Booksellers and bookselling book series in reading order

by Walter Mosley

by John Grisham

Carolyn G. Hart writes mystery and detective fiction with women sleuths, and the subject records name Annie Laurance Darling, Max Darling and Henrie O as fictitious characters, alongside booksellers and bookselling, women journalists and murder. The catalogue holds 69 books, from The Secret of the Cellars (1964) to Ghost Blows a Kiss (2021), with the 2000s the heaviest decade. Death On Demand, Bailey Ruth, Henrie O and Nela Farley are the lines on record, beside standalone novels, short stories and non-fiction. No new title has been listed since 2021, so the entry is dormant.

Joan Hess's mysteries run in three series: Claire Malloy, a bookseller who investigates; Arly Hanks, a policewoman in the imaginary Arkansas town of Maggody; and Theo Bloomer. The catalogue holds 45 books, from Strangled Prose (1985) to Caveat Emptor and Other Stories in 2016, with Malice in Maggody (1987) and Dear Miss Demeanor (1987) among the early titles. The catalogue is listed as likely complete.

Former attorney Steve Berry practised as a trial lawyer for three decades and served fourteen years in elected office. The American author was born on September 2, 1955, and lives in St. Augustine, Florida. The Amber Room (2003) and The Romanov Prophecy (2004) were his first works, and the catalogue now counts 44 books, with The Sorcerer's Veil announced and the list reaching 2027. Cotton Malone is the recurring character; other listings include Cassiopeia Vitt Adventure, Luke Daniels and standalone novels. Subjects include espionage, political thrillers, popes and booksellers.

Ali Brandon is the name used for the Black Cat Bookshop Mystery series, and the author behind it is a New York Times bestseller. Catalogued titles include Double-Booked for Death (2011), A Novel Way to Die (2012), Words With Fiends (2013), Literally Murder (2014), Plot Boiler (2015) and Twice Told Tail (2016). Darla Pettistone and Hamlet are characters named in the subjects, along with cats, booksellers, cat shows and women sleuths.

Sheila Simonson's catalogue spans Regency historical romance and women-sleuth mysteries, with subject headings naming booksellers, librarians, sheriffs, Washington state and Oregon. The 14 books date from 1984 to 2017, beginning with A Cousinly Connexion (1984) and Lady Elizabeth's Comet (1985). Simonson's series are Lark Dodge, Clanross and Latouche County Mystery. Larkspur (1990), Skylark (1992) and Mudlark (1993) are among the titles, and Call Down the Hawk (2017) is the latest.

Roald Dahl

89 books• 2 series

Roald Dahl (13 September 1916 – 23 November 1990) was a British writer of children's books and short stories, and also a poet, screenwriter and wartime fighter ace. Born in Wales to Norwegian immigrant parents, Dahl lived mostly in England and served in the Royal Air Force in the Second World War, first as a fighter pilot and then as an intelligence officer. The catalogue lists 89 titles from The Gremlins (1943) to Marvelously Revolting Recipes (2024), among them Over to You: Ten Stories of Flyers and Flying (1946), Kiss Kiss (1959), James and the Giant Peach (1961) and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (1964). Dahl's books have sold more than 300 million copies.

Craft shops and bookshops supply the settings for Molly MacRae's mysteries. MacRae's 17 catalogued books run from Wilder Rumors (2007) to All Shell Breaks Loose (2026) across four series: Haunted Yarn Shop Mystery, Highland Bookshop Mystery, A Haunted Shell Shop Mystery and Margaret & Bitsy. Knitters, booksellers and women sleuths investigate murders, with Tennessee among the settings. MacRae continues to publish.

Cliff Janeway, a Denver ex-policeman turned antiquarian bookseller, is the detective John Dunning is remembered for, introduced in Booked to Die (1992). Dunning (1942-2023) was an American writer working in both detective fiction and non-fiction, and his reference books on old-time radio, including Tune in Yesterday (1976), stand beside the novels. The catalogue holds 16 titles from The Holland Suggestions (1975) to Dreamer (2013), at a median of 432 pages. No Dunning book has appeared since 2013.

