Illinois book series in reading order

by Charlene Ann Baumbich

by Eleanor Taylor Bland

by P.N. Elrod

by Mark Richard Zubro

by Barbara D’Amato

Jill Churchill was the pen name of Janice Young Brooks (1943-2023), an American author whose first Jane Jeffry novel took both the Agatha and the Macavity Award. The Jane Jeffry mysteries place a single mother as the detective in Chicago, and the Grace & Favor series runs alongside them. Churchill also wrote historical romance and nonfiction, beginning with Kings and Queens: The Plantagenets of England in 1975. Thirty-eight catalogued books close with The Accidental Florist (2007).

Barbara D'Amato, born Barbara Steketee on April 10, 1938, is an American mystery author who has won both the Agatha and Anthony awards. The Cat Marsala Mystery series features a woman journalist in Chicago, and the catalogue includes Hardball (1989), Hard Tack (1991) and Hard Christmas (1995). D'Amato also writes the Figueroa and Bennis police procedurals featuring Suze Figueroa, and the Gerritt De Graaf books. The catalogue holds 23 books to The Hands of Healing Murder (2016). D'Amato appears in Great Women Mystery Writers (2007).

Andrew M. Greeley's catalogue spans fiction, non-fiction and poetry, and runs to 82 books published between 1967 and 2010. Subjects settle on the Catholic Church, its clergy, Irish Americans and Chicago. Blackie Ryan and Nuala Anne McGrail are the recurring detectives; other groupings include the O'Malley's family saga, Time Between The Stars, Passover and the World Of Maggie Ward. The listing opens with Letters to Nancy (1967) and ends with Chicago Catholics and the Struggles Within Their Church (2010).

Charlene Ann Baumbich has 16 books in the catalogue, published between 1991 and 2012. Humor, parenting and Christian life run through the subjects, along with older women, Illinois and female friendship. Don't Miss Your Kids! (1991) is the earliest title, followed by How to Eat Humble Pie & Not Get Indigestion (1993). The Baumbich series include Dearest Dorothy and Snowglobe Connections, and Dearest Dorothy, Are We There Yet? appeared in 2001. Finding Our Way Home (2012) is the latest book.

Mark Richard Zubro writes mysteries set in Chicago and the surrounding Cook County. The longest sequence pairs high school teacher Tom Mason with his boyfriend Scott Carpenter, a professional baseball player, from A Simple Suburban Murder (1988) onward. The Paul Turner books follow a gay Chicago police detective. Gay themes run through the fiction, and Zubro is gay. Seven groupings hold the 38 catalogued titles, which reach Peace in 2024. Zubro taught 8th grade English in Illinois and lives in Mokena.

David J. Walker writes hard-boiled mystery fiction, with Chicago, Illinois and private investigators among the recorded subjects. Walker's series are Wild Onion Ltd. and Mal Foley, and the characters Malachy Foley, Kirsten and Dugan appear in the subjects. The 12 catalogued books run from Fixed in His Folly (1995) to Company Orders (2012), including Half the Truth (1996), A Beer at a Bawdy House (2000) and All the Dead Fathers (2005).

Urban fantasy is the main field of P.N. Elrod, the name used by Patricia Nead Elrod, an American novelist born in 1954. Her Vampire Files series draws on vampires, private investigators, Chicago and the character Jack Fleming; Bloodlist, Lifeblood and Bloodcircle all came out in 1990. Elrod also wrote the Jonathan Barrett, Gentleman Vampire and Lord Richard, Vampire books and has edited anthologies. RT Book Reviews gave Elrod its Pioneer Achievement Award in Vampire Fiction in 2011.

Eleanor Taylor Bland (December 31, 1944 to June 2, 2010) was an African-American crime novelist. Bland created police detective Marti MacAlister, who works in Lincoln Prairie, Illinois, a fictional town modelled on Waukegan. The catalogue lists 14 books from Dead Time (1992) to A Dark And Deadly Deception (2005), among them Slow Burn (1993), Keep Still (1996) and Windy City Dying (2002). Subjects include police procedurals and women sleuths.

Kimberla Lawson Roby writes about African American families, marriage and the church. The Reverend Curtis Black series, opening with Casting the First Stone (2000), is the long-running sequence, and Behind Closed Doors (1996) came before it. Clergy, spouses of clergy and life in Illinois are recurring subjects. Twenty-nine books run to Sister Friends Forever in 2022, and nothing new has appeared since.

