Mystery & detective book series in reading order

by Gladys Mitchell

by John R. Erickson

by Laura Lee Hope

by Carolyn Keene

by Donald J. Sobol

by Ed McBain

by Susan Wittig Albert

by Jane Haddam

by Stuart M. Kaminsky

by Ngaio Marsh

by John Dickson Carr

by Faye Kellerman

by Randy Wayne White

by Donald E. Westlake

by Rita Mae Brown

by Sue Grafton

by Franklin W. Dixon

by Marcia Muller

by Lilian Jackson Braun

by Philip R. Craig

by Aaron Elkins

by Janet Evanovich

by Wendelin Van Draanen

by Lawrence Block

by Loren D. Estleman

by Simon Brett

by David Rosenfelt

by James Lee Burke

by Emily Brightwell

by Patricia Wentworth

by Donald E. Westlake

by Katherine Hall Page

by Nevada Barr

by Elizabeth Peters

by Nancy Atherton

by Martha Grimes

by Carola Dunn

by Carolyn Keene

by Laurie R. King

by Reginald Hill

by Richard & Frances Lockridge

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.

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.

Erle Stanley Gardner

152 books• 8 series

Erle Stanley Gardner (July 17, 1889 to March 11, 1970) was an American lawyer and author of the Perry Mason legal detective stories. The catalogue opens in 1933 with The Case of the Velvet Claws and The Case of the Sulky Girl, followed by The Case of the Curious Bride and The Case of the Howling Dog in 1934, and lists 152 books in all. Other Gardner series include Donald Lam & Bertha Cool, Doug Selby, Gramp Wiggens and Terry Clane. Gardner also wrote non-fiction, mostly accounts of travels through Baja California and elsewhere in Mexico. Pseudonyms included A. A. Fair and Carleton Kendrake, and at the time of death Gardner was the best-selling American author of the 20th century.

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).

Ed McBain

127 books• 7 series

Ed McBain is the pen name under which Evan Hunter, born Salvatore Albert Lombino (October 15, 1926 – July 6, 2005), published the 87th Precinct police procedurals. Cop Hater, The Mugger and The Pusher, all dated 1956, are early entries in the listing, and Steve Carella and the imaginary city of Isola appear among the subjects. Matthew Hope is a second series character. Under the Evan Hunter name, the author wrote The Blackboard Jungle, a semi-autobiographical novel filmed in 1955, and the screenplay for Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds (1963).

Enid Blyton

957 books• 42 series

Enid Blyton (11 August 1897 to 28 November 1968) was an English children's writer and one of the best-selling authors of children's literature, with more than 600 million copies sold and translations into ninety languages. Blyton wrote on education, natural history, fantasy, mystery and biblical stories. Noddy, the Famous Five, the Secret Seven, the Five Find-Outers and Malory Towers are the best-remembered Blyton books, and St Clare's, Mary Mouse and Toyland Stories are also listed. The catalogue opens with The Enid Blyton Book of Fairies (1924), and The Naughtiest Girl in the School (1930) and The Adventures of the Wishing-Chair (1937) follow. Titles dated after Blyton's death also appear, up to Stories of Wonders and Wishes (2023).

Ellery Queen is both the detective and the name on the books, an American mystery catalogue of 148 titles. The Roman Hat Mystery (1929) opens a run of titles built to the same pattern, among them The French Powder Mystery, The Dutch Shoe Mystery and The Greek Coffin Mystery. The Drury Lane novels published as Barnaby Ross, the Tim Corrigan and Mike McCall series and a junior line sit beside them, with New York, police work and fathers and sons recurring as subjects. The catalogue has been dormant since 2022.

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.

Donald E. Westlake

127 books• 11 series

Donald E. Westlake (July 12, 1933 to December 31, 2008) was an American writer credited with more than one hundred novels and non-fiction books. Crime fiction was Westlake's specialty, comic capers above all, with occasional science fiction. Westlake created two professional criminals with long-running series: the hardboiled Parker, published under the pen name Richard Stark, and John Dortmunder, the lead of a more humorous series. Westlake won the Edgar Award three times. The catalogue holds 127 Westlake books from 1959 to 2022, and other listings include Alan Grofield, Sam Holt and the Mitch Tobin books written as Tucker Coe.

Lawrence Block

262 books• 22 series

Lawrence Block, born June 24, 1938, is an American writer of crime, mystery and suspense fiction whose career spans more than half a century. Block is best known for two long-running series set in New York: Matthew Scudder, a recovering alcoholic private investigator, and Bernie Rhodenbarr, a gentleman burglar. The Mystery Writers of America named Block a Grand Master in 1994. The catalogue begins in 1958 with Carla and A Fire At Night and reaches Writing Drunk, Writing Sober in 2025. John Keller, Evan Tanner, Kit Tolliver and Ehrengraf for the Defense are further series, and books written as Jill Emerson form another.