Garrison Allen wrote A Big Mike Mysteries and A Kate Gallagher Mystery, with 10 books catalogued between 1990 and 1999. Come Nightfall (1990) is the first; Silent Night and Creeping Shadows carry the credit Gary Amo. Desert Cat, Royal Cat, Stable Cat, Baseball Cat and Dinosaur Cat followed, and Movie Cat (1999) is the last. Subjects include cats, Big Mike, Penelope Warren, booksellers and Empty Creek, Arizona, an imaginary place.

Walter Mosley

71 books• 6 series

Easy Rawlins, a Black private investigator in Los Angeles, is the figure Walter Mosley returns to most. Devil in a Blue Dress (1990) opens the catalogue, which holds 71 books and reaches Ghalen (2026). Leonid McGill heads a second detective sequence, and Fearless Jones, Socrates Fortlow, King Oliver and the Crosstown to Oblivion science fiction books make up further lines. Los Angeles and New York are the recurring settings.

Vicki Delany, born Victoria Ann Cargo in Winnipeg, Manitoba, in 1951, is a Canadian mystery novelist with nine mystery series. Delany belongs to Crime Writers of Canada and Capital Crime Writers and appears on panels at Bouchercon, Malice Domestic and Bloody Words. The catalogue lists 58 books, from Whiteout (2000) to Whose Body in the Library (2026). Series include Sherlock Holmes Bookshop Mystery, Year-Round Christmas Mysteries, Constable Molly Smith, Tea By The Sea Mysteries, Klondike Mysteries and Catskill Summer Resort Mysteries.

Historical mystery with women investigators is Kate Parker's line. The catalogue opens with The Vanishing Thief (2013) and continues through The Counterfeit Lady (2014), The Conspiring Woman (2015), The Royal Assassin (2015) and Deadly Scandal (2016). The named series are the Victorian Bookshop Mysteries, the Milliner Mysteries and the Christmas Revels novellas, with booksellers, kidnapping and cold cases among the subjects. Twenty-eight books reach Deadly Ruse in 2026.

Caroline Kepnes

9 books• 4 series

Caroline Kepnes, born in 1976, is an American novelist and screenwriter and a former entertainment reporter. The You series is Kepnes's best known work: You (2014) opens it, followed by Hidden Bodies (2016), You Love Me (2021), For You and Only You (2023) and You First (2026). Kepnes also wrote the standalone novel Providence (2018) and, earlier, Stephen Crane (2004) for the Classic StoryTellers series. Kepnes wrote for the television adaptation of You that ran from 2018 to 2025.

Helene Hanff (1916-1997) was an American writer born in Philadelphia. 84, Charing Cross Road (1970) is the book she is known for, and it became a stage play, a television play and a film. Bookselling, correspondence, the theatre and travel run through the rest of her work, from Underfoot in Show Business (1962) to Letter from New York (1992). Nine titles make up the catalogue.

Anita Brookner was an English novelist and art historian who lived from 1928 to 2016. Brookner held the Slade Professorship of Fine Art at the University of Cambridge across 1967 and 1968, the first woman appointed to that visiting chair, and took the Booker Prize in 1984 for Hotel du Lac. Thirty books are catalogued, from A Start in Life (1981) to At the Hairdresser's (2011). Women, families, female friendship and London life are the recurring subjects.

Michael O'Brien writes Christian fiction and criticism. Christianity and literature, books and reading, children's literature and women artists appear among the catalogued subjects, and Children of the Last Days is the one named series. The catalogue holds 24 titles dated 1994 to 2025, opening with A Landscape With Dragons (1994) and running through Father Elijah (1996), Eclipse of the Sun and Strangers and Sojourners (1997), Plague Journal (1999), A Cry of Stone (2003), Sophia House (2005), The Island of the World (2007) and Theophilos (2010). Letter to the Future is dated 2025.

Dan Starkey, a journalist, is Colin Bateman's longest-running character, introduced in Divorcing Jack (1995) and Cycle of Violence (1995). Mystery Man heads a second series, with Papercuts, Eddie and the Gang With No Name, Martin Murphy, SOS Adventures and Titanic 2020 alongside, the last two for younger readers. Booksellers, private investigators and survival recur as subjects, and Northern Ireland is the standing setting. Bateman, from Bangor in County Down, worked as a journalist before the fiction and also writes for the screen, publishing under the single name Bateman. Forty-two books date from 1995 to 2016, at a median 314 pages.