P. J. Tracy Books in Order (Updated September 10, 2026)

P. J. Tracy is the pen name associated with Patricia Lambrecht and her daughter Traci Lambrecht. Together they created the Minneapolis-based Monkeewrench crime series, combining police procedural investigation with Grace MacBride’s eccentric software team. After Patricia’s death in 2016, Traci continued writing as P. J. Tracy and later launched the Los Angeles Detective Margaret Nolan series.

There are now two main reading paths. Begin with Monkeewrench for Grace MacBride, Leo Magozzi, Gino Rolseth, Annie Belinsky, Harley Davidson, and Roadrunner. Begin with Deep into the Dark for LAPD Detective Margaret Nolan. The two series are separate and do not need to be interleaved.

Minneapolis or Los Angeles: choose your P. J. Tracy series first

1. Start with Monkeewrench if you want computer experts helping Minneapolis detectives solve murders that often develop into larger technological or criminal conspiracies.
2. Start with Deep into the Dark if you want a more contemporary Los Angeles police series centered on Detective Margaret Nolan, grief, trauma, and homicide.
3. Read Return of the Magi separately if you want P. J. Tracy’s Christmas novella rather than crime fiction.

Monkeewrench books in order, including the 2025 return

The Monkeewrench series began with four software developers whose violent shared past has made Grace MacBride especially cautious about strangers and personal exposure. Their technical skills repeatedly bring them into investigations with Minneapolis homicide detectives Leo Magozzi and Gino Rolseth.

1. Monkeewrench (2003), also published as Want to Play?: Grace MacBride and her software partners create a murder game in which fictional crimes are solved, only to discover that a real killer is recreating the murders exactly as they appear in the game.
2. Live Bait (2004): Magozzi and Gino investigate the murders of elderly Minneapolis residents who seem to have nothing in common, while Monkeewrench software uncovers links to old crimes and secrets reaching into law enforcement.
3. Dead Run (2005): Grace MacBride, Annie Belinsky, and Wisconsin deputy Sharon Mueller become stranded near an apparently deserted town, where isolation, armed danger, and the absence of normal communication turn the trip into a fight for survival.
4. Snow Blind (2006): A Minneapolis snowman-building contest becomes a crime scene when bodies are discovered inside the snow figures, sending Magozzi, Gino, and the Monkeewrench team into a winter murder investigation.
5. Shoot to Thrill (2010), also published as Play to Kill: The FBI recruits Monkeewrench after murder videos begin appearing online, while a real killing in Minnesota suggests that someone is using the internet to turn homicide into public entertainment.
6. Off the Grid (2012), also published as Two Evils: Grace stops an assassination attempt on retired FBI agent John Smith off the Florida coast while Magozzi and Gino investigate a series of seemingly unrelated killings in Minneapolis that may be part of a coordinated national threat.
7. The Sixth Idea (2016), also published as Cold Kill: Multiple murders and disappearances during Christmas lead investigators back sixty years, where a secret rooted in Cold War science may have created a dormant threat capable of catastrophic consequences.
8. Nothing Stays Buried (2017): Magozzi and Gino hunt a serial killer leaving playing cards on victims while Grace and her partners take a rural missing-person case that eventually intersects with the Minneapolis murders and a decades-old stabbing.
9. The Guilty Dead (2018): The death of a wealthy businessman initially appears self-inflicted, but Magozzi, Gino, and Monkeewrench discover a more complicated trail involving family, money, concealed motives, and a threat capable of killing many more people.
10. Ice Cold Heart (2019): The murder of Kelly Ramage leads Magozzi and Gino to disturbing artwork and a year-old crime with an almost identical scene, while Monkeewrench traces the digital links connecting the killings to a larger conspiracy.
11. The Deepest Cut (2025): After Monkeewrench helps Magozzi and Gino capture two sadistic killers, surviving murderer Wolfgang Mauer escapes from a Minnesota psychiatric facility and begins hunting the detectives and software team responsible for his imprisonment.

Publication order is recommended. Individual murder investigations change, but Grace’s personal history, her relationship with Magozzi, and the bonds among the Monkeewrench partners develop gradually.

