The Hailey Dean book series, written by Nancy Grace, contains stories of criminal fiction, murder mystery, and suspense. The main character is shaped by the author’s life and experiences.
Nancy started writing the series in 2008 and completed three novels before 2012. The main protagonist in each of the three stories is Hailey Dean, a TV personality and therapist. Hailey is a former Atlanta district attorney who now resides in New York City. When she is not working on her show, she uses her experience and skills to solve murder mysteries. Nancy Grace’s stories are set in New York City, Manhattan, Savannah, and Atlanta.
The title of the first book in the Hailey Dean series is ‘The Eleventh Victim.’ The tale begins with Hailey Dean, a psychology student. Her world is turned upside down when her fiance is murdered just weeks before their wedding. She makes it her life’s goal to catch terrible criminals like murderers, and rapists. When she’s about to give up, she discovers a serial killer haunting the streets of Atlanta. She decides to return to the life she left behind and catch the perpetrator one last time. But life never goes as planned. Throughout the series, Hailey will have to face old and new problems, some even closer than she would have thought.
Hailey Dean Mysteries Books in order
Similar authors
- A Knitting Mystery by Maggie Sefton follows Kelly Flynn, an accountant from Washington. He has relocated to Ft. Connor, Colorado, and is learning to knit at the Lambspun.
- Philip R. Craig’s Martha’s Vineyard Mystery features Ex-cop J.W. Jackson. He is searching for answers after a deadly boat explosion.
See also: Oregon Files Books in Order.
Most recommended books of the series
- Murder in the Courthouse (Hailey Dean #3) (3.76 Goodreads score)
- The Eleventh Victim (Hailey Dean #1) (3.35 Goodreads score)
- Death on the D-List (Hailey Dean #2) (3.43 Goodreads score)
Latest releases in the series
The latest and final book in the series was the third book, Death on the D-List.
Movies based on the books
The novel series inspired Hallmark to create a television movie series, which debuted in 2016. Hailey Dean Mystery: Murder, With Love, was its first film. Following the initial installment, Hallmark released sequel after sequel. There are currently 9 films in the series.
Book summaries
The Eleventh Victim (2008)
“Seconds passed; minutes. She could hear movement now in the waiting room she had just left…it was the metal magazine rack she was sure, that crashed to the tile floor. Then quiet. She strained to hear in the darkness. Nothing more, and then… The air moved in the room and she knew. He was here.”As a young psychology student, Hailey Dean’s world explodes when Will, her fianc, is murdered just weeks before their wedding. Reeling, she fights back the only way she knows how: In court, prosecuting violent crime . . . putting away the bad guys one rapist, doper, and killer at a time. But dedicating her life to justice takes a toll after years of courtroom battles and the endless tide of victims calling out from crime scene photos and autopsy tables. Just as she grows truly weary, a serial killer unlike any other she’s encountered begins to stalk the city of Atlanta, targeting young prostitutes, each horrific murder bearing his own unique mark. This courtroom battle will be her last.Hailey heads for Manhattan to pick up the pieces of the life she had before Will’s murder, training as a therapist. In a vibrant new world, she finally leaves her ghosts behind. But then her own clients are brutally murdered one by one by a copycat using the same M.O. as the Atlanta killer she hunted down years before. As the body count rises across Manhattan, Hailey is forced to match wits not only against a killer, but the famed NYPD.
Death on the D-List (2010)
The brutal slayings of a string of her patients in New York and a horrific attempt on her own life leave Hailey Dean down, but not defeated. After a yearlong respite back home in the Southland, former violent crimes prosecutor Hailey Dean finally returns to her apartment in the sky overlooking Manhattan. Hailey’s determined to rebuild a normal life and settle back into her growing practice as a therapist. But in a twist of fate, Hailey agrees to follow her heart and fight crime once again, this time in a new arena, in front of a camera! Under the hot lights of a TV studio, Hailey learns the TV industry’s not so glamorous. In fact, it’s downright deadly!Waning celebrities, all stunning actresses, each one a shining star turned has-been now struggling to get off the D-List and back into the limelight, meet with a bloody stage exit . . . murder! Hailey’s archenemy, Lieutenant Ethan Kolker, the NYPD cop who hunted Hailey down for the murders of her own patients, now wants the past forgotten and reaches out for Hailey’s help to solve the murders. In a race against the clock, Hailey has no idea that TV can be murder!
Murder in the Courthouse (2016)
Hailey Dean, the prosecutor who never lost a case, jets to Savannah as an expert witness on the sensational Julie Love-Adams murder trial but very quickly finds herself embroiled in a deadly mystery.As soon as she touches down, Hailey bumps into her old partner, crime investigator Garland Fincher. Leaving the Savannah airport, the two hear an APB on a murder that’s just been committed. Racing to the scene, they find Alton Turner, a courthouse sheriff known for crossing t’s and dotting i’s. The mild-mannered paperpusher is prone to extreme tidiness, but he’s a hot mess now . . . sprawled dead in a pool of blood, severed in half by a garage door.Never one to stay in the background, Hailey jump-starts Turner’s murder investigation while juggling the Julie Love-Adams trial. The timing of the trial and murder could be a coincidence, but everyone knows there are no coincidences in criminal law.And that’s just the beginning. Courthouse regulars start dropping dead one by one . . . but why? While Lt. Billings is falling hard for Hailey, she digs in to find a killer with a mysterious agenda . . . as it becomes deathly apparent the next murder victim may very well be Hailey herself.It’s crime sleuth Hailey Dean at her best!
