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Welcome to Unlikely, New York. Come for the scenery. Stay because you've been charged with MURDER!

 Crime. Community. Second chances.

Former con artist Agatha Shadewell just wants to serve out her prison sentence, lay low, and refinish furniture. But when murder strikes her quaint new town, she and a mismatched group of locals can’t help poking their noses where they don’t belong. With her criminal past, a retired FBI agent as her reluctant sidekick, and a growing circle of offbeat allies, Agatha turns her talents to solving crimes… while trying not to commit any.

A twisty, witty cozy mystery series with heart, humor, and just enough felonies.

The Unlikely Murder Club — Best Read in Order

While each Unlikely Murder Club novel has its own mystery, the series is best enjoyed in order. Across the five-book core series, investigations connect, secrets unravel, and the world of Unlikely, New York, steadily expands. New friends (and the occasional foe) join the fold… and sometimes meet an untimely end.

The four core members — Agatha, Martin, Echo, and Chance — remain at the heart of the club, but as new characters pull up a chair, Martin’s dining room table gets more crowded with every case. By the later books, the “Unlikely” family is too big to fit in one room.

The complete five-book series is now available on Amazon and Kindle Unlimited — but the Club’s story doesn’t stop there. Starting in 2026, look for special adventures, seasonal novellas, and new mysteries that take place after the events of the main series.

You can start with Agatha’s First Murder, the free prequel — or jump into Book 1 and circle back later. It’s never too late to see how it all began.

Want to explore the world of Unlikely? Visit the Unlikely Extras page for family trees, a map of downtown Unlikely (all six blocks of it), the Unlikely Arcana — a tarot-style guide to the town’s major players — and more as inspiration strikes.

 A former con artist, a retired FBI agent, and a teenage hacker walk into a murder investigation. Stop me if you’ve heard this one.

Ex-con Agatha Shadewell spent decades outwitting the law until…she sacrificed her freedom to save a life.

Now, at sixty-five, she’s traded prison walls for a court-ordered stay in Unlikely, New York, under the watchful eye of the FBI agent who brought her down.

Except Agatha still feels trapped. No problem for this shady lady. She’ll shed the hated ankle monitor, and she’s outta there.

But when the FBI agent’s granddaughter begs for help to prove her mother’s not a killer, Agatha caves to the teenager’s pleas. She can never say no to someone in need. Compassion has always been her greatest flaw.

To uncover the real murderer, she’ll need every dirty trick in her toolbox. And if she’s caught, it’s straight back to prison…Or worse!

For Agatha Shadewell, catching the killer might be the most dangerous con of all!

Perfect for fans of The Thursday Murder Club, Only Murders in the Building, White Collar, and snarky seniors aging disgracefully. 

The Unlikely Murder Club is back… and this time, the killer didn’t even knock.

Stuck serving her sentence in Unlikely, New York, Agatha Shadewell is giving the straight life a try… for now.

So when prison escapee “Big Phyllis” shows up in her kitchen, begging for help to clear her name, Agatha says no. Nicely, because you don’t poke the convicted killer.

Phyllis swears she didn’t murder all those men. And now someone’s trying to kill her.

Agatha’s ready to kick her uninvited guest to the curb—but Phyllis has a way of making people do what she wants, whether they like it or not. Fearing the worst, Agatha agrees to look at the evidence.

As more bodies surface and the case unravels, Agatha starts to wonder: is Phyllis the killer… or the next victim?

With Special Agent Martin Kopp (retired), his hacker granddaughter Echo, and one very good dog named Chance, Agatha digs through swampy secrets, false confessions, and one very telling tattoo.

Then the killer targets one of their own.

To save the day, Agatha must risk everything—her freedom, her future, maybe even her life.

Perfect for fans of The Thursday Murder Club, Only Murders in the Building, and clever whodunits featuring seniors aging disgracefully. 

The Unlikely Murder Club is back—and this time it’s spooky!

All Agatha Shadewell wants is a quiet summer building props for the Unlikely Community Theater while she decides, once and for all... should she stay, or ditch the hated ankle monitor and disappear with her rescued dog?