Monkeewrench and Want to Play? are the same first novel

The first book has been published under different titles depending on market.

• Monkeewrench: Common U.S. title.
• Want to Play?: Alternate title used in other markets.

Do not count them as Books 1 and 2. They are editions of the same story about murders copied from the Monkeewrench computer game.

Three more Monkeewrench books have alternate titles

• Shoot to Thrill and Play to Kill are the same fifth novel.
• Off the Grid and Two Evils are the same sixth novel.
• The Sixth Idea and Cold Kill are the same seventh novel.

These regional title changes are one of the main reasons P. J. Tracy bibliographies sometimes appear to contain more Monkeewrench novels than were actually written.

The first book makes a computer game into a crime-scene blueprint

Grace, Annie, Harley, and Roadrunner build software for a living. Their fictional murder game should be harmless because the program is designed around crimes that exist only on a screen.

When someone begins duplicating those murders in Minneapolis, the Monkeewrench team suddenly possesses knowledge that can predict future crime scenes. That brings them into direct contact with detectives Magozzi and Gino and establishes the partnership that drives the series.

Grace MacBride’s past matters long after Book 1

Grace is not simply an eccentric programmer who prefers privacy. Her behavior is shaped by violence in the team’s past.

The first novel explains why the Monkeewrench partners live with unusual security measures and why Grace finds trust difficult. Later books assume readers understand those experiences rather than reintroducing her from the beginning each time.

Live Bait brings old crimes into a new killing spree

The victims in Live Bait are elderly people who initially appear unlikely targets for a serial killer.

Magozzi and Gino have to determine what connects them. Grace’s cold-case software becomes especially valuable because the answer may lie not in what the victims were doing now, but in what happened decades earlier.

Dead Run takes Grace away from Minneapolis technology

Dead Run changes the normal Monkeewrench structure by putting Grace and Annie on the road instead of behind their computers.

When their car breaks down near a town that appears disturbingly empty, technical expertise becomes less useful than staying alive long enough to understand why normal civilian life has disappeared.

Snow Blind turns a winter celebration into a murder scene

The fourth novel begins with something deliberately cheerful: a snowman-building contest in Minneapolis.

The discovery of bodies hidden inside snowmen turns the public event into a homicide investigation and uses Minnesota winter not just as atmosphere but as part of how the killer conceals evidence.

Shoot to Thrill makes internet murder the central threat

The fifth book gives Monkeewrench a case particularly suited to its expertise. Murder videos are being posted online, and the FBI needs people capable of following digital traces that ordinary investigation may miss.

The danger is not simply that crimes are being recorded. The internet itself becomes part of the killer’s performance and a way of turning real death into something strangers can watch.

Off the Grid splits the action between Florida and Minnesota

Grace begins Book 6 on a sailboat off Florida, where she stops an attempt to kill retired FBI agent John Smith.

Back in Minneapolis, Magozzi and Gino face several killings that seem unrelated. Similar murders elsewhere eventually suggest that the local cases and Grace’s Florida encounter belong to the same much larger threat.

The Sixth Idea reaches sixty years into the past

Two friends are murdered on the same night, an elderly man is kidnapped, an Alzheimer’s patient disappears, and another home contains multiple bodies.

The cases make little sense together until investigators trace them back to events six decades earlier. Monkeewrench then becomes essential in understanding how an old scientific secret could produce a present-day catastrophe.

Nothing Stays Buried gives Monkeewrench its own rural case

Magozzi and Gino are chasing a Minneapolis killer who marks victims with playing cards. Grace and her partners, meanwhile, accept a private missing-person assignment in a farming community.

The two investigations seem independent until evidence reveals connections among the missing young woman, the serial killings, and a stabbing committed years earlier.

The Guilty Dead is the first Monkeewrench novel written by Traci alone

Patricia Lambrecht died in December 2016. Traci Lambrecht continued publishing as P. J. Tracy rather than ending the name or immediately abandoning the series.

The Guilty Dead therefore marks an important authorship transition while preserving the established Minneapolis cast.

Ice Cold Heart connects murder with disturbing art

The investigation begins with Kelly Ramage’s death and leads toward an art gallery containing violent and exploitative imagery.

