Hollywood (Los Angeles, Calif.) book series in reading order

by Stuart M. Kaminsky

by Loren D. Estleman

Stuart M. Kaminsky (29 September 1934 to 9 October 2009) was an American mystery novelist who also taught film. Four mystery series carry the name: Toby Peters, a private eye in 1940s Hollywood; Porfiry Petrovich Rostnikov, a Moscow police inspector; Abe Lieberman, a Chicago police officer; and Lew Fonesca, a process server in Sarasota, Florida. A Cold Red Sunrise, a Rostnikov novel, won the Edgar Award for Best Novel in 1989. The catalogue holds 85 books from 1974 to 2011, and its earliest entries are American Film Genres (1974) and Don Siegel: Director (1974).

Michael Connelly

60 books• 10 series

Michael Connelly is an American crime novelist, born July 21, 1956. The catalogue lists 60 Connelly books, running from The Black Echo (1992) to Ironwood (2026). LAPD detective Harry Bosch and defence attorney Mickey Haller are the recurring leads, and the listed series include Bosch Universe, Lincoln Lawyer and Safe Man. The Black Echo won the Mystery Writers of America Edgar Award for Best First Novel. Clint Eastwood directed and starred in a 2002 film of Blood Work. Subject headings cover police procedurals, legal fiction, serial murder and Los Angeles.

Rowan Coleman writes contemporary fiction and children's books, and publishes the Bronte Sisters Mysteries as Bella Ellis. The Ruby Parker novels, about a child actor, run from 2005 to 2007 and take in Ruby Parker Hits the Small Time, Ruby Parker: Soap Star, Ruby Parker: Film Star and Ruby Parker: Hollywood Star. Motherhood carries the adult fiction, in The Accidental Mother (2005), Mommy by Mistake (2007) and The Baby Group (2007), and Sophie Mills is her other series. The 30 catalogued books open with Growing Up Twice (2002) and close with A Gift of Poison (2023).

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.

Jackie Collins

40 books• 6 series

Jackie Collins wrote about Hollywood, the film business and the women who fought their way through it. 40 catalogued books run from The World Is Full of Married Men (1960) through The Stud (1969), The Love Killers (1974), The World Is Full Of Divorced Women (1975) and Lovers and Gamblers (1977), ending at The Santangelos. Lucky Santangelo is the character Collins is best known for, joined by the Madison Castelli and Fontaine Khaled books. The catalogue is likely complete.

Joseph Wambaugh

21 books• 1 series

Los Angeles policing is Joseph Wambaugh's subject, written as police procedurals and as true-crime case studies. The New Centurions (1970) opens the catalogue, followed by The Blue Knight (1972), The Onion Field (1973), The Choirboys (1976) and The Black Marble (1977), with the Hollywood Station books later in the run. Twenty-one catalogued titles end at Harbor Nocturne in 2012.

Loren D. Estleman

122 books• 10 series

Loren D. Estleman, born September 15, 1952, in Ann Arbor, Michigan, is an American author of detective fiction and westerns. Estleman is known for crime novels featuring Amos Walker, a private investigator, and Detroit recurs in the subject headings. Page Murdock, US Deputy Marshal, Peter Macklin, Valentino and Detroit are the other series. The catalogue counts 122 books from Red Highway (1976) to Man One (2026), and Motor City Blue appeared in 1980.

Across 194 catalogued books, Danielle Steel writes contemporary romance and family drama: love stories, marriages, widowhood and the turns that reshape a life. The run starts with Going Home (1973) and continues through Celebration, with 24 Hours scheduled for 2027. Steel's catalogue also holds children's picture books, short stories and non-fiction beside the standalone novels that make up most of it.

P.G. Wodehouse

145 books• 13 series

Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse (15 October 1881 to 14 February 1975) was an English humorist, one of the most widely read of the 20th century. Wodehouse created Bertie Wooster and his valet Jeeves, the talkative Psmith, Lord Emsworth and the Blandings Castle circle, the Oldest Member with golf stories, and Mr. Mulliner with tall tales. Born in Guildford, Wodehouse attended Dulwich College. The catalogue records 145 books from The Pothunters (1902) through 2019, including school stories, the Jeeves, Psmith, Ukridge and Uncle Fred series, short stories and non-fiction.

Lawrence Sanders wrote crime fiction across five series: Archy McNally, Edward X. Delaney, the Commandment books, Peter Tangent and Timothy Cone. The Anderson Tapes (1970) is the earliest of 43 catalogued titles, with The First Deadly Sin (1973) and The Second Deadly Sin (1977) among them, and McNally's Bluff the last. Private investigators, Florida and hard-boiled detection fill the subject tags.

Harold Robbins

36 books• 6 series

Harold Robbins wrote commercial fiction about businessmen, Hollywood and the appetites of the very rich. Never Love a Stranger (1948) opens the catalogue, followed by The Dream Merchants, A Stone for Danny Fisher, 79 Park Avenue, Stiletto and The Carpetbaggers (1961). Thirty-six titles make up the list, including the Betsy and Predators sequences and the later Madison Dupre art-theft novels, ending at The Curse in 2011.

Jen Calonita is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of books for teens and middle grade readers, with sales above one million copies and translations into 15 languages. A Boston College graduate, Calonita worked as an entertainment journalist at Teen People, which inspired Secrets of My Hollywood Life (2007); that first book won the Louisiana Young Readers Award and grew into a six-book series. The catalogue counts 46 books through Practically Magic (2026), with The Vanishing Isle listed for 2027. Other series include Fairy Tale Reform School, Disney's Lost Legends, Isle of Ever, Royal Academy Rebels and Enchanters.

