Mystery & detective, traditional book series in reading order

by Sara Woods

by Jonathan Gash

by Paul Doherty

by Martha Grimes

by W.J. Burley

by Emily Brightwell

by G.K. Chesterton

by Leonard Tourney

by John Hall

by Dorothy L. Sayers

by Anne Perry

by Colin Dexter

by Candace Robb

by Nancy Atherton

by Peter Lovesey

by Will Thomas

by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles

by Laurie R. King

by H.R.F. Keating

by John Mortimer

by Deborah Crombie

by David Dickinson

Michael Innes was the pen name of John Innes Mackintosh Stewart, a Scottish novelist and academic born in 1906 and died in 1994, equally known for the literary criticism and contemporary novels he published under his own name. As Innes he wrote traditional English detective fiction, chiefly the Sir John Appleby series, which begins with Death at the President's Lodging (1936) and runs through Hamlet, Revenge!, Lament for a Maker and Appleby's End. Charles Honeybath heads a second series. Eighty-nine catalogued titles date from 1936 to 2021.

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.

Sara Woods was the pen name of Lana Hutton Bowen-Judd (1922-1985), a British mystery writer who also published as Anne Burton, Mary Challis and Margaret Leek. Antony Maitland recurs across the catalogue, with lawyers and legal settings among the subjects. 55 books appeared between 1961 and 1987, from Bloody Instructions (1961) to Naked Villainy (1987). Jeremy Locke, Richard Trenton and Stephen Marryat head further series. Output peaked in the 1980s, at a median 192 pages.

Martha Grimes is an American detective novelist born on May 2, 1931. The best-known Grimes series features Richard Jury, a Scotland Yard inspector, and Melrose Plant, an aristocrat who became an amateur sleuth. The catalogue opens with The Man With a Load of Mischief (1981), followed by The Old Fox Deceiv'd and The Anodyne Necklace, and totals 40 books through The Red Queen (2025). Emma Graham, Andi Oliver and Foul Matter are among the other series.

Margery Allingham (20 May 1904 – 30 June 1966) was an English crime novelist of the Golden Age of Detective Fiction, counted with Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers and Ngaio Marsh as one of four Queens of Crime. Albert Campion, a gentleman sleuth, is Allingham's most remembered creation; Campion made a first appearance in The Crime at Black Dudley (1929) and went on to anchor 18 novels and many short stories. Early readers took Campion for a parody of Sayers's Lord Peter Wimsey. The catalogue begins with Blackkerchief Dick (1923) and includes Mystery Mile (1930), Police at the Funeral (1931) and Death of a Ghost (1934), with some titles written as Maxwell March.

Agatha Christie

290 books• 18 series

Agatha Christie (1890-1976) was an English writer of detective fiction, the author of 66 detective novels and 14 short-story collections. Three sleuths anchor the work. Hercule Poirot first appears in The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920), Tommy and Tuppence in The Secret Adversary (1922) and Miss Marple in The Murder at the Vicarage (1930). The catalogue also carries Superintendent Battle, Harley Quin and Parker Pyne stories, standalone novels, plays and non-fiction, with many short stories listed individually. Christie was born Agatha Miller and published under her first married name.

Jonathan Gash is the pen name of John Grant, born 1933, an English doctor and writer. His Lovejoy novels follow an antiques dealer through crime in England, and the series reached television in an adaptation by Ian La Frenais. A second series features Dr Clare Burtonall, a woman physician. Gash has also written as Graham Gaunt and Jonathan Grant. The catalogue holds 34 books from The Judas Pair (1977) to Preddy Boy (2013), at a median of 266 pages.

Kate Kingsbury is a pseudonym of Doreen Roberts, a romance writer. The catalogue lists 70 books from 1987 to 2025, beginning with Gambler's Gold (1987) under the Doreen Roberts name. As Kate Kingsbury, the series include Pennyfoot Hotel Mysteries, Manor House Mysteries, Merry Ghost Inn Mysteries and Misty Bay Tearoom. Other lines appear as Allison Kingsley and Rebecca Kent. Subjects include the Pennyfoot Hotel in England, Cecily Sinclair Baxter, women sleuths and World War II. A Nice Cup of Tea (2025) is the newest title.