When another old murder mirrors the same crime scene, Monkeewrench searches the digital evidence for a connection. What appears to be one sadistic killing becomes part of a broader structure involving multiple victims.

The Deepest Cut brings the Minneapolis cast back after six years

After Ice Cold Heart in 2019, the series paused while Traci concentrated on Margaret Nolan.

The Deepest Cut returned to Monkeewrench in 2025. Magozzi and Gino have already arrested Wolfgang Mauer for multiple murders with help from Grace and her partners.

Mauer escapes from a maximum-security psychiatric facility with help from his mother, a former militia leader and assassin. His revenge plan makes the recurring characters themselves the targets rather than merely the investigators.

Detective Margaret Nolan books in order

Margaret Nolan is an LAPD homicide detective grieving the death of her brother in Afghanistan. The Los Angeles series has a more grounded police-procedural focus than Monkeewrench, although trauma, technology, wealth, and hidden lives remain important.

1. Deep into the Dark (2021): Afghanistan veteran Sam Easton becomes the obvious suspect when the abusive boyfriend of his friend Melody Traeger is murdered, but Detective Margaret Nolan doubts the simple explanation while investigating another killing elsewhere in Los Angeles.
2. Desolation Canyon (2022): Margaret is struggling with her brother’s death and the psychological consequences of taking a life in the line of duty when a new investigation pulls her into another Los Angeles case where grief and deception intersect.
3. The Devil You Know (2023): Actor Evan Hobbes is found dead in a Malibu rockslide one day after a fabricated video destroys his reputation, and Nolan must determine whether the death was accident, suicide, or murder while violence spreads through his wealthy Hollywood circle.
4. City of Secrets (2024): What appears to be a fatal Los Angeles carjacking becomes more complicated when Nolan learns the victim helped found a company about to sell for millions and the wife of his business partner is abducted the next day.

Read all four in order. Nolan’s police cases can stand separately, but her grief over her brother, relationships with colleagues, and emotional recovery develop across the series.

Deep into the Dark begins with Sam Easton as much as Margaret Nolan

The first book introduces Margaret, but Sam Easton carries a major part of the emotional story.

Sam is an Afghanistan veteran dealing with trauma, separation from his wife, therapy, and work as a bartender. When Melody’s violent boyfriend is killed, Sam’s history makes him an easy suspect.

Margaret’s own connection to military loss helps her see Sam as a more complicated person than the evidence first suggests.

Desolation Canyon keeps Margaret’s grief in the foreground

Margaret has not simply recovered between Books 1 and 2. Her brother is still dead, she has recently killed someone in the line of duty, and her parents deal with pain by refusing to discuss it.

The second novel therefore continues her personal story even while presenting a new crime investigation.

The Devil You Know enters Hollywood’s protected world

Evan Hobbes is famous, wealthy, and suddenly disgraced by a fake video. His body is then found in the debris of a Malibu rockslide.

Nolan cannot assume the public scandal explains the death. As she investigates Hobbes’s friends and colleagues, the case moves through a social world where reputation can be carefully manufactured and enormous resources can be used to keep secrets hidden.

City of Secrets starts with money before it reveals something darker

The victim initially appears to have died in a carjacking. Nolan then learns that he was a founder of a company preparing for a multimillion-dollar sale.

When his partner’s wife is abducted, the possibility of a simple street crime becomes increasingly unlikely. The investigation expands into business, sex, violence, and rumors about an Angel of Death.

Margaret Nolan does not cross over with Monkeewrench

The Los Angeles books form their own continuity. Margaret does not need Grace MacBride, Leo Magozzi, Gino Rolseth, or the Minneapolis software team to solve her cases.

Readers can therefore begin Deep into the Dark without reading ten earlier Monkeewrench books first.

Return of the Magi belongs on a separate Christmas shelf

• Return of the Magi (2017): A warm Christmas novella follows Emil Rice and uses loss, kindness, connection, and the possibility of unexpected grace to tell a holiday story far removed from the murders of Monkeewrench and Margaret Nolan.

This novella is not a crime-series crossover. Read it independently at any point.

