Espionage book series in reading order

by David Hagberg

by Donald Hamilton

by Brad Thor

by Len Deighton

by Alex Berenson

by Jack Higgins

by Brian Freemantle

by Daniel Silva

by Susan Elia MacNeal

by Stella Rimington

by Andy McNab

by Len Deighton

by Jane Thynne

by Olen Steinhauer

by David Archer

by Luke Jennings

by Jack Higgins

by Charles Cumming

by Jack Carr

by Traci Hunter Abramson

by Stephen Coonts

by Adam Hall

by John Buchan

by Robert Dugoni

by David Baldacci

Robert Ludlum (May 25, 1927 to March 12, 2001) was an American thriller author who wrote 27 novels and created Jason Bourne. Between 300 million and 500 million copies of Ludlum's books are estimated to be in print, in 33 languages and 40 countries. The catalogue opens with The Scarlatti Inheritance (1971), followed by The Osterman Weekend (1972) and The Matlock Paper (1973). Ludlum also wrote as Jonathan Ryder and Michael Shepherd. The catalogue also carries Covert-One and Paul Janson entries, plus titles dated after 2001 such as The Bourne Revenge (2026).

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).

John Gardner (20 November 1926 – 3 August 2007) was an English author of spy and thriller novels, best known for continuing the James Bond books. Gardner also wrote the Boysie Oakes series and three novels featuring Professor Moriarty, the villain created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Gardner joined the Home Guard at 13 during the Second World War and went on to serve in the Fleet Air Arm and the Royal Marines; after demobilisation Gardner studied theology at St John's College, Cambridge, and was ordained a Church of England priest in 1953. The Liquidator (1964) opens a catalogue of 60 books that includes Understrike (1965), Amber Nine (1966), Madrigal (1967) and Traitor's Exit (1970) and ends with Moriarty (2008). Herbie Kruger, Derek Torry and Detective Sergeant Suzie Mountford are further series.

David Hagberg (October 9, 1942 to September 8, 2019) was an American novelist of techno-thrillers. Kirk McGarvey, a super-spy, is the character most associated with Hagberg. The listing also carries the Wallace Mahoney, Magic Man, Bill Lane and Nate Osborne and Ashley Borden series, Flash Gordon novels and non-fiction. Espionage, terrorism, intelligence officers and assassins are among the subjects, and Traitor (2022) is the newest listed title.

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.

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.

John Le Carre

30 books• 5 series

John le Carré was the pen name of David John Moore Cornwell, an English novelist of espionage who lived from 19 October 1931 to 12 December 2020. During the 1950s and 1960s Cornwell worked for MI5 and MI6, and late in life took Irish citizenship. The catalogue counts 30 books, from Call for the Dead (1961) to A Private Spy: The Letters of John le Carré (2022). The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1963), the third novel, was an international bestseller and an award-winning film. George Smiley is the recurring figure, with Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (1974) and Smiley's People (1979) in the list. Subjects include the Cold War, spies and intelligence officers.

Helen MacInnes

22 books• 2 series

Helen MacInnes wrote espionage thrillers from the Second World War onward. Above Suspicion (1939) and Assignment in Brittany (1942) belong to the wartime, anti-Nazi run; Robert Renwick heads a later series. Spies, intelligence services and European settings are the constants. Twenty-two titles are catalogued, ending with Home is the Hunter, and the books run long at 432 pages on median.

Anthony Price (1928-2019) was an English writer of espionage thrillers. Dr David Audley, an intelligence analyst, and Colonel Jack Butler carry the whole of his fiction, from The Labyrinth Makers (1970) through The Alamut Ambush, Colonel Butler's Wolf, October Men, Other Paths to Glory and Our Man in Camelot. Twenty books close with The Memory Trap (1989), the series complete.