But when a beloved cast member is murdered, Agatha’s pulled from the wings to center stage with the entire cast and crew under suspicion—including her.

Agatha soon discovers the murder is tied to Captain Coldwater Belle, a long-dead buccaneer, and her legendary buried treasure.

While a grumpy, post-surgery Martin hunts the treasure from the sidelines, it’s up to Agatha, with her loyal dog Chance by her side, to track the killer before…she winds up back in prison. Or someone else takes their final bow.

And maybe—just maybe—the ghost of Coldwater Belle will help our valiant Murder Club find what’s been lost for centuries.

Perfect for fans of The Thursday Murder Club, Only Murders in the Building, White Collar, and snarky seniors aging disgracefully. 

The Unlikely Murder Club is back—and this time, the past won’t stay buried.

After Agatha Shadewell fakes her death (she has her reasons) and assumes a new alias, she does what any ex-con with a flair for the dramatic would do… she dons a veil and crashes her own funeral.

But she isn’t the only surprise guest. Clara Simpson, Agatha’s long-lost friend from 1977, swoops in to rescue the dilapidated Belfair Bijou from a greedy developer and donates it to the town. Soon the whole community is pitching in to restore the theater—with Agatha and her DIY skills running the show.

Then Chance, her loyal dog, digs up a skeleton in the Bijou basement—and all clues point to Martin as the killer.

As old crimes resurface and buried scandals shake the town, Agatha must decide who she can trust. Staying in Unlikely might finally mean putting down roots…if it doesn’t put her six feet under.

Perfect for fans of The Thursday Murder Club, Only Murders in the Building, and clever whodunits with snarky seniors aging disgracefully. 

The Unlikely Murder Club is back—Lights. Camera. Murder.

When JJ Urquhart’s true crime book hits the bestseller lists, Hollywood descends on Unlikely to film Agatha Shadewell’s criminal past. Overnight, the quiet town transforms into a circus of trailers, boom mics, and suspiciously attractive actors.

With her name splashed across tabloids and talk shows, Agatha knows it’s only a matter of time before her past comes knocking: mobsters, scammers, and at least one sociopath out for revenge.

But the knock on her door isn’t a hitman—it’s her mother!

Eighty-five, fabulous, and wildly off-script, Deirdre Shadewell arrives with a suitcase full of stories, questionable motives, and a performance that threatens to steal the spotlight.

The real disruption comes from a nosy videographer determined to expose every secret Unlikely has buried. Then he turns up dead—and his camera vanishes. Whatever he filmed, someone was willing to kill to keep it hidden.

Now, with suspects in every trailer and the production on the verge of collapse, the Unlikely Murder Club must solve the crime before Hollywood’s big finale becomes Agatha’s final curtain.

Perfect for fans of The Thursday Murder Club, Only Murders in the Building, and clever whodunits with snarky seniors aging disgracefully.  

New to Unlikely? You can start here.

Already read the series? This fills in the gaps.

What An Unlikely Story is:

✔ A complete, standalone novel

✔ Agatha Shadewell’s full origin story, told in chronological order

✔ A single volume collecting all flashbacks and short stories from the five novels

✔ Includes nearly a dozen brand-new scenes never published before

✔ Spans from 1976 (age 17) to the present day

What it isn’t:

✘ Not required reading before the series

✘ Not a retelling of the novels

✘ Not Agatha’s First Murder (that novella covers one early case; this book covers her entire journey)

Agatha Shadewell didn’t set out to become a criminal.

She didn’t wake up one morning and decide to master burglary, forgery, or elaborate cons. What she did instead was make a series of small, understandable choices. One compromise at a time. One line crossed, then another.

An Unlikely Story follows Agatha from her teenage years in the 1970s through the moments that slowly, reluctantly shaped her into the woman readers meet in The Unlikely Murder Club. Read on its own, it’s a character-driven origin story. Read alongside the series, it reveals how everything fits together.

Either way, this is the story behind the story.