Action & adventure book series in reading order

by James Axler

by Wilbur Smith

by H. Rider Haggard

by Patrick O’Brian

by Julian Stockwin

by Jack Du Brul

by Donald E. Westlake

by David Poyer

by Douglas Reeman / Alexander Kent

by Jon Land

by Wilbur Smith

by Ace Atkins

by John Norman

by C.S. Forester

by Franklin W. Dixon

by S.D. Smith

by Don Mann

by Lian Hearn

by David Baldacci

by Rick Riordan

by Stuart Woods

by Alexandra Bracken

by James Riley

by Mary Pope Osborne

by Stan Kirby

by Paula Harrison

by Charlaine Harris

by David Hagberg

by William Dietrich

by Len Deighton

by Kyle Mills

by Michael Ledwidge

Donald Eugene Pendleton (December 12, 1927 to October 23, 1995) was an American author of fiction and non-fiction who created Mack Bolan, a character with hundreds of millions of copies sold since a 1969 debut. From 1980, other authors wrote the Bolan books under the Pendleton name, at first with Pendleton's editorial guidance. Pendleton also wrote six Joe Copp, Private Eye novels and six Ashton Ford, Psychic Detective novels. Early titles include The Insatiables (1967), War Against the Mafia (1969) and Miami Massacre (1970).

Clive Cussler

104 books• 9 series

Clive Cussler (July 15, 1931 – February 24, 2020) was an American adventure novelist and underwater explorer. Cussler founded and chaired the National Underwater and Marine Agency (NUMA), which has located more than 60 shipwreck sites. Cussler's thrillers, many of them featuring Dirk Pitt, reached The New York Times fiction best-seller list more than 20 times. The catalogue lists 105 books under Cussler's name, beginning with The Mediterranean Caper (1973), with The Serpent's Eye due in 2027. Robin Burcell shares credit on 6 of them, Jack Du Brul on 5 and Grant Blackwood on 3. Series include Dirk Pitt, NUMA Files, Oregon Files and Sea Hunters.

L. Ron Hubbard

110 books• 5 series

L. Ron Hubbard (Lafayette Ronald Hubbard, March 13, 1911 to January 24, 1986) was an American writer and the founder of Scientology. The early career produced a large body of pulp science fiction and fantasy. The catalogue holds 110 books, starting in 1934 with Sea Fangs, Dead Men Kill, Hurtling Wings and Twenty Fathoms Down. Series include Mission Earth, Slaves of Sleep and collections of western and science fiction short stories. Hubbard wrote Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health in 1950, a book described as pseudoscientific, created Scientology in 1952 and led the Church of Scientology until 1986. Subjects include air pilots, sea stories, westerns and crime.

Wilbur Smith was a British-South African novelist born in Northern Rhodesia. Smith's historical fiction covers four centuries of international involvement in Southern Africa. The catalogue lists 66 books, from When the Lion Feeds (1964) to Flashpoint (2026). Series include Courtney, Jack Courtney, Ancient Egypt, Hector Cross and Prey Zone. Recurring character listings include the Courtney family, Ballantyne and Hector Cross. David Churchill and Tom Harper each share the credit on 1 book. Subjects include Africa, Egypt, revenge, espionage and terrorism.

Alex Archer is the name on the Rogue Angel series, 66 catalogued books published between 2006 and 2025. Annja Creed, a woman archaeologist, is the recurring character, and the books mix antiquities, adventure and suspense with fantasy. Destiny (2006) opens the run, followed by Solomon's Jar (2006), The Spider Stone (2006) and a rapid 2007 sequence including Forbidden City, God of Thunder, Provenance, Secret of the Slaves, Serpent's Kiss, The Chosen and The Lost Scrolls. Shadow Highlanders (2025) is the newest title, at a median of 320 pages.

H. Rider Haggard

78 books• 6 series

Sir Henry Rider Haggard (1856-1925) was an English writer of adventure romances set in exotic locations, Africa above all, and a pioneer of the lost world genre. The eighteen Allan Quatermain stories begin with King Solomon's Mines (1885), and Ayesha is the other named series. Haggard also worked on land reform across the British Empire. The catalogue holds 78 titles dated 1882 to 2013, from Cetywayo and His White Neighbours to a complete anthology, and covers novels, non-fiction and short fiction.

Stuart Woods

104 books• 9 series

Crime and detective thrillers make up Stuart Woods's catalogue of 104 titles, running from Blue Water, Green Skipper (1977) to Finders Keepers (2025). The Barrington Universe, built around the recurring character Stone Barrington, is the largest strand; Teddy Fay, Ed Eagle and Rick Barron head further series, with standalone novels and non-fiction beside them. Private investigators, police and New York settings recur through the subject tags.

