France book series in reading order

by Michael Bond

by J. Robert Janes

by Aaron Elkins

by Julian Stockwin

by M.L. Longworth

by Sharan Newman

by Martin O’Brien

Georges Simenon

187 books• 5 series

Inspector Maigret, a policeman in Paris, is the centre of Georges Simenon's crime fiction. The catalogue holds 187 books, beginning in 1931 with Pietr the Latvian. Short novels are the form, at a median 169 pages, and the 1950s were the densest decade. Standalone novels, short stories and non-fiction sit beside the Maigret run, most of it translated from the French.

Mark Hebden

32 books• 1 series

Mark Hebden was one of the pen names of John Harris (18 October 1916 - 7 March 1991), a British novelist who also published as Max Hennessy and under his own name. The Hebden name carries the Inspector Pel crime novels, built around the character Evariste Clovis Desire Pel; police procedural, France, police and crime run through the recorded subjects, alongside war and the Second World War. The 1953 novel The Sea Shall Not Have Them became a feature film of the same name in 1954. After Harris died, his daughter Juliet Harris continued the Pel books as Juliet Hebden. This listing gathers 32 titles published between 1952 and 1992.

Victoria Holt's catalogue runs to 185 books published between 1940 and 1995, covering historical fiction, historical romance and mystery. Daughter of Anna (1940) is the earliest title, and Daughters of England (1995) the latest. The listing gathers several credits under other names, including titles marked as Jean Plaidy. Series include Tudor Saga, Plantagenet Saga, Georgian Saga, Stuart Saga, Norman Trilogy, Queen Victoria and Lucrezia Borgia. Kings, queens, England and France are frequent subjects.

Alexandre Dumas

82 books• 12 series

Historical fiction set in France is what Alexandre Dumas is catalogued for. The Three Musketeers and d'Artagnan Romances, the Monte Cristo books, the Marie Antoinette Romances, the Last Valois and the Sainte-Hermine Cycle are the series, with Celebrated Crimes and travel writing among the non-fiction. Eighty-three entries are dated from Antony (1831) onward, several of them in English translation.

Michael Bond, an English author born on 13 January 1926 who died on 27 June 2017, is best known for children's books about Paddington Bear. Sales of the Paddington books passed 35 million worldwide, and the characters moved into animated television, a film series and a stage musical. The catalogue records 217 books under the name, including A Bear Called Paddington, More About Paddington (1959) and Paddington Helps Out (1960). Olga Da Polga, Monsieur Pamplemousse, Parsley and Mouse Called Thursday are further series, and guinea pigs and private investigators appear among the subjects.

J. Robert Janes (1935-2022) was a Canadian novelist who came to fiction from geology, teaching the subject at Brock University before writing full time from 1970. The St. Cyr & Kohler novels are the core of the list: police procedurals set in France during the Second World War, pairing Jean-Louis St-Cyr with Hermann Kohler. Geology textbooks and the Richard Hagen books sit beside them. The catalogue holds 32 titles from Geology And The New Global Tectonics (1976) to The Little Parachute (2016), at a median of 288 pages.

Martin Walker

51 books• 3 series

Martin Walker, born 1947, is a Scottish former journalist and historian who writes the Bruno detective novels, featuring Bruno Courrèges, a police chief in rural France. Walker worked at The Guardian from 1971 to 1999, joined United Press International in 2000 as a Washington correspondent, and is now UPI's editor-in-chief emeritus. The 51 catalogued titles run from The National Front (1977) to A Murder in Springtime (2026). Non-fiction in the list includes The Waking Giant: Soviet Union Under Gorbachev (1986) and The Cold War and the Making of the Modern World (1993).

Peter May

33 books• 5 series

Peter May, born 20 December 1951, is a Scottish novelist, crime writer and television screenwriter. The Blackhouse won the U.S. Barry Award for Crime Novel of the Year and France's Cezam Prix Litteraire, and The Lewis Man took Le Telegramme's Grand Prix des Lecteurs. Entry Island won two awards in 2014, and May received France's Grand Prix de Litterature Policiere in 2025. Sales exceed twelve million copies. The catalogue lists 33 books, from The Reporter (1978) to The Black Loch (2024), with the China Thrillers, the Enzo Files and the Lewis Tetralogy among the series.

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.

Brittany is the setting for the police procedurals of Jean-Luc Bannalec, which follow a French commissaire through murder investigations along the coast. Death in Brittany, also published as Death in Pont-Aven, opened the series in 2012, followed by Murder on Brittany Shores, The Fleur de Sel Murders and The Killing Tide. Sixteen books reach The Secrets of the Abbey, and The Winemaker's End is scheduled for 2027.

Provence made Peter Mayle's name, in travel writing about French village life, food and neighbours. The earlier work is very different: illustrated guides for children and parents, starting with 'What's Happening to Me?' (1975) and 'Where Did I Come From?' (1977), plus the Wicked Willie cartoons. Sam Levitt heads a later crime series. Fifty-four titles make up the catalogue, which closes with My Twenty-Five Years in Provence in 2018.

Maurice Druon

13 books• 2 series

Maurice Druon was a French novelist who lived from 1918 to 2009 and sat in the Académie Française, serving as its Perpetual Secretary between 1985 and 1999. Thirteen books are catalogued from La fin des hommes (1948) to The King Without a Kingdom (1977). The Accursed Kings is the historical sequence, taking in The Iron King (1955), The Strangled Queen (1955), The Poisoned Crown (1956), The Royal Succession (1957) and The Lily and The Lion (1959). Les Grandes Familles is the other series. Kings and rulers, betrayal, the Templars, French history and children's fiction appear among the subject headings.

