Jodi Brennan Books in Order
The complete Detective Jodi Brennan series by Phillip Strang — all 6 coastal crime thrillers in reading order
Detective Jodi Brennan's transfer to Wirramurra Bay, on the wild limestone coast of the Great Australian Bight, was meant to be a punishment — exile from Adelaide after she exposed corruption there. Instead it becomes home, and a beat that never stays quiet. In a close-knit coastal town where everyone knows everyone's business but chooses what to reveal, Jodi works case after case as the outsider the community distrusts and needs in equal measure — deaths dressed as accidents, secrets buried for decades, and respected locals with a great deal to hide. Windswept, atmospheric and sharply plotted. Perfect for fans of Jane Harper, Ann Cleeves, and Chris Hammer.
Jodi Brennan Series — All Books in Order
1. Poisoned Ground
Detective Jodi Brennan's transfer to the isolated town of Wirramurra Bay was meant to be punishment — exile, after she exposed corruption in Adelaide, to a place where limestone cliffs meet the Southern Ocean and everyone knows everyone's business. When local vet Dr Sarah Kellerman is found dead in an apparent suicide, Jodi's instincts say otherwise. Sarah had been investigating livestock poisoning across the region, and her notes reveal a pattern of deliberate contamination aimed at vulnerable farming families. What Jodi uncovers is a scheme to acquire valuable farmland by poisoning it first and buying it cheap — a conspiracy reaching into the highest levels of government, that has already killed to protect itself. The community doesn't trust an outsider from Adelaide. They need her more than they know.
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2. Secrets in the Sand
When beloved postmistress Agnes Whitmore dies of apparent natural causes, Wirramurra Bay mourns a pillar of the community — until handyman Tom Mitchell is found murdered at an abandoned quarry, and the link between the two deaths reaches forty years back. Tom's renovation work had turned up hidden love letters and a birth certificate that quietly upends everything the town believed about the respected Fairweather family. Tom was searching for his father; someone killed him to stop the search. As Detective Jodi Brennan investigates, she uncovers generations of deception — affairs, abandoned children, reputations built on lies — while the community closes ranks to protect its own. In a place where everyone knows everyone's business, the truth about family can be the deadliest secret of all.
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3. Bones in the Breakwater
When a savage winter storm batters the South Australian coast, Detective Jodi Brennan expects damaged boats and blocked roads — not human remains torn from Wirramurra Bay's breakwater. The bones belong to Melissa Hartley, a young woman who vanished in 1987; what was filed as a missing person becomes a murder, and the case threatens the life Jodi has built here. Because the evidence points to the family of her boyfriend, Pete Kowalski — his uncle built the breakwater, and someone close to Pete knows exactly how Melissa ended up sealed in concrete. As Jodi uncovers decades of domestic violence, corruption and community silence, she faces an impossible choice: pursue justice and lose the man she loves, or protect her own life and let a killer walk. Small-town loyalty, she learns, has dark limits.
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4. Hermit's Hollow
In the secluded valley of Hermit's Hollow, where boundaries are measured to the centimetre and neighbours watch each other's every move, the disappearance of Malcolm Tierney shatters a fragile peace. When the call comes from a community that never lets outsiders in, Jodi Brennan knows something is badly wrong — Malcolm, a meticulous man, has vanished without even feeding his dog. Inside his house she finds journals cataloguing his neighbours' every transgression, and one cryptic note: that a local woman is not who she claims to be. As the dog too disappears and freshly turned soil shows up along the property lines, Jodi and her partner Fletch must decide whether Malcolm's obsessive record-keeping led him to a truth someone would kill to bury. In the Hollow, everyone watches, and no one sees.
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5. Cliff Edge
When fisherman Richard Harlow is found dead at the foot of Wirramurra Bay's limestone cliffs, it looks like a tragic fall — until the evidence shows he wasn't alone when he went over. Detective Jodi Brennan finds that Richard's new relationship had triggered a dangerous obsession in someone whose perfect community image hid months of stalking, harassment and escalating threats. His death, it emerges, was the culmination of that fixation — a calculated murder dressed as an accident. As the town closes ranks around one of its own and pressure mounts to accept the accidental-death ruling, Jodi must prove that a respected local is a killer — the kind of truth that takes both hard evidence and an outsider's willingness to see what everyone else looks away from.
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6. Burning Evidence
When volunteer firefighter Nathan Caldwell's body is found in ground that should have been cleared before a controlled burn, Detective Jodi Brennan's routine morning becomes a murder inquiry. Nathan was alive when the fire reached him, and the evidence shows he was deliberately left to burn. The trail points to someone whose fire training and quiet competence made the perfect cover — expertise in how fire behaves turned into a way to kill that should have looked like an accident. As a catastrophic bushfire bears down on Wirramurra Bay, Jodi faces two fronts at once: the advancing flames, and a killer using the emergency to cement their standing while silencing anyone who knows too much. In a town reluctant to believe one of its trusted own could do such a thing, she must prove a death designed to vanish in the smoke.
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If you enjoy the Jodi Brennan thrillers, explore Phillip Strang's other Australian crime fiction — from the outback interior to another corner of South Australia.
DI Maya Thorne — Australian Outback
Phillip Strang's flagship Australian series. DI Maya Thorne works the remote outback interior across eighteen novels of tight-knit communities and hard-won truths — the inland counterpart to Jodi's coast.
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DS Kate Hayes — South Australia
Another South Australian detective and another run of small-community murders with buried histories. If you like Jodi's blend of place, secrets and outsider perspective, Kate Hayes is a strong next read.
See the Series →Explore the Reading Guides
Frequently Asked Questions
What order should I read the Jodi Brennan books?
Each Jodi Brennan novel is a self-contained case, but a personal story runs through the series — Jodi settling into Wirramurra Bay, and the relationships she builds there — so it's best read in order, starting with Poisoned Ground.
How many Jodi Brennan books are there?
There are 6 Detective Jodi Brennan novels, from Poisoned Ground to Burning Evidence, all set in and around the coastal town of Wirramurra Bay.
Where is the Jodi Brennan series set?
The series is set in Wirramurra Bay, a fictional town on the South Australian coast along the Great Australian Bight — a landscape of limestone cliffs, the Southern Ocean, and a close-knit community where everyone knows everyone. The coastal setting is central to every book.
What kind of crime novels are the Jodi Brennan books?
They are Australian coastal crime thrillers — small-town police procedurals about buried secrets, deaths staged as accidents, and the tensions of an outsider detective in a community that protects its own. Readers who enjoy Jane Harper, Ann Cleeves, or Chris Hammer tend to find the series a natural fit.