Disclosure: The following contains affiliate links. At no additional cost to you, I may receive a small commission if you click through and make a purchase. Click here to read the full Affiliate Disclosure.
Fans of the show may not be aware of the series of Murder, She Wrote spin-off novels that have been published. These are advertised as being (co-)written by Jessica Fletcher, and feature more of her adventures along with other characters from the show. In reality, the original author of the series was Donald Bain. In his later years, Bain was credited alongside his wife Renée Paley-Bain. Eventually, after Bain’s death, the series was taken over by Jon Land; and most recently the series is being continued by Terrie Farley Moran.
The following is a list of all the novels published so far, listed in order of publication. Occasionally, I make note of interesting trivia about a particular novel. One interesting thing about the series as a whole is that Donald Bain had insisted that each of the book covers have a skull appear somewhere in the image. I’ve therefore included cover images below so that you can see for yourself. Of course, since Donald Bain’s death, this theme in book cover design has been abandoned.
Gin & Daggers (1989) by Donald Bain
The first spin-off novel in the Murder, She Wrote series was Gin & Daggers by Donald Bain. First published in 1989, it was a bit of a flop and included many inconsistencies. The author received character summaries from the show’s producers which failed to mention the fact that Jessica doesn’t drive, among other things. This resulted in a five-year hiatus before any subsequent books in the series were published. Additionally, a 2nd edition of Gin & Daggers was released in 2000, which thankfully corrected some of the major discrepancies that were present in the original publication.
Read my review of Gin & Daggers (2nd ed.) on my book-blog.
Subsequent books by Donald Bain
Five years after the publication of Gin & Daggers, Donald Bain continued the spin-off novel series more regularly and prolifically, writing approximately 1-2 books per year. As mentioned above, of note is the book cover designs which feature “hidden” skull motifs. I can really only locate them in the first 20 books, but I’m not sure if that’s because they stopped putting them in or because they are more hidden. If you can find a skull on the cover of a book beyond the first 20, I’d love to hear about it in the comments!
Donald Bain’s collaborations
Towards the end of his life, Donald Bain was credited alongside his wife, Renée Paley-Bain. They wrote three more books in the Murder, She Wrote series this way. After Bain’s death in 2017, Jon Land was approached to continue the series and to finish the book that Bain had been working on at the time of his death.
Books by Jon Land
After finishing the book that Donald Bain had started, Jon Land went on to write several more books in the Murder, She Wrote series.
I was fortunate enough to receive free digital copies of the first two of Jon Land’s books, and have also read the 50th book in the series. You can read my review of Manuscript for Murder; my review of Murder in Red; and my review of A Time for Murder over on my book-focused website.
Overall, I found Jon Land’s books generally more action-oriented than the show. Nonetheless, his writing is full of little nods to the tropes and trivia from the TV show that only true fans would know.
Books by Terrie Farley Moran
Most recently, the Murder, She Wrote spin-off novel series has been taken over by Terrie Farley Moran.
Other Murder, She Wrote Book Resources:
- The organizers behind the Murder, She Wrote Book Club on Facebook have also created a handy Tumbler site that tags all of the books according to different themes. You can check out the website here: https://mswbookclub.tumblr.com/
- If you’re interested in books about Murder, She Wrote that are not part of the spin-off series of novels, you can learn more about them here: Murder, She Wrote Bibliography
Murder, She Watched 
Re: the skulls – on The Maine Mutiny, it’s painted on the ship. Interestingly, there wasn’t a skull on the original hardcover of Destination Murder, but they added one on the paperback. They didn’t, however, do the same with A Vote for Murder when they redesigned it, and from Margaritas and Murder forward, the hardcover art was reused for the paperbacks until Murder in Season. (Dying to Retire, The Maine Mutiny, and A Question of Murder were published in paperback to begin with, as were the first 19.) I don’t think there’s one on any edition of Gin & Daggers either (it’s had three different covers: the original hardcover, original paperback, and reissue paperback).
LikeLike
Thanks for this insight! I did notice one in Gin & Daggers though — it’s in the hedge just above Jessica’s right shoulder.
LikeLike
:O
I went back in the Wayback Machine’s archive of Donald and Renee’s old discussion page, and Renee said at one point that the disappearance of the skulls was because a new art director came in and hadn’t been told of the tradition, but that once he learned of it, he started putting them in. There was another post where Donald mentioned the publisher felt that the skulls should only be on the paperbacks. You can find the discussions by ctrl-F-ing ‘skull’ on the various archives of the page: http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://donaldbain.com:80/disc.htm
Based on some of their posts, I’ve been able to spot more skulls (only on the paperbacks), though most of them are literally just skulls dropped onto the photo, not nearly as creative as the earlier ones:
A Question of Murder – the middle of the bank of windows on the left
Three Strikes and You’re Dead – one of the ad boards, right near the middle of the cover
Coffee, Tea, or Murder? – the base of the bridge, near the bottom-left
Panning for Murder – the tree on the left
Madison Avenue Shoot – the building above Jessica’s left shoulder
A Fatal Feast – the house, right on the left edge
Nashville Noir – projected on the circular structure
The Queen’s Jewels – below the clock on Big Ben’s left face
Skating on Thin Ice – the spotlight around the skater
The Fine Art of Murder – the woman’s skirt in the painting on the right (seems a pity they didn’t put it in the sunflowers)
Trouble at High Tide – the boat’s sail
Domestic Malice – in the sand, just to the right of the post holding the police tape
Death of a Blue Blood – the shadowed tower to the right of the door
The Ghost and Mrs. Fletcher – the water, to the left of the reflections of the trees
Donald confirmed that there wasn’t one on Dying to Retire. I’m still not seeing one on the others.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Wow! Thanks so much for this! I’ll definitely check back through the archive!
LikeLike
Because there’s nothing I do better than going overboard, I made graphics with all the skulls (that I can find) circled: https://ibb.co/album/m55NC2?sort=name_asc
LikeLiked by 1 person
That’s great! I was thinking of doing the same but you beat me to it 🙂
LikeLike
What happened to Jon Land? He is way better than Moran!
LikeLike
I believe he only had a contract for small handful of books and the contract never got renewed. I enjoyed his books, but I understand that long-time fans of the book series felt his writing style was too different from Donald Bain’s.
LikeLike
Does anyone know if the earlier books are available in hardcover? I’m trying to switch all my paperbacks over but I can’t find the hardcovers for the early ones.
LikeLike