A while ago I got a few requests for a theme that would include medical sleuths. I started the list way back then, but for some reason I got side-tracked with other things. Recently someone asked for a medical mysteries theme, which I have finally gotten organized. This list includes sleuths from the Cozy Mystery site who are doctors. (The next theme I will be posting will be sleuths who are nurses and midwives, followed by sleuths who are simply in the medical field, but are not primarily nurses, midwives, or physicians.)
Here is a list of authors who are on the Cozy Mystery Site and who happen to write series which feature doctor / physician sleuths :
Jo Bannister: Clio Rees Mystery Series
J.S. Borthwick: Deane & McKenzie Mystery Series
Arthur Conan Doyle: Sherlock Holmes Mystery Series (Dr. Watson… not “main sleuth” but still very important!)
Jonathan Gash: Clare Burtonall Mystery Series
Lee Goldberg: Diagnosis Murder Mystery Series
Susanna Gregory (aka 1/2 of Simon Beaufort): Chronicles of Matthew Bartholomew Mystery Series
Tessa Harris: Dr. Thomas Silkstone Mystery Series
Robin Hathaway: Dr. Fenimore Mystery Series
Robin Hathaway: Dr. Jo Banks Mystery Series
Paula Paul (aka Paula Carter): Dr. Alexandra Gladstone Mystery Series
Caroline Roe (aka Medora Sale): Chronicles of Isaac of Girona Mystery Series
Lis Wiehl & Pete Nelson: East Salem Trilogy (Forensic Psychiatrist)
If you are interested in finding a Sleuth Who Is a Nurse or a Sleuth Who Is a Midwife, click here.
If you are interested in finding a Sleuth Who Works In the Medical Field, click here. (herbalist, apothecary, ambulance driver, medical fraud investigator, medical examiner, deputy coroner, forensic pathologist, forensic anthropologist, forensic sculptor, hospital patient representative, forensic psychiatrist, meal delivery program director, undertaker, alternative healer, naturopathic doctor)
If I have missed any other Cozy Mystery site authors who have a doctor/physician sleuth, please post a comment so that I can add the omission.
♦To access more Cozy Mysteries by Theme click on this link.♦
Susan* says
The Brother Cadfael Mysteries by Ellis Peters, perhaps? The good Brother was an 11th Century Monk and Herbalist – the closest thing to a doctor at the time.
Danna - cozy mystery list says
You’re so right, Susan*. I wasn’t quite sure what to do with herbalists, but after playing around with my entire medical sleuths, I decided to lump them all together in the third category that I’ll be putting up. I have Ellis Peters’ Brother Cadfael under the “Medical Field (Sort Of…)” category. (I even put Susan Wittig Albert’s China Bayle-Herbalist under that category, although I wasn’t sure if China technically uses her herb knowledge when she solves her mysteries…)
Sharon says
C. F. (Francis) Roe wrote a series featuring Jean Montrose, a woman doctor in Scotland in the 1990’s. C. F. Roe was a vascular surgeon at Yale and other major medical centers. He retired to devote full-time to writing. They’re written in the style of Hazel Holt, who is one of my favorite authors. Clean, intelligent and challenging stories that entertain, enlighten and leave you wanting more. There are 8 books in the Jean Montrose series and I highly recommend them. Even though they’re out of print, you can easily find them at used book sites.
Danna - cozy mystery list says
Sharon, thank you for telling us about C.F. Roe’s Jean Montrose mysteries. They sound really interesting. (Hazel Holt is one of my very favorite mystery authors also.
Lidda T says
A thousand years later… Bless you, Sharon, this was precisely the author I’ve been hunting for from twenty year old memories! Thanks so much!
Patti says
Hello!
My teen aged son supplied me with the term “cozy mystery.” Recently, I was trying to define the types of books I most enjoy and told him I liked mysteries by people like Agatha Christie and Rex Stout and TV shows like Murder she Wrote, Columbo, Midsommer Murders, Monk, Touch of Frost, and many of the British Inspector series like Morse and Lynley, etc. He said these were what a lot of people refer to as a “cozy mystery.” This led to an internet search and finding your brilliant site. The site is well organized, fun, and extensive. Thank you for providing such an easy way to find new favorite authors and perhaps make some more online friends with similar interests.
