Comics & graphic novels, crime & mystery book series in reading order

by Peter O’Donnell

by John Allison

Ben Aaronovitch

105 books• 9 series

Ben Aaronovitch, born 22 February 1964, is an English novelist and screenwriter and the author of the Rivers of London novels. The PC Peter Grant / Rivers of London series has a companion line of graphic novels, and London, police, magic, wizards and murder are recorded subjects. Aaronovitch wrote two Doctor Who television serials in the late 1980s, as well as spin-off novels from Doctor Who and Blake's 7. The listing also files the Doctor Who: New Adventures line and a Seventh Doctor comic line under the Aaronovitch name. Stone and Sky (2025) is the newest title.

Modesty Blaise (1965) opens Peter O'Donnell's catalogue and introduces the action heroine and undercover trouble-shooter who defines it. O'Donnell (1920-2010) was an English writer of mysteries and of comic strips, and the Modesty Blaise comic strip runs alongside the novels as a separate catalogued sequence. Under the pen name Madeleine Brent, O'Donnell also wrote gothic historical romance; Merlin's Keep took the Romantic Novelists' Association's Romantic Novel of the Year Award in 1978. The 48 catalogued titles reach from 1965 to 2017.

Duane Swierczynski (Duane Louis Swierczynski, born February 22, 1972) is an American crime writer whose work spans non-fiction, novels and comic books. The Complete Idiot's Guide to Frauds, Scams, and Cons (2002) is the first catalogued title, and Secret Dead Men (2005) and The Wheelman (2005) are early titles. Series in the listing include Cable, Birds of Prey, Bloodshot, Black Hood, Level 26 and Charlie Hardie. Comics, superheroes, Judge Dredd, ex-police officers and Philadelphia appear among the subjects.

Greg Rucka

105 books• 35 series

Greg Rucka, born November 29, 1969, is an American novelist and comics writer. The Atticus Kodiak novels carry Rucka's name, as do the creator-owned comics Whiteout, Queen & Country, Stumptown and Lazarus. For DC Comics, Rucka wrote long runs on Detective Comics, Wonder Woman and Gotham Central, and co-created Kate Kane, the second Batwoman; the Marvel work includes Elektra, Wolverine and The Punisher. Crossover material by Rucka includes No Man's Land, Infinite Crisis and New Krypton. The catalogue lists 106 titles from 1994 onward, with Keeper (1996) and Whiteout (1998) among the early entries and a Batwoman collection scheduled for 2027.

Robert Kirkman

181 books• 31 series

Robert Kirkman, born 30 November 1978, is an American comic book writer, screenwriter and producer. Kirkman co-created The Walking Dead, Invincible, Tech Jacket, Outcast, Oblivion Song and Fire Power for Image Comics, wrote Ultimate X-Men, Irredeemable Ant-Man and Marvel Zombies for Marvel Comics, and worked with Todd McFarlane on Haunt. Kirkman is one of the five partners of Image Comics and serves as its COO. The catalogue gathers 181 volumes published between 2001 and 2026, listed as graphic novel and omnibus collections, from Battle Pope, Vol. 1: Genesis (2001) to The Emissary (2026). Charlie Adlard shares the credit on 2 volumes and Sean Phillips on 1.

John Allison

41 books• 9 series

John Allison, born 1976, writes and draws comics, and has been producing them since 1998. Giant Days and Bad Machinery head a 41-title catalogue that runs from Heavy Metal Hearts and Flowers (2005) to Kill or Be Quilt (2025), with Scary Go Round, By Night, Steeple and Great British Bump-Off alongside. Teenage girls, women college students, female friendship and small-scale detective work recur as subjects. Allison's comics have taken multiple Eisner Awards.