Kristin Harmel

20 books• 4 series

Kristin Harmel is an American novelist, born May 4, 1979, in Newton, Massachusetts. The Book of Lost Names, The Forest of Vanishing Stars, The Sweetness of Forgetting and The Paris Daughter are among Harmel's most notable novels. At 16 Harmel was already a sports reporter for the St. Petersburg Times and Tampa Bay AllSports magazine, and after graduating from the University of Florida worked as a PEOPLE magazine reporter from 2000 to 2012. The catalogue lists 20 books from How to Sleep with a Movie Star (2006) to Meet Me in Paris (2026), with subjects such as France, family secrets and the Second World War.

Barbara Cartland

702 books• 3 series

Barbara Cartland, born Mary Barbara Hamilton Cartland on 9 July 1901 and died on 21 May 2000, was an English romance novelist and socialite. This directory catalogues 702 titles under Cartland's name, from His Hour (1910) through to A Heart in the Highlands (2024), with the 1980s the heaviest decade. The Eternal Collection, the Pink Collection and the Camfield Novels Of Love group the bulk of that output. Cartland wrote contemporary as well as historical romance, the historical novels set mainly in the Victorian and Edwardian periods, and ranks fifth among the most translated authors worldwide.

Annie Ernaux

26 books

Annie Ernaux, born in 1940, is a French writer whose books are largely autobiographical and closely tied to sociology. The 2022 Nobel Prize in Literature recognised the precision with which Ernaux traces personal memory and the social constraints around it. Her books are short, at a median of 95 pages, and the catalogue of 26 titles runs from Cleaned Out (1974) through A Man's Place (1983), Simple Passion (1991) and I Remain in Darkness (1996) to Writing, the Other Life in 2026.

Honore de Balzac

80 books• 2 series

Honore de Balzac was a French novelist and playwright, born 20 May 1799 and died 18 August 1850. The novel sequence La Comedie humaine gathers most of his fiction into a panorama of French life after Napoleon and counts as his major work. Close observation and an unfiltered account of society place Balzac among the founders of realism in European literature, and even his minor characters are morally ambiguous and fully drawn. The listing holds 80 books, from The Last Fay (1823) to a 2018 collection of The Chouans and other stories.

Freda Lightfoot wrote family sagas set in the north of England. 54 catalogued books run from Wishing Water (1995) to Angels at War (2020), with the 2010s the busiest decade. Champion Street Market, Luckpenny Land, Lakeland Sagas, Salford Saga, Poor House Lane, Polly's Journey and the Post War Saga are the series. Social conditions, sisters and the Second World War recur as subjects. The median book runs 368 pages.

Patrick Modiano

29 books• 2 series

Patrick Modiano is a French novelist, born Jean Patrick Modiano on 30 July 1945, and took the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2014. Modiano writes autofiction, mixing autobiography with historical fiction, and returns repeatedly to the experience of the Second World War in France and its effect on identity, memory and loss. La Place de l'Étoile (1968) opens the catalogue, with Night Rounds and The Night Watch (1969), Ring Roads (1972), Villa Triste (1975) and Missing Person (1978) following; the Occupation Trilogy is the one series listed. The 29 catalogued titles reach Ballerina in 2025, at a median of 146 pages.

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.

John Dickson Carr wrote traditional detective fiction, most of it set in England. It Walks by Night (1930) opens the catalogue with the investigator Henri Bencolin, Hag's Nook (1932) starts the Dr. Gideon Fell series, and the Sir Henry Merrivale novels appeared as Carter Dickson. Eighty-seven catalogued titles, reissues included, run to 2022, at a median of 251 pages.

Paul Doherty writes historical mysteries set largely in England, with 127 books catalogued from The Death of a King (1985) to The Meadows of Murder (2026). Recurring detectives include Hugh Corbett, Brother Athelstan, Kathryn Swinbrooke and Amerotke. Other series cover the Canterbury Tales Mysteries, Ancient Rome, Egyptian Mysteries, Nicholas Segalla, Mathilde of Westminster, Margaret Beaufort and Vlad Drakulya. Satan in St Mary's (1986) and Spy in Chancery (1988) are among the early titles.

Medieval England supplies the ground for Michael Jecks's crime writing. The Knights Templar Mysteries, featuring Sir Baldwin Furnshill and Simon Puttock, form the bulk of a catalogue that also holds the Bloody Mary Mysteries, Vintaine, Holy Wars and Shanghailanders. Murder investigation and English history run through the books. Jecks's 59 catalogued titles open with The Last Templar (1995) and reach Treaty of Blood (2026), with a further book announced for 2027.

Romance crossed with suspense defines Elizabeth Adler's fiction. The British author's 33 catalogued books open with Leonie / Private Desires in 1985 and close with Better Than Revenge in 2021, and the Mac Reilly novels supply the one recurring investigator. Inheritance, family secrets, mothers and daughters, and French settings recur. Adler has also published as Ariana Scott, and her novels have appeared in 22 languages.

David Donachie (1944 to 21 December 2023) was a British author of nautical historical novels, who also wrote as Tom Connery, Jack Ludlow and, from 2019, Jack Cole. The Privateersman Mysteries and John Pearce are series, and Harry Ludlow is a character named in the subjects. The catalogue lists 43 books from The Devil's Own Luck (1993) to If I'd Known You in a Better Time (2024), with Markham of the Marines, Nelson and Emma, Contraband Shore and SAS Boat Troop among the other series. Privateering, naval history and France appear in the subjects.