Why the P. J. Tracy name continued after Patricia Lambrecht’s death

P. J. Tracy began as the shared pen name of Patricia and Traci Lambrecht. Patricia died in 2016 after the two had created the Monkeewrench world together.

Traci continued publishing under P. J. Tracy. She wrote later Monkeewrench novels and created Margaret Nolan while maintaining the established author identity readers already knew.

A complete P. J. Tracy route by series

Read Monkeewrench first for cybercrime and Minneapolis homicide

1. Monkeewrench: A killer copies murders from the team’s game.
2. Live Bait: Elderly victims reveal links to buried crimes.
3. Dead Run: Grace and Annie become stranded in a dangerous isolated town.
4. Snow Blind: Bodies hidden in snowmen launch a winter murder case.
5. Shoot to Thrill: Murder videos posted online bring in the FBI and Monkeewrench.
6. Off the Grid: Grace’s Florida danger intersects with coordinated killings in Minneapolis.
7. The Sixth Idea: Modern murders trace back to a sixty-year-old scientific secret.
8. Nothing Stays Buried: A playing-card serial killer and a rural disappearance converge.
9. The Guilty Dead: A suspicious death reveals a larger plan involving hidden motives and mass danger.
10. Ice Cold Heart: Disturbing artwork and mirrored murder scenes point toward a broader conspiracy.
11. The Deepest Cut: An escaped murderer hunts Magozzi, Gino, and the Monkeewrench crew themselves.

Read Margaret Nolan separately for Los Angeles police work

1. Deep into the Dark: Sam Easton becomes a murder suspect while Nolan investigates his possible connection to the crime.
2. Desolation Canyon: Nolan continues working through grief while another deceptive case tests her judgment.
3. The Devil You Know: A Hollywood actor’s suspicious death opens the door to celebrity secrets and violence.
4. City of Secrets: A supposed carjacking and a businessman’s death lead toward kidnapping and corporate secrets.

What has P. J. Tracy published most recently?

As of September 10, 2026, The Deepest Cut is the latest published P. J. Tracy novel. It was released in 2025 and returned Traci Lambrecht to the Monkeewrench series after the four Margaret Nolan books.

The official Monkeewrench sequence therefore contains eleven novels through The Deepest Cut. The Margaret Nolan series currently contains four novels through City of Secrets.

P. J. Tracy reading order FAQ

What P. J. Tracy book should I read first?

Start with Monkeewrench for the original series or Deep into the Dark for Margaret Nolan.

How many Monkeewrench books are there?

There are eleven principal novels through The Deepest Cut.

Is Want to Play? a separate Monkeewrench book?

No. It is an alternate title for the first novel, Monkeewrench.

Are Shoot to Thrill and Play to Kill different books?

No. They are regional titles for the same fifth Monkeewrench novel.

Are Off the Grid and Two Evils the same?

Yes. They are alternate titles for Monkeewrench Book 6.

Is Cold Kill different from The Sixth Idea?

No. Cold Kill is an alternate title for The Sixth Idea.

How many Margaret Nolan books are there?

There are four: Deep into the Dark, Desolation Canyon, The Devil You Know, and City of Secrets.

Do Margaret Nolan and Grace MacBride meet?

No crossover is required for either series. They belong to separate fictional settings and can be read independently.

Who writes as P. J. Tracy now?

The name began with mother and daughter Patricia and Traci Lambrecht. After Patricia’s death in 2016, Traci continued writing under the P. J. Tracy name.

What is the latest P. J. Tracy book?

The Deepest Cut, published in 2025, is the latest released novel as of this update.

The P. J. Tracy order that keeps both cities clear

For Minneapolis, read Monkeewrench from Monkeewrench through The Deepest Cut. Watch for the alternate titles so you do not accidentally buy the same story twice.

For Los Angeles, begin again with Deep into the Dark and follow Margaret Nolan through City of Secrets. Her emotional continuity benefits from publication order even though each novel introduces a different homicide case.

Keep Return of the Magi outside both crime series. Once those three shelves are separated, P. J. Tracy’s bibliography becomes straightforward despite the shared pen name and regional title changes.