I finally remembered the name of a crime series I had mentioned on here several months back. It is a series by Kate Atkinson called the Jackson Brodie series. A few others said they too had read the books in that series.
None of the book covers have a picture of a shovel though.
Just thought I would throw this out there in case this was the series you were thinking about.

Did you google "crime book series with shovel" (I didn't use quotes) and do image search? A bunch come up.

*forum, not thread OP.

I think US maybe rural setting crime fiction.

So weird I can’t find it.

Do you remember anything else? Set in US or elsewhere? Modern or historical? Scary/gory be cozy?

I don't come to this thread often, but I did a few weeks ago and now can't find a particular crime series mentioned here that looks good. can someone help? I am pretty sure one of the covers had a shovel.

I tried to figure it out and googled long lists of crime novel series.

Help! Thanks