Series: Taylor Jackson # 1
Format: Paperback
Release Date: May 5, 2026
Publisher: Thomas & Mercer
Source: Publisher
Genre: Mystery, Suspense
In a thrilling series from New York Times bestselling author J.T. Ellison, a serial killer is targeting young women across the South, and each new kill comes with a grisly clue pointing to the next victim.
When a young woman is found dead just outside of Nashville, strangled and handless, homicide lieutenant Taylor Jackson is quick to the scene. So is FBI Special Agent John Baldwin, whose presence suggests that the murder is not the work of a random opportunist. A love poem left nearby alludes to something more sinister: This is the work of the “Southern Strangler,” a serial killer terrorizing women from Louisiana to Virginia.
It’s the kind of case Jackson thrives on. At thirty-five, Metro Nashville’s youngest lieutenant is still an idealist, hell-bent on protecting the city she calls home. And she’s determined to avoid the broken, lonely path she’s seen other cops take. But while she and Baldwin share more than a working relationship, she’s not ready to go public.
With victims across multiple states, Jackson and Baldwin race to find a pattern before the killer strikes again. But then a shocking connection between the Strangler and a local reporter brings them closer to the truth behind the killer’s identity—one that could unveil a family’s darkest secrets.
J.T. Ellison's All the Pretty Girls is the first installment in the author's Taylor Jackson series. This is a revised edition of a book that was published in 2007. There are two main characters: Homicide Lieutenant Taylor Jackson and FBI Special Agent and Profiler John Baldwin. The story is a Nashville-set police procedural that mixes serial-killer hunt, media ambition, and romantic tension. It launched Ellison as a reliable writer of Southern crime fiction and still reads like a confident first outing—gritty, geographically specific, and built around a heroine who rejects the life she was born into.
The premise is classic genre architecture. A young woman is found strangled and missing a hand just outside Nashville. The signature—previous victim’s severed hand left at the next scene, plus fragments of Romantic poetry (Wordsworth, Blake, Coleridge)—marks the work of the Southern Strangler, a killer operating across state lines from Louisiana to Virginia. Metro Nashville Homicide Lieutenant Taylor Jackson, 35 and the department’s youngest lieutenant, catches the local body. FBI profiler Dr. John Baldwin arrives because the case is already multi-jurisdictional. They are also lovers, though Taylor is not ready to make that public.
Running alongside the Strangler investigation are a serial rapist known as the Rain Man, an ambitious local TV reporter named Whitney Connolly who thinks she has an exclusive that will get her out of Nashville, and Whitney’s twin sister Quinn, a Belle Meade socialite. The two cases and the Connolly family secrets eventually converge. Ellison has described the killer as initially “reluctant,” a figure whose original motives become warped—an attempt to give the villain more psychology than pure sadism.
Taylor Jackson is the book’s strongest asset. Raised in wealthy Belle Meade, she walked away from debutante expectations to become a cop. She is idealistic, stubborn, still recovering from a serious neck injury that nearly killed her, and determined not to become the isolated, burned-out detective she has seen around her. Baldwin functions as both professional partner and romantic interest; their relationship is present but not the engine of the plot. Medical examiner Samantha Owens, Taylor’s childhood friend, appears as a supporting presence who would later get her own spin-off series.
Whitney Connolly is more vividly drawn than many reporter characters in this genre—hungry, reckless, and closer to the story than she realizes. Thematic concerns include hidden family lies, the collision of old Nashville money and working-class law enforcement, and the way private damage produces public violence. The poetry left at scenes is both a calling card and a window into the killer’s self-mythology. The title itself nods to the nursery rhyme and a Grimm tale Ellison has cited as early inspiration.
All the Pretty Girls is a capable, atmospheric series starter rather than a reinvention of the serial-killer procedural. It does what it sets out to do: introduce a distinctive Nashville detective, establish her world and relationships, and deliver a grisly, multi-state chase with enough twists to keep most thriller readers turning pages. It is not the most original book in the genre, and the extra plot threads sometimes dilute the main hunt. For readers who want a strong female lead, Southern setting, and unapologetic darkness, it remains a worthwhile entry point.
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