John Shannon Books in Order
John Shannon has written 19 books, published between 1972 and 2025. The first book is The orphan (1972) and the newest is Boystown (2025). Publication order is the reading order below.
- Books
- 19
- Published
- 1972–2025
- Pages on record
- 447 in 2 of 19 books
John Shannon is an American novelist, born on 29 November 1943, whose later work is detective fiction. Shannon published four novels across the 1970s and 1980s and started the Jack Liffey mysteries in 1996. Raymond Chandler, Ross Macdonald, Graham Greene, Robert Stone and Jim Harrison are the influences Shannon names. The catalogue holds 19 books, from The orphan (1972) to Boystown (2025), with The Concrete River (1996) and The Cracked Earth (1999) among them.
Source: Wikidata
How many John Shannon books are there?
John Shannon has 19 books, released between 1972 and 2025. 15 of them belong to the Jack Liffey series.
John Shannon Books in Publication Order
The table lists all 19 John Shannon books in the order they were published, with the release year, the page count where one is on record, and how many independent book listings confirm each title. Catalogue data as of November 2026.
- 1The orphan1972 · 244 pages · confirmed 1/419722441/4
- 2Courage1975 · 203 pages · confirmed 1/419752031/4
- 3Broken Codes1986 · confirmed 1/41986–1/4
- 4The Taking of the Waters1994 · confirmed 1/41994–1/4
- 51996–1/4
- 61999–1/4
- 72000–1/4
- 82001–1/4
- 92002–1/4
- 102003–1/4
- 112004–1/4
- 122005–1/4
- 132006–1/4
- 142008–1/4
- 152009–1/4
- 162010–1/4
- 172011–1/4
- 182013–1/4
- 192025–1/4
John Shannon books grouped by series
Each title below is a row in the publication-order table above. None of these groups has a reading-order page of its own on this site.
Jack Liffey in order
15 books- 1. The Concrete River
- 2. The Cracked Earth
- 3. The Poison Sky
- 4. The Orange Curtain
- 5. Streets on Fire
- 6. City of Strangers
- 7. Terminal Island
- 8. Dangerous Games
- 9. Koreatown / The Dark Streets
- 10. The Devils of Bakersfield
- 11. Palos Verdes Blue
- 12. On the Nickel
- and 3 more in the table above
Standalone books
4 books4 John Shannon titles here are not listed as part of any series.
Do you have to read John Shannon books in order?
You only need to read John Shannon books in order within the Jack Liffey series, which holds 15 of the 19 John Shannon books listed here. The numbered table above gives every book in publication order.
Where to start with John Shannon
Start with The orphan (1972), the earliest published title.
What is the newest John Shannon book?
Boystown (2025) is the newest John Shannon book released so far.
Is there a new John Shannon book coming?
No next John Shannon book is announced in the catalogue, which is a gap in the listings it merges rather than a sign that the run has ended.
John Shannon at a glance
- Still publishing
- John Shannon published a book as recently as 2025.
- Release pace
- John Shannon books have appeared about one every 3 years on average.
- Length
- 447 pages across the 2 of 19 books with a recorded length, a median of 224 pages each.
- Busiest decade
- Most John Shannon books, 9 of 19, were published in the 2000s.
When John Shannon books were published
Publication distribution by decade, showing when John Shannon titles appeared. 2000s was the most productive decade with 9 titles.
19 books total across 6 decades. Decade reflects the year each title was first catalogued.
What the John Shannon books are about
2 of the 19 John Shannon books carry subject tags in Open Library's catalogue. No subject is tagged on more than one of them, so each one below describes a single book. The subjects are cataloguers’ headings, not a plot summary.
- Fiction in English 1 of 2 books