Italy book series in reading order

by Maurizio de Giovanni

by Michael Dibdin

by Tracy L. Higley

Magdalen Nabb (1947-2007) was a British author who wrote two very different sets of books. The Marshal Guarnaccia mysteries are police novels set in Italy, from Death of an Englishman and Death of a Dutchman (1981) through Death in Springtime (1983), The Marshal and the Murderer (1987) and on to Vita Nuova (2008). Josie Smith is a series for children, starting in 1989. Twenty-seven titles are catalogued, most of them short at around 192 pages.

Maurizio de Giovanni

38 books• 3 series

Thirty-eight books make up Maurizio de Giovanni's catalogue, published between 2007 and 2024. Three series carry it: the Commissario Ricciardi novels, the Giuseppe Lojacono books and Le indagini di Sara. The catalogue opens with I Will Have Vengeance in 2007 and reaches Volver in 2024, with murder, police investigation and Italian settings as its standing subjects. De Giovanni is an Italian mystery novelist, born in Naples in 1958, and the catalogue is ongoing.

Aurelio Zen, an Italian police detective, is Michael Dibdin's principal creation, appearing in 11 of his crime novels. Dibdin (1947-2007) was a British writer whose catalogue starts with The Last Sherlock Holmes Story (1978) and ends with End Games in 2007, 18 books in total. Italian settings and police procedure define the Zen books; the standalone novels run alongside them.

Gianrico Carofiglio

11 books• 2 series

Gianrico Carofiglio, born in 1961, worked as an anti-Mafia judge in Bari before writing legal thrillers set in Italy. Guido Guerrieri, a lawyer, carries the main series from Involuntary Witness (2002) through A Walk in the Dark (2003), Reasonable Doubts (2006), Temporary Perfections (2010) and A Fine Line (2014); Pietro Fenoglio leads a second. Involuntary Witness reached English in 2005 in Patrick Creagh's translation and became an Italian television series. The Past is a Foreign Country took the 2005 Premio Bancarella. Eleven books reach L'orizzonte della notte (2024), at a median of 249 pages.

Donna Leon

42 books• 4 series

Venice is where Donna Leon sets her police procedurals, and Guido Brunetti is the character the books return to, in cases of murder and criminal investigation. Leon's 42 catalogued titles open with Death at La Fenice (1992) and reach Backstage: Stories of a Writing Life in 2025, with a Brunetti companion volume and non-fiction beside the novels. Leon remains actively publishing.

Elena Ferrante writes in Italian about women's lives, mothers and daughters, female friendship and family, and the books are catalogued here in English translation. The Neapolitan novels are the central sequence, from My Brilliant Friend (2011) through The Story of a New Name (2012) and Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay (2013) to The Story of the Lost Child (2014). The Days of Abandonment (2002), Troubling Love and The Lost Daughter (2006) stand on their own. Thirteen titles are catalogued, the last a graphic novel dated 2023.

Santa Montefiore

34 books• 4 series

Santa Montefiore is a British author, born Santa Palmer-Tomkinson on 2 February 1970. Montefiore's 34 catalogued books run from Meet Me Under the Ombu Tree (2001) to The Last Encore (2026). The Deverill Chronicles is the largest series, followed by Royal Rabbits of London, Timeslider and Flappy. Historical and contemporary romance dominate the output, with family secrets, fathers and daughters, Italy and London recurring across the novels.

Anne Rice

50 books• 14 series

Born Howard Allen Frances O'Brien in New Orleans on October 4, 1941, Anne Rice was an American author of Gothic fiction, erotic literature and Bible fiction who died on December 11, 2021. The Vampire Chronicles are Rice's best-known work, and the first volume became the 1994 film Interview with the Vampire, adapted by Rice. Interview with the Vampire (1976) opens a catalogue of 50 books that closes with The Reign of Osiris in 2022. Other series include Lives of the Mayfair Witches, Sleeping Beauty, Ramses the Damned, Wolf Gift Chronicles and Life of Christ. Exit to Eden (1985) and Belinda (1986) carry the name Anne Rampling.

Andrea Camilleri

38 books• 5 series

Sicily is where Andrea Camilleri set his crime fiction, and Salvo Montalbano is the police inspector who works the murders in it. The novels were written in Italian and are catalogued here in English translation, from The Shape of Water (1994) and The Terra-Cotta Dog (1996) through Voice of the Violin (1997) to Excursion to Tindari (2000). Thirty-eight titles are listed, beginning at Hunting Season (1992) and ending at Riccardino in 2021.

David Hewson

52 books• 6 series

David Hewson is a British author of mystery novels, born in 1953. Nic Costa, a young detective and art lover, heads a series about police officers in Rome; Pieter Vos heads a second, and further series take in Venice and the Faroe Islands. Hewson's debut, Shanghai Thunder, appeared in 1986, and a second novel set in Spain during Holy Week won the W H Smith Fresh Talent prize for 1996. The catalogue holds 52 books through The Devil in Dorsoduro (2026), Spanish travel guides and desktop publishing manuals from around 1990 among them.

