India book series in reading order

by H.R.F. Keating

by John Masters

by John Wilcox

by Garry Douglas Kilworth

H.R.F. Keating was an English crime novelist, born 31 October 1926 and died 27 March 2011. Inspector Ganesh Ghote of the Bombay CID is the detective Keating is known for, in titles such as Inspector Ghote's Good Crusade (1966) and Inspector Ghote Hunts the Peacock (1968). Harriet Martens and Harriet Unwin head two further series. Police procedure, India and traditional detection run through the subjects. The listing holds 62 books, from Death and the Visiting Firemen (1959) to A Small Case for Inspector Ghote? (2009).

The Raj Quartet is the defining work of Paul Mark Scott, an English novelist who lived from 25 March 1920 to 1 March 1978. Staying On won Scott the 1977 Booker Prize, and Granada Television adapted the Quartet in the 1980s. Born in suburban London, Scott served in India, Burma and Malaya in the Second World War and worked as a literary agent before writing full time from 1960. The catalogue lists 20 books from Johnnie Sahib (1952), including The Jewel in the Crown (1966), plus a 2011 volume of Scott's letters.

Ruth Prawer Jhabvala

23 books

Ruth Prawer Jhabvala (1927-2013) was a British and American novelist and screenwriter, and the only person to win both a Booker Prize and an Oscar. Jhabvala married the Indian architect Cyrus Jhabvala in 1951 and moved to New Delhi, where she began writing fiction on Indian subjects. After settling in the United States, she wrote screenplays for Merchant Ivory, the partnership of James Ivory and Ismail Merchant. The 23 catalogued books run from Amrita (1955) to At the End of the Century (2017), including Esmond In India and The Householder.

Anita Desai, born Anita Mazumdar in 1937, is an Indian novelist and emerita John E. Burchard Professor of Humanities at MIT. Desai has reached the Booker Prize shortlist three times. Fire on the Mountain (1977) won the Sahitya Akademi Award, and The Village by the Sea took the Guardian Prize. The 21 catalogued books run from Cry, the Peacock (1963) to Rosarita (2024) and include Clear Light of Day (1980), In Custody (1984) and the story collection Games at Twilight (1978). Catalogue subjects list India, families, sisters and grandmothers.

Rumer Godden

69 books

Rumer Godden was a British author with more than 60 fiction and non-fiction books to her name. Black Narcissus opened the catalogue in 1939 and reached the screen in 1947; The River followed in 1946 and was filmed in 1951; nine of Godden's works were adapted for film in all. India, nuns, family life and children's stories about dolls and mice, The Mousewife (1951), Mouse House (1952), Impunity Jane (1954), run through the work. Godden wrote a few books with her elder sister, the novelist Jon Godden, among them Two Under the Indian Sun, a memoir of a childhood spent in a part of India now inside Bangladesh. The catalogue holds 69 entries reaching 2012.

Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

23 books• 3 series

Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, born Chitralekha Banerjee in 1956, is an American author and poet born in India. Divakaruni holds the Betty and Gene McDavid Professorship of Writing in the University of Houston Creative Writing Program. The short story collection Arranged Marriage (1995) received an American Book Award in 1996. Film adaptations exist of The Mistress of Spices, Sister of My Heart and the short story The Word Love. The 23 catalogued books run from The Reason for Nasturtiums (1990) to Independence (2023). Divakaruni's works are mostly set in India and the United States and often concern the experiences of South Asian immigrants.

Ruskin Bond

165 books• 2 series

Ruskin Bond is an Indian author and poet, born on 19 May 1934, who has written more than 500 short stories, essays and novels, including 69 books for children. His first novel, The Room on the Roof, appeared in 1956 and won the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize. Bond received the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1992 for Our Trees Still Grow in Dehra, the Padma Shri in 1999 and the Padma Bhushan in 2014. The catalogue here lists 165 titles through to Hold On to Your Dreams in 2024, much of it children's fiction, ghost stories and short fiction set in India, with the Rusty books as his recurring series.

