giving authors ideas, helping them overcome writer’s block, and even crafting prose, however, she does raise some concerns about just how authentic AI writing can (or can not) be, and she emphasizes that human creativity is simply irreplaceable, and intuition and creativity are simply things that AI lacks.

We will always need real writers, and the AI should not replace or even replicate all the nuances of real writers’ authenticity, which is an all-too valid point.

P.J. Parrish Awards Winners and Nominees

Over the years, the author duo received the following awards for their novels:

• Anthony Awards Best Paperback original nominee in 2006 for A Killing Rain
• Shamus Awards Best Paperback original winner in 2007 for Unquiet Grave
• Anthony Awards Best Paperback original winner in 2008 for A Thousand Bones
• Anthony Awards Best Paperback original nominee in 2009 for South of Hell
• Shamus Awards Best Paperback original winner in 2014 for Heart of Ice