Jane Langton (1922–2018) wrote children's literature and mystery novels, and illustrated her own books. Two sequences carry most of the work: the Homer Kelly mysteries, built on a recurring detective of that name, and the Hall Family Chronicles, which run to magic and fairy tale. Thirty-four books are catalogued, from The Majesty of Grace (1961) to The Dragon Tree (2008), with Massachusetts and Cambridge among the settings, at a median length of 252 pages.

Marco Vichi is an Italian novelist and short story writer, born in Florence in 1957 and living in the Chianti hills. The Inspector Bordelli novels are the best known work: police procedurals set in 1960s Italy and translated into English by Stephen Sartarelli. Seven titles are catalogued, from Perché dollari? (2005) through Death in August (2011), Death and the Olive Grove (2012), Death in Sardinia (2012), Death in Florence (2013) and Death in the Tuscan Hills (2016) to Ghosts of the Past (2018). Vichi has also edited crime anthologies.

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.

Jennifer Probst wrote a first book at age twelve, bound it in a folder and read it to classmates. Probst holds a master's degree in English literature and lives in the Hudson Valley of upstate New York. The catalogue lists 67 Probst books, from Executive Seduction (2004) to Belong to Me (2026), with The Long Way Back to You due in 2027. Contemporary romance and erotica are among the subjects, alongside billionaires, marriage, Italy and New York. Series include Marriage to a Billionaire, Searching For, Stay, Billionaire Builders, Sunshine Sisters and Meet Me in Italy.

Henry James

131 books• 1 series

Henry James was an American-British author, placed between literary realism and literary modernism. Americans abroad, social life and manners, and the friction between Europe and the United States are the standing subjects of the fiction, and James's correspondence and travel writing are catalogued alongside it. The catalogue lists 131 titles with publication dates from 1866 to 2016, opening with Selected Tales and The Novels of George Eliot, both 1866. The 1870s were the heaviest decade, holding A Passionate Pilgrim, At Isella and Watch and Ward, all published in 1871.

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.

Iain Pears

14 books• 1 series

Art and its theft supply the material for Iain Pears's fiction. The Jonathan Argyll mysteries pair an art historian with the Italian policewoman Flavia Di Stefano, running from The Raphael Affair (1990) through The Immaculate Deception (2000). Pears, born in 1955, is an English art historian and journalist as well as a novelist, and the catalogue holds historical fiction too, including An Instance of the Fingerpost (1997) and The Dream of Scipio (2002). Fourteen books span 1988 to Parallel Lives in 2025.

Sarah Dunant is a British novelist, journalist, broadcaster and critic, born in 1950. Two strands run through her 16 catalogued books: crime fiction, in which the private investigator Hannah Wolfe appears, and historical fiction whose subject headings name Italy, nobility and the Borgias. The catalogue spans 1984 to 2025, from Exterminating Angels (1984) to The Marchesa (2025).

Lynne Graham, born 30 July 1956 in Northern Ireland, has written more than 100 romance novels for Mills & Boon since 1987. The catalogue lists 151 books from Bittersweet Passion (1987) to King's Promised Princess (2026), with Italian's Heir Before Vows scheduled for 2027. Series include International Playboys; Virgin Brides, Arrogant Husbands; Secretly Pregnant, Conveniently Wed; and Stefanos Legacy. Billionaires, Greeks, marriage and pregnancy recur among the subjects.

Dame Muriel Spark (1918-2006) was a Scottish novelist, short story writer, poet and essayist. The Comforters (1957) opens her fiction, and Memento Mori (1958), The Bachelors (1960), The Ballad of Peckham Rye (1960) and The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1961) follow in quick succession. Spark also wrote criticism and biography, including a study of Emily Brontë. Catholicism, young women and English social life recur across 51 catalogued titles.

Christian Cameron

43 books• 9 series

Christian Cameron, born Christian Gordon Cameron on August 16, 1962, is a Canadian novelist trained as a historian and a former career officer in the US Navy. Cameron also writes as Miles Cameron, and as Gordon Kent for novels written with Kenneth Cameron, Cameron's father. The historical series Tyrant is Cameron's best-known work and had sold over 100,000 copies by 2009. The catalogue lists 44 books, from Washington and Caesar (2001) through Tyrant (2008), Killer of Men (2010) and Marathon (2011) to The Captain of Venice (2026), with The French Ambassador due in 2027. Other series include Long War, Tom Swan, Chivalry, Age of Bronze and Commander, and ancient Greece and the Battle of Salamis are recorded subjects.

Frances Mayes is an American writer, born in 1940, known above all for Under the Tuscan Sun, the 1996 memoir that held a place on the New York Times bestseller list for more than two years and became a film. The catalogue runs to 27 books, beginning with poetry in Peach and Glass (1977) and moving through travel writing about Italy to A Great Marriage (2024). Description and travel, Italian social life, women travellers and biography fill out the subjects.

Erica James, born in 1960, is a British writer of contemporary romance set largely in England and Italy. Gardens of Delight won her the Romantic Novel of the Year Award in 2006, after four previous shortlistings. James is read internationally, translated into thirteen languages, and the Norwegian edition of Summer at the Lake reached number one in Norway. Twenty-six catalogued books span 1993 to 2026, from The Holiday to The Forever Home, with friendship, family and life changes as the recurring subjects.