5 Great Unexpected Sequels to Crime Novels

When I wrote The Appeal on spec in 2018, it was my first novel and, with no deadline or editor waiting for the manuscript, I had a ball. It’s a lively story told in a modern epistolary style (that’s emails and text messages) about a colorful group of characters who belong to a small-town drama society. As they find themselves in the midst of a murder mystery, a trio of lawyers try to unpick a potential miscarriage of justice. As far as I was concerned it was a standalone story that ended for good on the final page.

Over the next four years The Appeal became an international bestseller, but still there was no expectation by anyone, least of all me, that the world of Lockwood and The Fairway Players would ever be revived in a subsequent book. Then, after two more standalone stories, I was commissioned to write a Christmas novella and everything changed.

I started writing and—something about the twee pettiness of Christmas, or perhaps it was the dark potential of that time of year—but I found myself right in the centre of Lockwood again. It was as if the characters themselves had called me back.

Returning to the world of that early novel was like revisiting old friends and peeking between their curtains to see what had changed about their lives. But while there is a comfortable familiarity about returning to a story, writing a sequel is not necessarily easier than creating a whole new mystery. Readers expect to experience everything they enjoyed about the original book and yet read a whole new take on it, which adds to the pressure.

The world of that first book must be rich and diverse enough to sustain further narrative explorations and if returning to it hadn’t felt natural, then I would never have tried. Luckily, the world I’d created back in 2018, was still a fertile ground for development when I wrote The Christmas Appeal. When it became a festive bestseller in 2023, I knew it was only a matter of time before I’d be called back to Lockwood again—and that time has come!

My next book in the series is The Silent Appeal. Sarah-Jane and Kevin are in charge of the drama group, with Celia and Joel snapping at their heels. They are staging Agatha Christie’s murder mystery The Hollow, famous for the death that occurs on stage, right before the audience’s eyes.

The great joy of writing a series is the opportunity to follow a permanent group of characters across many books and potentially many years. In the crime genre this group is usually the “detectives,” whether a police department or amateur sleuths, who investigate a new case each time. Readers therefore follow not only a self-contained mystery, but also the ongoing sagas of the returning characters, their personal and professional relationships.

Cara Hunter’s Adam Fawley series of seven books (so far) is a perfect example of a series in which readers invest equally in the returning characters as they do the new crime. Similarly, Mick Herron’s Slough House series, now up to nine books, is another. Both are still going strong.

From a writer’s point of view, it you know you’re creating a series from the get-go, then you know to set up a strong circle of returning characters, each with their own backstory, secrets and dreams, with the scope to change and develop over many installments. But what if, like me, you don’t realize you’re writing a series, but that first book unexpectedly takes off and readers want more?

Well, I can tell you now, you are inevitably tied to any immutable facts established in book one and they might haunt the ongoing story for years to come. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t sometimes regret a few decisions made eight years ago to kill certain characters off, or send them away, when they would have fitted very well into subsequent stories.

But at least that clean sweep at the end of the first book paved the way for brand new stories and a new pool of characters. The Fairway Players have since become a democracy, presenting the narrative with new and potentially endless opportunities for power struggles at the top.

This allowed me to build the location of Lockwood into a fully functioning society with areas I can dip into and out of as each new story may require. Will I be returning for a fourth time? That is the question!

Crime fiction is bursting with sequels no one was expecting, least of all the author themselves. Here are just five:

*

Harper Lee, Go Set a Watchman

Probably the least expected sequel in history, Go Set a Watchman is not a continuation of the story in To Kill A Mockingbird, but rather an alternative angle on it. Published from an earlier abandoned draft, it considers the same events in hindsight from the point of view of lead character Scout, as an adult.

Nita Prose, The Maid series

Nita Prose wrote The Maid as a standalone tribute to Golden Age detective fiction and created an endearing, potentially neurodivergent heroine in Molly Grey. She proved so popular that three sequels have sprung from it and all stormed the bestseller charts: The Mystery Guest, The Mistletoe Mystery and The Maid’s Secret.

Holly Jackson, A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder

A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder was conceived as a standalone novel before Holly Jackson returned to Little Kilton with Good Girl, Bad Blood and then As Good As Dead. In a genius move to build further this hugely popular series, a prequel in the form of Kill Joy (a novella) satisfied fans hungry for more.

Tana French, Dublin Murder Squad series

In the Woods, Tana French’s debut novel, featured Detective Rob Ryan and his partner Detective Cassie Maddox. It was such a hit that it inspired the entire Dublin Murder Squad series of six books over ten years. However, interestingly, the focus shifted from Ryan to Maddox, as she proved the more popular and interesting character of the two.

Lisa Jewel, The Family Remains

This is a sequel driven by reader-power! Lisa Jewel published The Family Upstairs as a standalone, but was soon overwhelmed by requests for a follow-up. So relatable and complex were the characters that readers simply couldn’t wait for more. The Family Remains was published three years later to just as much critical and commercial acclaim.

***