New York (state) book series in reading order

by Ed McBain

by Richard & Frances Lockridge

by Richard & Frances Lockridge

by Lydia Adamson

by Rhys Bowen

by John Verdon

by Mary Stanton

by Lillian O’Donnell

by Jonathan Santlofer

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).

Richard and Frances Lockridge wrote detective fiction together. Pam and Jerry North, a married couple, are the recurring investigators: Mr. and Mrs. North (1936) introduces them and The Norths Meet Murder (1940) begins the crime novels. Captain Heimrich, Lieutenant Nathan Shapiro, Paul Lane and Bernard Simmons head four further series, much of the work set in New York State. The listing holds 77 books through to The Old Die Young (1980).

Walter Dumaux Edmonds was an American historical novelist who lived from 1903 to 1998. Drums Along the Mohawk (1936) is the Edmonds novel best known, and John Ford directed a 1939 Technicolor film version with Henry Fonda and Claudette Colbert. The catalogue lists 23 books through 1995, including Rome Haul, Chad Hanna and The Matchlock Gun. Frontier life, canals and New York State are the main subjects.

Cats and women sleuths define the Lydia Adamson catalogue. Alice Nestleton Mystery is the main series, with Deirdre Quinn Nightingale, Lucy Wayles Mystery and Sally Tepper beside it, and actresses, women veterinarians, cat owners and pet sitting all appear in the subject list. Cat titles fill the run: A Cat in the Manger (1990), A Cat in Wolf's Clothing (1991), A Cat of a Different Color (1991) and A Cat in the Wings (1992). Early books carry the byline Frank King, starting with Down and Dirty in 1978. The 42 catalogued titles close with A Cat Tells Two Tales in 2012.

Joyce Carol Oates

180 books• 8 series

Joyce Carol Oates, born June 16, 1938, is an American writer of novels, short stories, poetry, plays and nonfiction. The catalogue holds 180 books, beginning with By the North Gate (1963) and reaching The Frenzy: Stories (2026). Oates took the National Book Award for the novel Them (1969), and later honours include two O. Henry Awards, the National Humanities Medal and the Jerusalem Prize in 2019. Black Water, What I Lived For, Blonde and the collection Lovely, Dark, Deep were each finalists for the Pulitzer Prize. Oates taught at Princeton University from 1978 to 2014.

Mary Jane Maffini is a Canadian mystery writer, credited with three mystery series and 12 novels. Short stories by Maffini have appeared in Chatelaine, Storyteller and Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine and in the Ladies Killing Circle and RendezVous Crime anthologies, and two of those stories won Arthur Ellis Awards. The catalogue records 26 books from Menopause Is Murder (1999) to You Light Up My Death (2022). Series include Camilla MacPhee Mystery, Charlotte Adams Mystery, Fiona Silk Mystery and the Book Collector Mystery Series, published as Victoria Abbott. Subjects include women sleuths, women lawyers and book collectors.

Richard Russo

21 books• 1 series

Small towns in upstate New York, and the families and friendships inside them, are Richard Russo's subject. 21 catalogued books run from Mohawk (1986) to Under the Falls, including The Risk Pool (1988), Nobody's Fool (1993), Straight Man (1997), Empire Falls (2001) and the story collection The Whore's Child and Other Stories (2002). Nobody's Fool heads the one series in the catalogue. Russo remains actively publishing.

Carly Phillips is the pen name of Karen Drogin, an American romance author and former attorney born July 7, 1965. The catalogue lists 123 books, starting with Brazen and Perfect Partners in 1999 and reaching Falling for Christmas (2026). Phillips's series include Dare to Love, Dare Nation, the Kingston Family, the Sterling Family, Rosewood Bay, Hot Zone, Serendipity's Finest, Dirty Sexy, Book Boyfriend and the Simply books. Subjects include contemporary romance, police, brothers and sisters, orphans, women lawyers and New York City.

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.

Mickey Spillane

62 books• 5 series

Mike Hammer is the detective Mickey Spillane is best known for, and subject headings place Hammer in New York. Spillane, born Frank Morrison Spillane on March 9, 1918, was an American crime novelist called the king of pulp fiction, and died on July 17, 2006. Industry estimates put sales of 26 Spillane books above 200 million copies, and Spillane played Hammer in the 1963 film The Girl Hunters. The catalogue lists 62 books from I, the Jury (1947) to Baby, It's Murder (2025), with My Gun Is Quick (1950), One Lonely Night (1951), Kiss Me, Deadly (1952) and The Girl Hunters (1962) among them. Caleb York and Tiger Mann are further series.