Mark Gatiss

16 books• 7 series

Mark Gatiss, born 17 October 1966, is an English novelist who also works as an actor, comedian, screenwriter, director and producer. Gatiss co-created the BBC comedy The League of Gentlemen, which ran from 1999 to 2002, and co-created the BBC series Sherlock and the miniseries Dracula with Steven Moffat; several Doctor Who episodes also carry the Gatiss name. Awards include two Laurence Olivier Awards, a BAFTA TV Award, a Primetime Emmy Award and a Peabody Award. The catalogue holds 16 books published between 1994 and 2022, starting at St. Anthony's Fire (1994), and lists Lucifer Box and Sherlock Manga among the series credited to Gatiss.

Janet Evanovich

79 books• 13 series

Stephanie Plum, a bail bond agent turned bounty hunter, is the recurring lead of Janet Evanovich's longest series. Evanovich writes humorous mystery and romance, and the catalogue holds 79 books from Full House (1981) to Split Second in 2026. Other recurring lines include Kate O'Hare & Nicolas Fox, Lizzy & Diesel, Knight and Moon, Alexandra Barnaby and the Culhane Family.

Charlaine Harris

78 books• 14 series

Charlaine Harris, born Jean Charlaine Harris Schulz on November 25, 1951, in Tunica, Mississippi, is an American author specialising in mysteries. The Southern Vampire Mysteries, Harris's best-known series, became HBO's True Blood, which ran for seven seasons from 2008 to 2014. The catalogue starts with Sweet and Deadly (1981) and A Secret Rage (1984) and reaches The Last Wizards' Ball (2025). Sookie Stackhouse, Aurora Teagarden, Lily Bard, Gunnie Rose and Midnight, Texas are among the series. Vampires, werewolves and women librarians appear in the subjects, and Harris lives in Texas.

Richard Castle is a fictional novelist from the ABC crime series Castle, and the name doubles as a pseudonym for real books about Nikki Heat and Derrick Storm modelled on the novels mentioned in the show. Screenwriter Tom Straw wrote the books, and actor Nathan Fillion serves as the public face of Richard Castle on the books and at signings. The catalogue lists 17 titles from Heat Wave (2008) to Crashing Heat (2019), including Naked Heat (2010), Heat Rises (2011) and Storm Front (2013). The Richard Castle books became New York Times bestsellers.

Denise Mina

31 books• 13 series

Denise Mina is a Scottish crime writer, born 21 August 1966 and publishing since 1996. Garnethill (1998), the debut novel, became a bestseller and took the Crime Writers' Association John Creasey Award for best debut. Exile and Resolution completed that trilogy, which follows Maureen O'Donnell, a survivor of childhood sexual abuse. Val McDermid called Mina "crime writing royalty", and Mina was central to the rise of Tartan Noir. Conviction (2019) was chosen for Reese's Book Club, and The Good Liar (2025) looks at forensic junk science and what it means for justice. The catalogue holds 31 titles, with the Alex Morrow, Paddy Meehan and Anna and Fin series plus graphic novels.

David Liss

29 books• 5 series

David Liss, born March 16, 1966 in New Jersey, is an American writer of novels, essays, short fiction and comic books. Liss grew up in South Florida and studied at Syracuse University, Georgia State University and Columbia University, then left postgraduate study of 18th-century British literature, dissertation unfinished, to write full-time. The 29 catalogued books start with A Conspiracy of Paper (2000) and include The Coffee Trader (2003) and The Whiskey Rebels (2008). Series are Benjamin Weaver and Randoms. Liss lives in San Antonio, Texas, and The Death and Birth of Iliana Marek (2026) is the newest title.

Max Allan Collins

199 books• 34 series

Max Allan Collins, born March 3, 1948, is an American mystery writer who also works in comics, graphic novels and screenplays. Collins created the Ms. Tree and Road to Perdition comics, the second of which became a film, and the series characters Quarry, a hitman, Nolan, a thief, and private investigator Nate Heller. Collins wrote the Dick Tracy newspaper strip for years, and the Mystery Writers of America named Collins a Grand Master in 2017. Catalogue entries run from Bait Money (1973) to Quarry's Reunion (2026), with Eliot Ness, Mallory and Disaster among the other series.

