The list

Books

Crime and mystery from the West Country to West Texas, a novel of paper boats and old secrets, and one very serious book about nonsense.

Julien St. James

Crime, mystery and fiction

Holdout cover
Now available

Holdout

The Toby Austin Cases · Book 1 · Austin, Texas

He used to be a cop. Now he works from the third booth of an Austin honky-tonk, taking cases nobody else will.

When a grandmother sets a folded police report on his table — her grandson written off as a drunken drowning — Toby knows the man who signed it shut. A slow-burning, deeply Texan crime novel about money, murder, and who gets to count as a person.

The Tenth Car cover

The Tenth Car

An Omus Jones Mystery · Book 1

A pre-war French car that shouldn't exist, sealed in a Cornish carriage house — and Omus Jones is hired to explain how.

When a Bristol detective-turned-PI is hired to sort out an eighteen-million-pound insurance claim, he stumbles onto a secret sealed inside a Cornish carriage house: a legendary pre-war French car that should not exist.

The Second Pen cover

The Second Pen

An Omus Jones Mystery · Book 2

He never touched an AI. She also didn't write her book. Both things are about to destroy her.

Perfect Attachment cover

Perfect Attachment

Inspector Maja series · Stockholm

Two bodies fused together with a chemical compound. Thirty-six hours before the feds take over. And Maja hasn't slept since Tuesday.

Detective Maja Norberg is pulled into a string of gruesome Stockholm murders where human attachment, academic ambition and violence are fused together.

Love Notes and Sticky Tape cover

Love Notes and Sticky Tape

Standalone · Cross-cultural fiction

Mei returns to her Japanese fishing island. Paper boats start appearing in the harbour, each one carrying a fifteen-year-old secret.

A tender story of secrets, tradition, paper boats, and the courage to chart one's own course.

Henri Penuer

Humour

Lint, Socks and Rock Paper Scissors cover

Lint, Socks and Rock Paper Scissors

Comic miscellany

Doctoral papers on garden gnomes, rubber ducks, and the intense world of professional thumb wrestling. All rigorously peer-reviewed.

A pseudo-academic journey through absurd over-analysis, everyday objects, and things that absolutely did not need a dissertation. Twenty-nine meticulously researched chapters of perfectly crafted nonsense.

Coming next

In production and in development

The Cask cover
Coming Q4 2026

The Cask

Julien St. James · An Omus Jones Mystery · Book 3

Omus Jones — the retired Bristol detective who authenticates beautiful things — returns for a third case. Details coming soon.

In development

The 15th Lord

Julien St. James · An Omus Jones Mystery · Book 4

The fourth Omus Jones mystery, now in development.

Signed copies, release news and more about Julien St. James's books live at julienstjames.com.