Denise Swanson is an American mystery writer. The Scumble River Mysteries are set in a fictional Illinois town, and the Devereaux's Dime Store Mysteries in a small fictional town in Missouri. Catalogue subjects name Skye Denison as a recurring fictional character and list school psychologists, murder, investigation and women sleuths. The catalogue holds 46 books running from Murder of a Small-Town Honey (2000) to Wedding Jitters and Stormy Rivers (2026). Welcome Back To Scumble River, Chef-To-Go Mysteries, Stephanie Danielson and Forever Charmed Mysteries are the other series listed. Swanson has been nominated for the Agatha Award and the Mary Higgins Clark Award.

Dan Simmons

41 books• 9 series

Dan Simmons (1948-2026) wrote science fiction and horror, often mixing the two inside a single novel. The Hyperion Cantos is Simmons's central work, opening with Hyperion (1989) and continuing in The Fall of Hyperion (1990); the Ilium cycle is the other major sequence. Song of Kali (1985), his first book, won the World Fantasy Award. Simmons also wrote mysteries and thrillers, some following the recurring character Joe Kurtz, plus standalone horror, short fiction and non-fiction. 41 catalogued titles run to Omega Canyon (2020) at a median of 480 pages, with the 1990s his heaviest decade.

Ralph McInerny (February 24, 1929 to January 29, 2010) was an American novelist and a professor of philosophy at the University of Notre Dame. Father Dowling is the priest at the centre of the most popular McInerny mysteries, which were adapted as the Father Dowling Mysteries television series from 1987 to 1991. The catalogue holds 110 books from Jolly Rogerson (1967) to A Student's Guide to Philosophy (2014), including philosophy titles such as Thomism in an Age of Renewal (1968). Other series include Sister Mary Teresa, Andrew Broom and Notre Dame. McInerny also used the pen names Monica Quill, Harry Austin, Matthew FitzRalph, Ernan Mackey and Edward Mackin.

Ray Bradbury

132 books• 13 series

Fahrenheit 451 (1953) is the novel Ray Bradbury is best known for, alongside the short-story collections The Martian Chronicles (1950), The Illustrated Man (1951) and The October Country (1955). Bradbury (22 August 1920 – 5 June 2012) was an American author and screenwriter whose work covered fantasy, science fiction, horror, mystery and realistic fiction. Dandelion Wine (1957) is a coming-of-age novel, Something Wicked This Way Comes (1962) a dark fantasy, and Green Shadows, White Whale (1992) a fictionalized memoir. The catalogue reaches back to Kaleidoscope (1940) and Dark Carnival (1947), and Green Town and Crumley Mysteries are among the series.

Mignon G. Eberhart was an American mystery novelist, born 6 July 1899 and died 8 October 1996, with a writing career running from the 1920s into the 1980s. Sarah Keate, a nurse, is her recurring detective, introduced in The Patient in Room 18 (1929); Susan Dare heads a second series from The Cases of Susan Dare (1934). Hospitals, Chicago and women sleuths recur in the subjects. The listing holds 66 books through to a 2007 story collection.

Fredric Brown (October 29, 1906 – March 11, 1972) was an American writer of science fiction, fantasy and mystery. Brown's writing is noted for humour and for command of the short short, a story of one to three pages that often turns on a clever device and a surprise ending; the humour and a postmodern outlook also shape the novels. The story Arena was adapted into a 1967 episode of Star Trek. The catalogue lists early titles such as The Freakshow Murders (1943) and The Fabulous Clipjoint (1947), and the Ed & Am Hunter series.

Susan McBride writes mysteries with women sleuths, and Dallas, debutantes and wealth appear among her subjects. McBride's series include Debutante Dropout, Debs, River Road, Maggie Ryan and Detective Jo Larsen. The 22 catalogued books run from And Then She Was Gone (1999) to Walk a Crooked Line (2018). Titles include The Good Girl's Guide to Murder (2005), Night of the Living Deb (2007) and Too Pretty to Die (2008).

Eugene Izzi, also listed as Nick Gaitano, wrote hard-boiled crime fiction. The catalogue records 19 books from The Take (1987) to Safe Harbor (1999). Subject tags on the work include Chicago, the Mafia, organized crime, police and murder. The Jake Phillips series is part of the list, and other titles include Bad Guys (1988), King of the Hustlers (1989), Prowlers (1991) and Tony's Justice (1993). The catalogue treats the Eugene Izzi list as likely complete.

Glendy Vanderah has 3 catalogued books: Where the Forest Meets the Stars (2019), The Light Through the Leaves (2021) and The Oceanography of the Moon (2022). Illinois is the setting recorded in the subjects. No new title has appeared since 2022, and the catalogue is marked dormant.