Jeff Lindsay

19 books• 6 series

Jeff Lindsay is the pen name of Jeffry P. Freundlich, an American crime novelist and playwright. His best known creation is Dexter Morgan, a Miami police forensic analyst who is himself a psychopath and who kills serial killers. The Dexter novels begin with Darkly Dreaming Dexter in 2004, and the first of them became the Showtime television series that ran from 2006 to 2013 with Michael C. Hall in the role. Lindsay also wrote the Billy Knight novels and the Riley Wolfe thrillers. The catalogue holds 19 titles, running from Tropical Depression in 1994 to The Fourth Rule in 2023.

Donald E. Westlake

127 books• 11 series

Donald E. Westlake (July 12, 1933 to December 31, 2008) was an American writer credited with more than one hundred novels and non-fiction books. Crime fiction was Westlake's specialty, comic capers above all, with occasional science fiction. Westlake created two professional criminals with long-running series: the hardboiled Parker, published under the pen name Richard Stark, and John Dortmunder, the lead of a more humorous series. Westlake won the Edgar Award three times. The catalogue holds 127 Westlake books from 1959 to 2022, and other listings include Alan Grofield, Sam Holt and the Mitch Tobin books written as Tucker Coe.

Sarah Ward writes crime fiction set in England. Fourteen books are catalogued between In Bitter Chill (2015) and The First Mistake (2026), among them A Deadly Thaw (2016), A Patient Fury (2017), The Shrouded Path (2018), The Birthday Girl (2023) and Death Rites (2025). DC Connie Childs is the recurring character, and Mallory Dawson and Carla James head the other two series. The Quickening (2020) and The Shadowing (2021) appeared under the name Rhiannon Ward. Missing persons, family secrets, murder investigation and crimes against girls run through the subject headings. The median book runs 386 pages.

Gertrude Chandler Warner (April 16, 1890 to August 30, 1979) was an American author who wrote mostly for children. Warner wrote the original book of The Boxcar Children, published in 1942, and the next 18 books in the series. Earlier catalogued titles include The House of Delight (1916) and The World in a Barn (1927), and Surprise Island (1949) and The Yellow House Mystery (1952) came after The Boxcar Children. Orphans, brothers and sisters, and mystery stories are among the subjects. The catalogue also carries Boxcar Children lines such as Adventures of Benny and Watch and Boxcar Children Great Adventure under Warner's name.

Victor Gischler

54 books• 18 series

Victor Gischler is an American writer of comedic crime fiction, and the catalogue adds comics across horror, fantasy, science fiction and superhero subjects. The 54 books run from Gun Monkeys / Fast Charlie (2001) to The Bones of the World (2023), with The Pistol Poets (2004), Shotgun Opera (2006) and Vampire a Go-Go (2009) among them. Series include Buffy The Vampire Slayer Season 9: Spike, Angel & Faith: Season 10, Red Sonja/Conan, Ink Mage Legacy and Kingdom of Ghosts.

Gary Phillips, born in 1955, is an American writer, editor and community activist. Violent Spring (1994) is held up as a classic of crime fiction and one of the essential crime novels about Los Angeles. The work ranges from hard-boiled mysteries, the Ivan Monk series among them, to the graphic novel Angeltown and the anthology The Obama Inheritance: Fifteen Stories of Conspiracy Noir. Phillips also worked as a story editor and writer on the television show Snowfall. The catalogue holds 35 books ending with The Haul (2026), with Martha Chainey, Harry Ingram, Essex Man and Matthew Henson among the series.

Jason Starr

28 books• 7 series

Jason Starr, born November 22, 1966, is an American novelist, comic book writer and screenwriter from New York City, working mainly in crime fiction and thrillers. Tough Luck (2003) took the Barry Award for Best Paperback Original and an Anthony Award nomination in the same category in 2004; Twisted City won that Anthony category in 2005; and The Chill won the first Anthony Award for Best Graphic Novel in 2011. The catalogue holds 28 books from Cold Caller (1997) to Vanessa's Men (2026), with Wolverine MAX and Gotham among the recorded series.