Eric Van Lustbader, born on 24 December 1946, is an American writer of thrillers and fantasy who has also published as Eric Lustbader and Eric V. Lustbader. Lustbader graduated from Stuyvesant High School and from Columbia College with a sociology degree, holds a second-level Reiki degree, and is married to the author and editor Victoria Lustbader. The catalogue lists 55 books, from The Sunset Warrior (1977) to White Wolf (2025). Series include the Sunset Warrior Cycle, Nicholas Linnear/Ninja Cycle, China Maroc, Pearl Saga, Jack McClure/Alli Carson, Evan Ryder and Bravo Shaw. Subjects include espionage, intelligence officers and Japan.

Robert Muchamore

51 books• 7 series

Robert Muchamore, born 26 December 1971, is an English author of young adult fiction known for the CHERUB, Henderson's Boys and Rock War series. The catalogue holds 51 Muchamore books from 2004 to 2026. The Recruit, Kerry's First Mission and CHERUB at Christmas are among the 2004 entries, and Maximum Security followed in 2005. Subjects include spies, teenagers, undercover operations, orphans and World War II, and CHERUB is tagged as an imaginary organization. Robin Hood and CHERUB 2 are also listed, and War and Peas (2026) is the newest title.

Len Deighton, born Leonard Cyril Deighton on 18 February 1929, was a British writer of spy novels, cookery books and history who died on 15 March 2026. After national service in the Royal Air Force, Deighton studied at Saint Martin's School of Art and at the Royal College of Art, graduating from the latter in 1955. Work as a book and magazine illustrator followed, including the cover of the first UK edition of On the Road, along with a spell in advertising. The catalogue lists 40 Deighton books, with The IPCRESS File (1962), Funeral in Berlin (1964) and Billion-Dollar Brain (1966) among them. Series include Harry Palmer and Bernard Samson.

Ian Fleming

23 books• 5 series

Ian Fleming (Ian Lancaster Fleming, 28 May 1908 to 12 August 1964) was a British writer best known for the postwar James Bond spy novels. Casino Royale (1953) opens the catalogue, followed by Live and Let Die (1954), Moonraker (1955), Diamonds Are Forever (1956), From Russia with Love (1957) and Goldfinger (1959). The listing holds 23 books, including The Diamond Smugglers (1957) and the collection Talk of the Devil: The Collected Writings of Ian Fleming (2025). Fleming came from a wealthy family tied to the merchant bank Robert Fleming & Co. and was educated at Eton and Sandhurst. Subjects include espionage, secret service and diamond smuggling.

Eric Ambler (1909-1998) wrote English thrillers, spy novels above all, and worked as a screenwriter. His 29 catalogued books span 1936 to 1995, from The Dark Frontier (1936) to The Story So Far (1995), with the 1950s his busiest decade. Ambler built series around Valeshoff, Charles Latimer and Arthur Abdel Simpson, and his subjects take in intelligence services, smuggling and the Orient Express. He also published as Eliot Reed for titles written with Charles Rodda.

Brian Freemantle (10 June 1936 – 23 December 2024) was an English writer of thrillers and nonfiction, known for the 1977 spy novel Charlie Muffin. The catalogue opens with The Touchables (1969) and ends with The Cloud Collector (2015). Charlie Muffin is a recurring character, and Cowley and Danilov and Sebastian Holmes are further series. Espionage, intelligence services, Great Britain, Russia and the Soviet Union are recorded subjects. Other titles include Goodbye To An Old Friend (1973), Face Me When You Walk Away (1976) and The Inscrutable Charlie Muffin (1979).

Tom Clancy

72 books• 9 series

Tom Clancy, born Thomas Leo Clancy Jr. on April 12, 1947 and dead on October 1, 2013, was an American writer of techno-thrillers, a form that carries technical detail about espionage and military science. An insurance agent before publishing, Clancy debuted with The Hunt for Red October in 1984. The Ryanverse books follow Jack Ryan, an analyst with the Central Intelligence Agency. Subjects across the listing include terrorism, suspense and espionage. The catalogue carries 72 titles under the Clancy name dated 1984 to 2023, with Bill McCay, Grant Blackwood and Peter Telep credited on one or two each.