Hamilton Crane writes the Miss Seeton mysteries, traditional detective fiction set in England. Teachers, women detectives and London head the recorded subjects, and Miss Seeton is the recurring character. Seventeen books stand under Crane, from Miss Seeton Cracks the Case (1991) to Watch the Wall, Miss Seeton (2019), with Hands Up, Miss Seeton (1992), Miss Seeton Goes to Bat (1993), Miss Seeton Rules (1994) and Starring Miss Seeton (1994) among them.

Ann Granger

45 books• 5 series

Ann Granger writes English village mysteries. Say It with Poison (1991) opens the Mitchell and Markby series, set in the Cotswolds, and the Fran Varady books, the Lizzie Martin and Inspector Ben Ross novels and the Campbell and Carter mysteries follow. Granger's catalogue holds 45 titles and reaches Death on the Prowl in 2024.

Detective Inspector C.D. Sloan and Constable Crosby work the murders in Catherine Aird's English police procedurals. The Religious Body (1966) opens a catalogue of 29 titles, followed by A Most Contagious Game (1967), Henrietta Who? (1968), The Stately Home Murder (1969), A Late Phoenix (1971) and His Burial Too (1973). Short stories sit alongside the novels, and the last catalogued title is Constable Country, published in 2023.

Ruth Rendell

88 books• 7 series

Ruth Rendell (17 February 1930 to 2 May 2015) was an English writer of thrillers and psychological murder mysteries who held the title Baroness Rendell of Babergh. Chief Inspector Wexford is the creation most associated with Rendell. Separate standalone crime novels looked into what drives criminals and their victims, and the pseudonym Barbara Vine carried that interest into a third body of work. Rendell's novels have sold an estimated 20 million copies. The catalogue records 88 books, starting with From Doon With Death (1964), then To Fear a Painted Devil (1965) and Vanity Dies Hard (1966).

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.

Patricia Moyes wrote traditional English detective fiction, 20 books published between 1959 and 1996. Moyes, born Patricia Pakenham-Walsh in 1923 and dead in 2000, built the catalogue around Inspector Henry Tibbett of the C.I.D. Emmy Tibbett recurs beside him, and the subject headings name married people, police spouses, England and London. Dead Men Don't Ski (1959) opens the run and Who Killed Father Christmas? (1996) closes it. Who Saw Her Die (1970), published in the United States as Many Deadly Returns, drew an Edgar Allan Poe Award nomination in 1971, the year Moyes joined the Detection Club. Juvenile fiction and short stories sit beside the Tibbett novels.

Charles Wycliffe is the detective in most of W.J. Burley's crime fiction, a police procedural run set largely in Cornwall. The catalogue holds 29 books dated 1968 to 2000, at a median of 192 pages, from Wycliffe and the Three Toed Pussy to Wycliffe and the Guild of Nine. The 1970s is the heaviest decade, taking in Wycliffe and the Guilt Edged Alibi (1971), Wycliffe and the Pea Green Boat (1975) and Wycliffe and the School Bullies (1976). A Henry Pym series and a set of standalone novels complete the listing.

Marion Chesney

184 books• 22 series

Marion Chesney, later Marion Gibbons (1936-2019), was a Scottish writer of romance and mystery whose published career began in 1979. Historical romances appeared under the Chesney name, the Travelling Matchmaker and Daughters of Mannerling books among them, while the Agatha Raisin and Hamish Macbeth mysteries appeared as M. C. Beaton; both of those mystery runs were adapted for television. Helen Crampton, Ann Fairfax, Charlotte Ward, Jennie Tremaine and Sarah Chester are further pen names on the record. This listing gathers 185 books dated from 1979 onward, including later titles on which R.W. Green is credited.

Robert Barnard wrote traditional English detective fiction, and lectured and reviewed alongside it. The catalogue holds 64 titles published between 1974 and 2016, opening with Death of an Old Goat (1974). Charlie Peace and Perry Trethowan head two of the series; Idwal Meredith, John Sutcliffe and a sequence about Amadeus Mozart follow. Barnard also wrote criticism, including a study of Dickens (1974) and an appreciation of Agatha Christie (1980), and published four books as Bernard Bastable. Barnard lived from 1936 to 2013.