Gore Vidal

67 books• 6 series

Gore Vidal, born Eugene Louis Vidal on October 3, 1925, was an American writer and public intellectual noted for a cynical, epigrammatic wit, and died on July 31, 2012. Vidal's novels and essays attacked the social and sexual norms Vidal saw shaping American life. Born into an upper-class political family as grandson of U.S. Senator Thomas Gore, Vidal ran unsuccessfully as a Democrat for the House of Representatives in New York in 1960 and for the Senate in California in 1982. The catalogue lists 67 books from Williwaw (1946) to I Told You So (2012), including In a Yellow Wood (1947), The City and the Pillar (1948) and Death Before Bedtime (1953). Narratives of Empire and Myra and Myron are among the series.

Carolyn Keene is a Stratemeyer Syndicate pen name, the credit on the Nancy Drew mysteries. Mildred Wirt Benson, one of the writers behind the name, used it from 1929 to 1953 and contributed to 23 of the first 30 Nancy Drew books. The catalogue lists 647 Carolyn Keene books, beginning with The Secret of the Old Clock, The Hidden Staircase and The Bungalow Mystery (all 1930) and reaching Vans & Villains (2026). Series include Nancy Drew Mystery Stories, Nancy Drew Files, Nancy Drew and the Clue Crew, Nancy Drew Diaries, Nancy Drew: Girl Detective and Dana Girls Mystery Stories.

C.D. Reiss is an American novelist of contemporary and erotic romance, with 63 catalogued books published since 2011. Songs of Submission, Submission, Songs of Corruption, the Manhattan Mafia books, Crowne Brothers and the DiLustro Arrangement are among the series, and the early Laura Carnegie mysteries appeared as Christine DeMaio-Rice. Reiss took the 2017 Audie Award for the Marriage Games audiobook, after two nominations in a single category in 2016. Leveled (2026) is the newest title.

Ron Goulart

135 books• 26 series

Ron Goulart (13 January 1933 to 14 January 2022) was an American historian of popular culture who also wrote mystery, fantasy and science fiction. Goulart published novels and novelizations under several pseudonyms, among them Kenneth Robeson, Joseph Silva, Josephine Kains and Zeke Masters. The catalogue lists 135 books from The Sword Swallower (1968) to The Phantom (2018). Series under the name include Barnum System, John Easy, Odd Jobs, Inc, Jack Conger, TekWar, Vampirella and Alex Raymond's Flash Gordon, and Groucho Marx and comic books appear among the subjects.

Jules Bennett's catalogue lists 67 books from Home Again (2007) to Their White-Hot Christmas (2023), with subjects including contemporary, billionaire, workplace and western romance. Series credited to Bennett include Rancher's Heirs, Barrington Trilogy, St. Johns of Stonerock, Mafia Moguls, Return to Haven, Lockwood Lightning and Angel's Share. For Business...Or Marriage? (2010) and Seducing the Enemy's Daughter (2010) are among the earlier titles. Maureen Child shares the credit on 1 book.

Terence Faherty, born 1954, is an American writer of mystery novels. Two detective sequences organise the catalogue, Owen Keane Mystery and Scott Elliott Mystery, and both Owen Keane and Scott Elliott are recorded as fictitious characters. Private investigators, murder, the motion picture industry, legal material, Indiana, New Jersey and Hollywood sit among the subjects. The 24 books run from Deadstick (1991) to The Cardboard Box (2019), with Live To Regret (1992), The Lost Keats (1993) and Die Dreaming (1994) early in the sequence. The median book is 250 pages.

Budd Schulberg

20 books

Budd Schulberg (1914-2009), born Seymour Wilson Schulberg, was an American novelist, screenwriter, television producer and sports writer. What Makes Sammy Run? (1941) and The Harder They Fall (1947) are the novels most associated with Schulberg. The screenplay for On the Waterfront earned Schulberg an Academy Award, and A Face in the Crowd followed in 1957. The 20 catalogued books run from Company house (1935) to Ringside: A Treasury of Boxing Reportage (2006). Subjects include Hollywood, boxing and organized crime.

Louise Bagshawe, later credited as Louise Mensch, has 18 catalogued books from Career Girls (1995) to Career Game (2015). Subject tags point to romance, young women, businesswomen, ambition, revenge, friendship, Hollywood and the motion picture industry. The Movie (1996), Tall Poppies (1997), Venus Envy (1998), When She Was Bad (2001) and Tuesday's Child (2005) are among the titles. The median book length is 448 pages, and the catalogue treats the list as likely complete.

Lindsay Marcott has 10 catalogued books spanning 1977 to 2022, with the earliest four credited under the name Lindsay Maracotta. The Sad Eyed Ladies (1977), Caribe (1980), Hide and Seek (1982) and Everything We Wanted (1984) carry that credit. Marcott's series is Lucy Freers Mystery, and subject headings name Lucy Freers as a fictitious character, with women sleuths, Hollywood and film producers. The Dead Hollywood Moms Society (1996), The Dead Celeb (1997) and Playing Dead (1999) are titles from the 1990s. The Producer's Daughter (2013), Mrs. Rochester's Ghost (2021) and Shadow Sister (2022) are the latest titles.

Born on 2 January 1963, Gigi Levangie Grazer is an American novelist, screenwriter and television producer. The film Stepmom, starring Julia Roberts and Susan Sarandon, is the most widely known of the screen work. Novels that reached New York Times bestseller lists include The Starter Wife, Maneater, Queen Takes King and The After Wife. Eight catalogued books run from Rescue Me (2000) to Been There, Married That (2020); three of them, Fairytale Ending (2007), Seven Deadlies (2013) and Been There, Married That, carry the byline Gigi Levangie. Subjects record Hollywood, the motion picture industry, rich people, widows and divorce.