This may be just asking too much, but I would love to see some kind of asterisk or other key that indicates the book is available as an audiobook on, say, Audible.com. Any free sources besides ones local library for audiobooks by these authors would also be a great find. Some like me, may find out reading can only occur during long commutes or other time when the mind is free to listen but the hands and eyes are not free to read books. Then there is the ultimate Nirvana of being able to note who reads the book professionally in the audio format . . . I know, that’s probably for another site . . . .
Just one little critique, to be a accurate, psychiatrists are physicians. Psychologist are not physicians but psychiatrists are and have the long residencies to show for it! Forensic or not, we have the same medical training and degree (MD in the states and other in Britain and Ireland) as our brothers and sisters, and we have assisted in surgery, stitched wounds in the ED, and delivered babies! I would love to see any mysteries with a psychiatrist protagonist listed in their proper place instead of with “others” in the medical field.
Thank you again for taking the time to create this lovely site and making my future reading plans very exciting.
Danna - cozy mystery list says
Welcome to the Cozy Mystery site, Patti.
Yes, I know that psychiatrists are medical doctors. I put Lis Wiehl’s and Pete Nelson’s East Salem Trilogy in the “others field” because I thought that since their main sleuth, Dani Harris, is a forensic psychiatrist, she isn’t actually assisting with surgery, stitching wounds in the ED, and delivering babies. I wasn’t quite sure what a forensic psychiatrist did, so I looked it up and found that they are the psychiatrists who work with the courts. (I know that’s a “nut-shell” definition!) I certainly didn’t mean to diminish their psychiatric training.
I also have several “medical examiners” on the list who I put there since I am assuming they aren’t currently practicing medicine, unless there is an emergency they must attend. (Also, I’m not sure if all of them are actually trained medical doctors.)
Thank you! I’ll go ahead and add the East Salem Trilogy series to the doctors’ list.
Danna - cozy mystery list says
Patti, I know what you mean about audiobooks. We’ve been members of audible for years and I know how difficult it is to find books. I usually end up going through my list of favorite authors and try each one of them in audible’s search box.
I have listened to these authors on audible, so I know they are available. I would start with:
Ellis Peter‘s Brother Cadfael Mystery Series
Ngaio Marsh‘ Inspector Alleyn Mystery Series
Dorothy Gilman‘s Mrs. Pollifax Mystery Series
Alexander McCall Smith‘s The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency Series
Simon Brett‘s Fethering Mystery Series
Carola Dunn‘s Daisy Dalrymple Mystery Series
And, of course, ALL of the Agatha Christie mysteries
(Obviously, with Agatha Christie at the bottom of the list, I haven’t put the authors in any particular order of preference!)
Danna - cozy mystery list says
Patti, I would also take a look at:
Tarquin Hall‘s Files of Vish Puri Mystery Series
as well as
Spencer Quinn‘s Chet and Bernie Mystery Series
Danna - cozy mystery list says
Patti, one more thing. My husband just checked: When you go to an Amazon page of a book, right under the picture of the book is a little icon of a loud speaker and the word “Listen”. That means there is a book on audible. (Amazon bought Audible a while back.)
Serena Webb says
What about Dr. Watson? He was a co-sleuth with Sherlock Holmes.
Both of them were very good at treating other people’s injuries, although Sherlock tended to do more in the area of comforting the patient and left the real doctoring to Watson when Dr. Watson was around.
But there were times that Sherlock showed a certain amount of medical expertise, like when he treated a couple of guys in two different books that had fainted in his rooms or when he put Dr. Watson into shock by unexpectedly showing up after Watson thought he was dead.
Also, when Sherlock pretended to have caught a fatal disease and was dying, he kept Dr. Watson away with insults so he could fool Dr. Watson into bringing his would-be murderer to him.
Otherwise, as he remarked later, the plan wouldn’t have worked.
But even Sherlock had the highest regard for Dr. Watson’s medical expertise!
Claire says
A new series I just discovered is Dr. Josephine Plantae Paradoxes by L.M. Jorden. It’s based on a real life first woman doctor in Central Brooklyn who has to become a sleuth after her remedies are used in crimes in 1920s to 1930s. The first two books I read Aconite Queen of Poisons and Belladonna Bitter Conduct were really fascinating. The author wrote it from the memoir of her grandmother, the life of a first woman doctor.
Janet Alcorn says
I *love* Tammy Euliano’s Kate Downey Medical Mystery Series! It’s the perfect blend of cozy mystery and medical thriller.
LynW says
Redmond and Haze books by Irina Shapiro feature murders solved by Jason Redmond, a civil war surgeon who moved to England to assume his grandfather’s title.
And many thanks for this list.