Chase Fulton is the character behind Cap Daniels's espionage and action thrillers, and almost the whole catalogue sits inside his series and the wider Avenging Angel universe. The word Chase runs through the titles: The Opening Chase, The Broken Chase and The Unending Chase (2018), The Devil's Chase (2019), through to The Assassin's Chase in 2026. Fifty-six books have been catalogued since 2018.

William Wallace Johnstone, October 28, 1938 to February 8, 2004, was an American author of westerns, horror and survivalist fiction. The Devil's Kiss opened the run in 1981, followed by The Last of the Dog Team (1981), Out of the Ashes (1983) and Anarchy in the Ashes (1984). Series filed under the name include Ashes, First Mountain Man, Smoke Jensen, Last Gunfighter, Blood Bond and Duff MacCallister, and subjects include outlaws, frontier and pioneer life, revenge and Texas. The catalogue carries 544 titles under the Johnstone name dated 1981 to 2026, well past the 2004 death date, and 400 of them carry a William W. Johnstone credit.

Military aviation drives Dale Brown's technological thrillers. Patrick McLanahan and Brad McLanahan are the recurring characters across a catalogue of 52 books that opens with Flight of the Old Dog (1987) and reaches Devil's Fortress (2024). Dreamland, Puppet Master, Nick Flynn and the Jason Richter books are the named series. The United States Air Force, weapons systems, espionage and terrorism fill the subject tags.

Edgar Rice Burroughs

81 books• 12 series

Edgar Rice Burroughs (1 September 1875 to 19 March 1950) was an American writer of adventure, science fiction and fantasy, and the creator of Tarzan and John Carter. Burroughs wrote twenty-four Tarzan books and eleven books with John Carter as a recurring character, along with the Pellucidar and Amtor series and the Caspak trilogy. Tarzan also became a syndicated comic strip, films and merchandise. Catalogued titles begin in 1912 with A Princess of Mars and Tarzan of the Apes, followed by The Gods of Mars (1913), The Return of Tarzan (1913) and At the Earth's Core (1914). Subjects include extraterrestrial beings, Africa and Dejah Thoris.

James Rollins

48 books• 10 series

James Rollins is the pen name of James Paul Czajkowski, an American writer born August 20, 1961, who gave up a veterinary practice in Sacramento, California to write full time. Rollins writes action-adventure, mystery and techno-thriller novels, often set underground or underwater, drawing on experience as an amateur caver and certified scuba diver. The catalogue opens with Subterranean (1999) and Excavation (2000), counts 49 books through Trust No One (2026), and lists Into the Serpent's Nest for 2027. Series include Sigma Force, the Order of the Sanguines, Tucker Wayne and Jake Ransom. Under a second pen name, James Clemens, Czajkowski publishes fantasy.

Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin, a ship's captain and a ship's physician, carry Patrick O'Brian's sea novels from Master and Commander (1969). The catalogue holds 41 books reaching back to Caesar (1930), with standalone novels, short stories and non-fiction beside the Aubrey/Maturin run. Naval history and sea adventure supply the material, and the 1990s were the densest decade.

Jon Land is an American thriller author whose Caitlin Strong novels follow a fifth-generation Texas Ranger. The Ben Kamal and Danielle Barnea books pair a Palestinian detective with a chief inspector of the Israeli police. Land is an emeritus board member of International Thriller Writers and sits on its marketing committee, and was a screenwriter for the film Dirty Deeds. The catalogue lists 55 books from The Doomsday Spiral (1983) to Icefall: The Rise of the Nine (2026), with Blaine McCracken, Jared Kimberlain and National Parks Thriller among the other series.

Espionage, terrorism and the Second World War supply Jack Higgins with his material. Higgins published the earliest of 76 catalogued books as Harry Patterson, among them Sad Wind from the Sea (1959), Cry of the Hunter (1960) and Hell Is Too Crowded (1962). Sean Dillon, Paul Chavasse, Liam Devlin and Martin Fallon head series of their own, alongside standalone thrillers. The Midnight Bell, published in 2016, closes the catalogue.

Erin Hunter is the name on 169 catalogued books, published from 2003 onward and filed as children's fantasy fiction. Into the Wild, Fire and Ice and Forest of Secrets (all 2003) are the earliest. Series listings include Warriors: The New Prophecy, Warriors: Power of Three, Warriors: Omen of the Stars, Warriors: Dawn of the Clans and Warriors: The Broken Code. Seekers, Survivors, Bravelands and Bamboo Kingdom also appear. Subjects include cats, feral cats, bears, dogs, adventure and manga. Darktail's Judgment (2026) is the newest, with False Dawn due in 2027.