R.K. Narayan

42 books

Malgudi, an invented South Indian town, is the setting R.K. Narayan returned to across his fiction. Born Rasipuram Krishnaswami Narayanaswami (1906-2001), Narayan stood with Mulk Raj Anand and Raja Rao among the first Indian novelists writing in English, and took the AC Benson Medal in 1980 and honorary membership of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters in 1981. The catalogue lists 42 titles from Swami and Friends (1935) to Malgudi Landscapes (2003), taking in The Bachelor of Arts, The English Teacher and The Financial Expert. Everyday life caught between tradition and modernity is the standing subject.

Vaseem Khan

17 books• 3 series

India is the setting for Vaseem Khan's crime fiction. The Baby Ganesh Agency books put an ex-police officer and an elephant to private investigation, starting at The Unexpected Inheritance of Inspector Chopra (2015), and the Malabar House novels begin at Midnight at Malabar House (2020). Jewel theft, murder and police procedure supply the cases. Eighteen catalogued titles reach The Edge of Darkness, and The Last Shot is scheduled for 2027.

Abir Mukherjee

12 books• 4 series

Abir Mukherjee's Wyndham & Banerjee mysteries are set in Kolkata under British rule. A Rising Man (2016) opens the series, followed by A Necessary Evil, Smoke and Ashes, Death in the East and The Shadows of Men. Mukherjee also writes the Sin books and standalone novels, and the catalogue holds 12 titles through The Pinnacle in 2026. Murder, assassination and the British occupation of India are the recurring subjects.

G.A. Henty wrote historical adventure stories for young readers. The catalogue holds 109 Henty titles, opening with A Search for a Secret (1867) and closing at The Plague Ship (2002). War, military history and the conduct of life are the recurring subjects, and much of the work sits in England and the wider British past. Early titles include The March to Magdala (1868), Out on the Pampas (1870) and The Young Franc Tireurs (1872).

Historical crime is Barbara Cleverly's field. The British author, a former teacher from Yorkshire, has 22 books catalogued between 2001 and 2019. Her Detective Joe Sandilands mysteries run to thirteen titles and open with The Last Kashmiri Rose (2001), a New York Times Notable Book; India is among their settings. The Laetitia Talbot novels and the Detective John Redfyre mysteries form two further sequences, with women archaeologists, police investigation and period detail as the standing material. Cleverly took the Crime Writers' Association Ellis Peters Historical Dagger in 2004, and Invitation to Die (2019) is her most recent title.

Tarquin Hall, born in London in 1969, is an English writer and journalist who has lived in the United States, Pakistan, India, Kenya and Turkey. Hall's fiction is the Vish Puri series, following a private investigator through murder cases in India, from The Case of the Missing Servant (2009) to The Case of the Elusive Bombay Duck (2025). Non-fiction came first: a Spectrum Guide to Namibia (1994), the memoir Mercenaries, Missionaries and Misfits (1996), To The Elephant Graveyard (2000) and Salaam Brick Lane (2007). Eleven titles are catalogued in all.

Matthew Hervey, an officer of the fictional British 6th Light Dragoons, carries Allan Mallinson's fiction from the late Napoleonic Wars into colonial campaigns in India, North America and South Africa. A Close Run Thing (1999) opens the sequence, followed by The Nizam's Daughters (2000), A Regimental Affair (2001), A Call to Arms (2002), The Sabre's Edge (2003) and Company of Spears (2006). Mallinson, born in 1949, is an English author and a retired British Army brigadier, and also writes military history, reaching the First World War. The catalogue holds 19 books through 2020, at a median 448 pages.

John Masters

27 books• 3 series

A British army officer turned novelist, John Masters (1914-1983) fought with the Chindits in Burma during the Second World War and became chief staff officer of the 19th Indian Infantry Division. Masters is best known for historical novels set in India, including Bhowani Junction (1954), filmed in 1956. Nightrunners Of Bengal (1951) opens the 27-book list. Masters also produced a three-volume autobiography and the Savage Family Chronicles.

Bharti Kirchner is an American writer of novels and cookbooks, publishing since 1992. The catalogue lists 14 books, opening with Healthy Cuisine of India: Recipes from the Bengal Region (1992) and reaching Murder at Jaipur (2023). Other titles include Shiva Dancing (1998) and Darjeeling (2002), and the catalogue lists the Maya Mallick Mystery series. Kirchner also writes articles and essays on food, travel, fitness and lifestyle. Kirchner has won two Seattle Arts Commission literature grants and an Artist Trust GAP grant, and the work has been translated into German, Dutch, Spanish, Marathi and Thai. Before writing, Kirchner was a systems engineer at IBM and a systems manager at Bank of America in San Francisco.