Peter Robinson

49 books• 6 series

Born in Britain on 17 March 1950 and later a Canadian, Peter Robinson wrote crime novels featuring Inspector Alan Banks and set in Yorkshire, and died on 4 October 2022. Robinson's catalogue opens with Gallows View (1987), followed by A Dedicated Man (1988), A Necessary End (1989) and The Hanging Valley (1989), and lists 49 books through Standing in the Shadows (2023). Beyond the Banks series, the output includes standalone novels, short stories and novellas, along with some poems and two articles on writing. Police procedure, murder investigation and England are recorded subjects.

G.K. Chesterton

114 books• 6 series

G.K. Chesterton (Gilbert Keith Chesterton, 29 May 1874 to 14 June 1936) was an English writer of Christian apologetics, noted for wit, paradox and a defence of tradition. Chesterton created the priest-detective Father Brown and wrote the apologetic works Orthodoxy and The Everlasting Man. Chesterton converted from Anglicanism to Catholicism. The catalogue lists 114 books, opening with The Defendant (1901) and Robert Louis Stevenson and Thomas Carlyle (1902), and including The Napoleon of Notting Hill (1904), Heretics (1905) and The Club of Queer Trades (1905). Biographers place Chesterton as a successor to Matthew Arnold, Thomas Carlyle, John Henry Newman and John Ruskin.

Andrew Taylor

56 books• 10 series

Andrew Taylor, born on 14 October 1951, is a British crime and historical novelist whose awards include the Diamond Dagger, Britain's highest crime-writing honour. The Lydmouth series, the Roth Trilogy, The American Boy, a number-one bestseller, and The Ashes of London are among the best-known Taylor books. The catalogue lists 56 books, from Caroline Minuscule (1982) to A Schooling in Murder (2025). Series include William Dougal, Lydmouth, Roth, Marwood and Lovett, Blaines and a Bergerac series written as Andrew Saville. Subjects include historical mystery, England and the imaginary town of Lydmouth.

Marian Babson was the pen name of Ruth Marian Stenstreem (1929–2017), an American mystery writer born in Salem, Massachusetts, who spent most of her life in London. The novels are short, at a median of 188 pages across 53 catalogued books, and cats turn up in many of them; the publisher's tagline for the work was Murder Most British. The Trixie Dolan & Evangeline Sinclair mysteries pair two actresses as sleuths, with the Perkins & Tate books alongside. Babson took the Crime Writers' Association Dagger in the Library in 1996 and an Agatha Award.

Edith Pargeter

53 books• 6 series

Edith Pargeter (28 September 1913 to 14 October 1995) was an English author who also wrote as Ellis Peters. Pargeter worked across many categories, above all history and historical fiction, and received honours for translating Czech classics. Murder mysteries set in both medieval and modern times form a large part of the work, led by the medieval detective series featuring Brother Cadfael. Series in the catalogue include Chronicles of Brother Cadfael, Inspector Felse, Brothers of Gwynedd, the Second World War Trilogy and Heaven Tree. The listing holds 53 books dated from Iron Bound (1936) to The Trinity Cat (2006).

Emily Brightwell is one of the pseudonyms of Cheryl Arguile, an American writer born November 10, 1948 in Richwood, West Virginia, who also writes as Cheryl Lanham and Sarah Temple. The Mrs. Jeffries mysteries run from The Ghost and Mrs. Jeffries and The Inspector and Mrs. Jeffries (1993) to Mrs. Jeffries Aims to Win (2023). Subjects include women household employees, Gerald Witherspoon, the Metropolitan Police and murder investigation in Great Britain. The 46 listed books begin with Kindred Spirits (1990), and a Dear Diary series also appears.

Peter Lovesey

56 books• 8 series

Peter Harmer Lovesey (10 September 1936 to 10 April 2025) was a British author of historical and contemporary detective novels and short stories, and also published as Peter Lear. The best-known Lovesey series characters are Sergeant Cribb, a Victorian police detective in London, and Peter Diamond, a present-day police detective in Bath. Lovesey was also a leading track and field statistician. The catalogue lists 56 books, beginning with Five Kings of Distance (1968), with Wobble to Death (1970), Abracadaver (1972) and Waxwork (1978) among the early titles. Other series include Inspector Henrietta Mallin and Albert Edward, Prince of Wales.