Rex Stout

76 books• 6 series

Nero Wolfe, a private investigator in New York, is the figure Rex Stout is listed for. Fer-de-Lance, also published as Meet Nero Wolfe (1934), opens that run, which extends through novels and short stories; the Tecumseh Fox books and a set of standalone novels sit beside it. Stout's catalogue holds 76 titles, beginning with Her Forbidden Knight (1913), and is listed as likely complete.

Ann M. Martin

446 books• 24 series

Ann Matthews Martin, born August 12, 1955, is an American writer of children's and young adult fiction and a Smith College graduate. The Baby-Sitters Club, first published in 1986, is the series Martin is known best for, and Martin remains involved with the series and its spin-offs. The catalogue lists 446 books, beginning with Inside Out and Bummer Summer in 1983. Related lines include Baby-Sitters Club Mysteries, California Diaries, Kids in Ms. Colman's Class, Main Street and Doll People. Jessi Ramsey, Pet-sitter: A Graphic Novel (2025) is the newest listed title.

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.

Scotland is where Gerald Hammond's mysteries take place, much of the action in the invented town of Newton Lauder. Keith Calder is a gunsmith, John Cunningham a dog breeder, and Honey Laird leads a third series; between them they carry a catalogue of 73 books. Hammond wrote short, at a median of 190 pages, from Fred in Situ (1965) to The Unkindest Cut in 2012.

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).

Janet Evanovich

79 books• 13 series

Stephanie Plum, a bail bond agent turned bounty hunter, is the recurring lead of Janet Evanovich's longest series. Evanovich writes humorous mystery and romance, and the catalogue holds 79 books from Full House (1981) to Split Second in 2026. Other recurring lines include Kate O'Hare & Nicolas Fox, Lizzy & Diesel, Knight and Moon, Alexandra Barnaby and the Culhane Family.

Patricia Wentworth was the pen name of Dora Amy Turnbull (formerly Dillon, born Elles), a British crime writer who lived from 15 October 1877 to 28 January 1961. Miss Maud Silver, a woman private investigator in England, is the recurring character of the Miss Silver series. The Wentworth list begins with A Marriage Under the Terror (1910), and the 1930s are the busiest decade. Benbow Smith, Ernest Lamb and Frank Garrett are the other series characters.

Max Allan Collins

199 books• 34 series

Max Allan Collins, born March 3, 1948, is an American mystery writer who also works in comics, graphic novels and screenplays. Collins created the Ms. Tree and Road to Perdition comics, the second of which became a film, and the series characters Quarry, a hitman, Nolan, a thief, and private investigator Nate Heller. Collins wrote the Dick Tracy newspaper strip for years, and the Mystery Writers of America named Collins a Grand Master in 2017. Catalogue entries run from Bait Money (1973) to Quarry's Reunion (2026), with Eliot Ness, Mallory and Disaster among the other series.

John Creasey (17 September 1908 to 9 June 1973) was an English novelist of detective and crime fiction who also wrote science fiction, romance and westerns, producing more than six hundred novels under twenty-eight pseudonyms. Creasey characters include The Toff (Richard Rollison), Commander George Gideon of Scotland Yard, Inspector Roger West, The Baron (John Mannering), Dr Emmanuel Cellini and Dr Stanislaus Alexander Palfrey. Gideon, introduced in Gideon's Day (1955), was the basis for the 1958 John Ford film Gideon's Day and the television series Gideon's Way (1964 to 1966). The catalogue lists 497 books from Seven Times Seven (1932), with early titles as M.E. Cooke and Margaret Cooke.

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.

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.

Ngaio Marsh

38 books• 3 series

Inspector Roderick Alleyn of the English police carries almost all of Ngaio Marsh's detective fiction. 38 catalogued books run from A Man Lay Dead (1934) to Money in the Morgue, taking in Enter a Murderer (1935), The Nursing Home Murder (1935), Death in Ecstasy (1936), Vintage Murder (1937) and Artists in Crime (1938). Marsh also published short stories and non-fiction. The catalogue is likely complete.

Carolyn G. Hart writes mystery and detective fiction with women sleuths, and the subject records name Annie Laurance Darling, Max Darling and Henrie O as fictitious characters, alongside booksellers and bookselling, women journalists and murder. The catalogue holds 69 books, from The Secret of the Cellars (1964) to Ghost Blows a Kiss (2021), with the 2000s the heaviest decade. Death On Demand, Bailey Ruth, Henrie O and Nela Farley are the lines on record, beside standalone novels, short stories and non-fiction. No new title has been listed since 2021, so the entry is dormant.

Dick Francis (Richard Stanley Francis, 1920 to 2010) was a British steeplechase jockey who turned to crime fiction set in English horse racing. After RAF service in wartime, Francis rode as a jump jockey, became champion jockey of the British National Hunt and rode for Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother. The catalogue records 44 books, from the autobiography The Sport of Queens (1957) and the novel Dead Cert (1962) to Under Orders (2006). Sid Halley and Kit Fielding are recurring figures.