Daniel Silva

30 books• 3 series

Daniel Silva writes espionage thrillers. The catalogue holds 30 books between The Unlikely Spy (1995) and Ransom (2026), with the Gabriel Allon novels as the main sequence, a shorter Michael Osbourne series beside it, and several standalone titles. Art restorers, assassins, terrorism and Israeli intelligence officers run through the subject tags. Silva is still publishing.

Alex Berenson

24 books• 4 series

John Wells, an intelligence officer working undercover, leads Alex Berenson's espionage thrillers from The Faithful Spy (2006). Berenson's catalogue holds 24 books, opening with The Number (2003) and reaching The Fatherhood Manifesto in 2026, with the Unreported Truth titles and other non-fiction beside the novels. Terrorism, the CIA and undercover operations supply the material.

Ross Thomas (1926-1995) wrote American crime fiction, best known for witty thrillers that lay bare the machinery of professional politics. Five of his novels appeared under the pseudonym Oliver Bleeck and feature Philip St. Ives, a professional go-between. Mac McCorkle and Arthur Case Wu head his other series. Twenty-seven books run from The Cold War Swap (1966) to Ah, Treachery! (1994), with Washington and the Cold War recurring as settings.

John Creasey (17 September 1908 to 9 June 1973) was an English novelist of detective and crime fiction who also wrote science fiction, romance and westerns, producing more than six hundred novels under twenty-eight pseudonyms. Creasey characters include The Toff (Richard Rollison), Commander George Gideon of Scotland Yard, Inspector Roger West, The Baron (John Mannering), Dr Emmanuel Cellini and Dr Stanislaus Alexander Palfrey. Gideon, introduced in Gideon's Day (1955), was the basis for the 1958 John Ford film Gideon's Day and the television series Gideon's Way (1964 to 1966). The catalogue lists 497 books from Seven Times Seven (1932), with early titles as M.E. Cooke and Margaret Cooke.

Craig Thomas (1942-2011) was a Welsh thriller writer working in espionage and spy fiction. Two series carry his name: Mitchell Gant, opening with Firefox (1977) and continuing in Firefox Down! (1983), and the Kenneth Aubrey and Patrick Hyde novels. Soviet fighter aircraft, terrorists and the question of German reunification supply the material. Eighteen titles span Rat Trap (1976) to Slipping into Shadow (1998), two of them published as David Grant, at a median of 492 pages.

Robert Littell, born 8 January 1935 in Brooklyn to a family of Russian Jewish origin, writes spy fiction. Littell's novels turn on the CIA and the Soviet Union, drawing on a working life that took in a 1956 degree from Alfred University, four years in the US Navy as navigator, antisubmarine warfare officer and communications officer, and years at Newsweek during the Cold War, including a posting as foreign correspondent from 1965 to 1970. Littell lives in France. The catalogue holds 26 books, from If Israel Lost the War (1969) to Bronshtein in the Bronx (2025).

Donald Hamilton (1916-2006) was a Swedish-American writer of novels, short stories and outdoor non-fiction. The Matt Helm books, running from 1960 to 1993, are the best-known work, following an undercover counter-agent employed by a secret American government agency. Hamilton also wrote crime fiction and westerns, The Big Country (1958) among them. 41 titles are catalogued, from Date With Darkness (1947) to The Damagers (1993), and the 1960s are the densest decade. Espionage and thrillers carry the subject tags.

Leslie Charteris (12 May 1907 to 15 April 1993) was a British-Chinese writer of adventure fiction and a screenwriter, born Leslie Charles Bowyer-Yin. Charteris created Simon Templar, the hero known as The Saint, and the catalogue lists titles such as Enter the Saint (1930) and Alias the Saint (1931). The catalogue begins with X Esquire (1927) and also lists a Bill Kennedy series. Mystery, crime and espionage thrillers are among the subjects.