James Patterson

510 books• 73 series

James Patterson, born on March 22, 1947, is an American writer whose catalogue here holds 514 books published from 1976 to 2027. The run opens with The Thomas Berryman Number (1976), and Along Came a Spider (1992) and Kiss the Girls (1995) follow later. Alex Cross, Michael Bennett, Maximum Ride, Daniel X, Witch & Wizard, NYPD Red, Private, Middle School and the Women's Murder Club are among the Patterson series, alongside standalone thrillers, non-fiction and romance. Marshall Karp shares the credit on 5 of the books. Patterson's sales exceed 425 million copies, and Patterson was the first person to sell one million e-books. Forbes ranked Patterson the highest-paid author in 2016, for a third year running, and the National Book Foundation gave Patterson the Literarian Award in November 2015. 27 Stars is scheduled for 2027.

Gail Carriger

37 books• 13 series

Gail Carriger is an American author of steampunk fiction. Carriger's 37 catalogued books span 1999 to 2024 and cover the Alexia Tarabotti, Finishing School, Custard Protocol and Delightfully Deadly series, plus a Parasol Protectorate manga line and titles issued as G.L. Carriger. Werewolves, vampires, London society and etiquette run through the work, and Carriger remains actively publishing.

Paul Theroux

68 books• 1 series

Travel writing and fiction have occupied Paul Theroux since 1968. Born in 1941, the American writer is catalogued here with 68 books, from Fong and the Indians (1968) to True North: On the Road in Canada (2026). The Great Railway Bazaar (1975) is his best known travelogue. The Mosquito Coast took the James Tait Black Memorial Prize in 1981, was filmed in 1986 and became a television series in 2021. Railways, voyages and description of place recur throughout the catalogue, which is ongoing.

Rudyard Kipling was a British author and poet, born in Bombay in British India, known above all for The Jungle Book (1894). Kipling is regarded as a major innovator in the short story form. The catalogue lists 59 works, starting with Plain Tales from the Hills (1888), The Phantom Rickshaw and Other Stories (1888) and The Man Who Would Be King (1888). The Light That Failed (1890) and Barrack-Room Ballads (1893) are among the titles. Series include Jungle Book and Puck, and subjects include short stories, poetry, animals and English children's stories.

Thrity Umrigar

15 books• 4 series

Thrity Umrigar writes literary fiction about India, Parsi life and social class. Female friendship, bereavement and the distance between classes run through the novels, which sit alongside picture books and non-fiction. Fifteen catalogued books reach from Bombay Time to Missing Sam (2026), taking in The Space Between Us (2006), The World We Found (2012), The Story Hour (2014) and Everybody's Son (2017).

M.M. Kaye was a British writer, born in 1908 and died in 2004, and The Far Pavilions (1978) is her most famous book. The Death In... mysteries account for much of the catalogue, each named for a place: Kashmir (1953), Berlin (1955), Cyprus (1956), Kenya (1958), Zanzibar (1959) and the Andamans (1960). The Share of Summer volumes sit alongside them, with biography, childhood and women authors among their subject headings. India and British social life recur across the run. Fourteen books are catalogued, spanning 1953 to 2025.

Michelle Moran is an American novelist of historical fiction. Egypt supplies the first three books, Nefertiti (2007), The Heretic Queen (2008) and Cleopatra's Daughter (2009), and later titles take in Madame Tussaud (2011), The Second Empress (2012), Rebel Queen (2015), Mata Hari's Last Dance (2016) and Maria (2024). Nine books are catalogued to 2024, with queens, kings and rulers, Egypt, India and the First World War among the recorded subjects.

Garry Douglas Kilworth

87 books• 12 series

Garry Douglas Kilworth is a British novelist of science fiction, fantasy and historical fiction, born in York, England, on 5 July 1941, and formerly a cryptographer in the Royal Air Force. The catalogue lists 87 books from In Solitary (1977) to The Gogamagog Circus (2023). Series include Sergeant Jack Crossman, Welkin Weasels, Navigator Kings, Knights of Liofwende, Electric Kid and Ensign Early. Subjects include the Crimean War, weasels, foxes, monsters and children's fiction.