Alistair MacLean

42 books• 5 series

Alistair MacLean (21 April 1922 to 2 February 1987) was a Scottish novelist of thrillers and adventure stories. MacLean's books have sold an estimated 150 million copies, placing MacLean among the best-selling fiction authors of all time. Service in the Royal Navy aboard HMS Royalist during the Second World War supplied the basis for the debut novel, H.M.S. Ulysses (1955). Many of the novels were filmed, above all The Guns of Navarone and Ice Station Zebra. Catalogued titles include South by Java Head (1958), Night Without End (1960) and Fear is the Key (1961). The author page also lists the Alistair MacLean's UNACO series and Lawrence of Arabia (1962).

Rick Riordan

82 books• 19 series

Rick Riordan, born Richard Russell Riordan Jr. on June 5, 1964, is an American author. Riordan is best known for the Camp Half-Blood Chronicles, which take in Percy Jackson & the Olympians, The Heroes of Olympus, The Trials of Apollo and The Nico di Angelo Adventures. The catalogue holds 82 books from 1997 to 2026, opening with Big Red Tequila (1997) and reaching The Lightning Thief in 2005; the Tres Navarre and Kane Chronicles lines also feature. Riordan's books have been translated into 42 languages and have sold more than 30 million copies in the United States. 20th Century Fox filmed the first two Percy Jackson books, a project Riordan had no part in.

G.A. Henty wrote historical adventure stories for young readers. The catalogue holds 109 Henty titles, opening with A Search for a Secret (1867) and closing at The Plague Ship (2002). War, military history and the conduct of life are the recurring subjects, and much of the work sits in England and the wider British past. Early titles include The March to Magdala (1868), Out on the Pampas (1870) and The Young Franc Tireurs (1872).

John Buchan

84 books• 4 series

John Buchan, 1st Baron Tweedsmuir (26 August 1875 to 11 February 1940), was a Scottish novelist, historian, army officer and Unionist politician who served as the 15th Governor General of Canada. Buchan published a first novel in 1895, the year of Sir Quixote of the Moors, the earliest catalogued title, and went on to write more than a hundred books, The Thirty-Nine Steps the best known among them. Series include Richard Hannay, the Leithen Stories and Dickson McCunn. Buchan studied at Glasgow and Oxford, practised as a barrister, and in 1901 was private secretary to Lord Milner in southern Africa near the end of the Boer War. Subjects include the First World War, the 1745 Jacobite Rebellion, the intelligence service and Scotland.

Baroness Orczy

51 books• 2 series

Baroness Emma Orczy, born in Hungary in 1865 and died in 1947, was a British novelist and playwright. The Scarlet Pimpernel is her lasting creation: Sir Percy Blakeney, a wealthy English fop whose second identity smuggles French aristocrats away from the guillotine during the Revolution, and the figure that established the hero with a secret identity in popular culture. The stage version opened in London's West End on 5 January 1905 and drew British audiences. Orczy also wrote the Teahouse Detective stories, including The Old Man in the Corner and Lady Molly Of Scotland Yard. Fifty-two catalogued titles date from 1899 to 2021.

Hammond Innes, full name Ralph Hammond Innes, was a British novelist born on 15 July 1913 who died on 10 June 1998. Innes wrote more than 30 novels, plus books for children and travel writing. Catalogue subjects include thrillers, espionage, sea stories, adventure and the Second World War. Early titles listed are Air Disaster and The Doppelganger (both 1937), Sabotage Broadcast (1938) and The Trojan Horse (1940).

George MacDonald Fraser (2 April 1925 - 2 January 2008) was a British author and screenwriter. The Flashman Papers are the work Fraser is known for: eleven novels and one short-story collection built on the character Harry Paget Flashman. Fraser also wrote the Private McAuslan stories, non-fiction including The Steel Bonnets (1972), and screenplays - the James Bond film Octopussy, The Three Musketeers and both its sequels, and an adaptation of his own Royal Flash. Twenty-eight titles are catalogued, from Flashman (1969) onward.

James Patterson

510 books• 73 series

James Patterson, born on March 22, 1947, is an American writer whose catalogue here holds 514 books published from 1976 to 2027. The run opens with The Thomas Berryman Number (1976), and Along Came a Spider (1992) and Kiss the Girls (1995) follow later. Alex Cross, Michael Bennett, Maximum Ride, Daniel X, Witch & Wizard, NYPD Red, Private, Middle School and the Women's Murder Club are among the Patterson series, alongside standalone thrillers, non-fiction and romance. Marshall Karp shares the credit on 5 of the books. Patterson's sales exceed 425 million copies, and Patterson was the first person to sell one million e-books. Forbes ranked Patterson the highest-paid author in 2016, for a third year running, and the National Book Foundation gave Patterson the Literarian Award in November 2015. 27 Stars is scheduled for 2027.