22 catalogued books stand under Stewart O'Nan's name, opening with In the Walled City (1993) and reaching Evensong (2025). O'Nan is an American novelist, born in 1961, whose subjects are family life, marriage, widowhood and American history across the 20th century, the Second World War included. Settings run to New York State and Connecticut. The Emily Maxwell novels form the one continuing sequence in the catalogue.

J.D. Robb

41 books• 3 series

J.D. Robb is the name under which Nora Roberts, born Eleanor Marie Robertson on October 10, 1950, publishes police procedurals with science fiction elements. The catalogue holds 42 J.D. Robb books from 1995 to 2027, opening with Naked in Death (1995). Subjects include Eve Dallas, women detectives and New York City. Fury in Death (2026) is the newest release, and Perfect in Death is scheduled for 2027. Nora Roberts also publishes romance under the Nora Roberts name and has used the names Jill March and Sarah Hardesty.

Rhys Bowen is the name Janet Quin-Harkin publishes adult mystery novels under; Quin-Harkin was born in Bath, Somerset, in September 1941. The catalogue gathers 171 books, opening with Peter Penny's Dance (1976) and reaching Vanished in the Crowd (2026), with A Whiff of Scandal dated 2027. Molly Murphy, Her Royal Spyness and Constable Evans are the mystery series listed, alongside teen series carrying the Janet Quin-Harkin byline such as Heartbreak Cafe, Sugar and Spice and The Boyfriend Club. Catalogue subjects run to detective and mystery stories, women private investigators, historical mystery, aristocracy and children's fiction.

Lisa Unger

40 books• 11 series

Lisa Unger, born Lisa Miscione on April 26, 1970, is an American writer whose contemporary fiction is mainly psychological thrillers. Angel Fire (2002) opens a catalogue of 40 books that reaches Served Him Right (2026). Lydia Strong, Ridley Jones and House of Crows are series. Other listed titles include Beautiful Lies (2006), Black Out (2008) and Fragile (2010). Subjects cover women journalists, missing persons, married people and women sleuths.

Linwood Barclay

37 books• 9 series

Linwood Barclay, born in 1955, is an American-born Canadian novelist, humorist and former columnist. Barclay's detective novels have been bestsellers in Canada and abroad since No Time for Goodbye (2007). The catalogue holds 37 Barclay books, reaching back to Father Knows Zilch (1996) and forward to Not a Word (2026). Series include Promise Falls, Zack Walker, Keisha Ceylon and Chase, and the subjects take in suspense, missing persons, journalists, families and humor.

Ghost stories crossed with murder investigation are Simone St. James's form. The Haunting of Maddy Clare (2012) opens a catalogue of 11 books that reaches A Box Full of Darkness in 2026, taking in The Broken Girls (2018), The Sun Down Motel (2020), The Book of Cold Cases (2022) and Murder Road (2024). The First World War, veterans and nurses appear among the earlier subjects. Every title stands alone.

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.

Isis Crawford writes culinary cozy mysteries, with the catering sisters Bernie and Libby Simmons solving murders in the Mystery With Recipes series. An earlier run follows Robin Light in Syracuse, New York, opening the catalogue with Chutes and Adders (1994), Twister (1995), In Plain Sight (1996), The Scent of Murder (1997), Vanishing Act (1998) and Endangered Species (1999). 30 titles are catalogued, reaching A Catered PTA Murder.

Gilbert Morris produced Christian historical fiction at length: 248 catalogued books between 1977 and 2014. The House of Winslow follows one family across American history; the Appomattox Saga and Bonnets & Bugles take up the Civil War; Cheney Duvall, M.D. follows a woman physician; the Seven Sleepers, Dixie Morris and Too Smart Jones series sit alongside, with children's fiction among the subjects. The catalogue opens with Race Against Time (1977), reaches Raina's Choice, and is listed as likely complete.

Dave Gurney, a detective working murder and serial-murder cases in New York State, is the figure at the centre of John Verdon's fiction. The American novelist's catalogue holds 9 books, opening with the thriller Think of a Number (2010), published by Crown, and reaching Ghost Barn (2026). Police investigation and suspense are the recurring subjects. Verdon's novels average around 420 pages and continue to appear.

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).

Eileen Brady writes the Kate Turner, DVM mysteries, in which a veterinarian in New York State keeps ending up inside murder investigations. Seven books carry the series, opening with Muzzled (2014) and running through Unleashed (2014), Chained (2017), Penned (2018), Saddled with Murder (2020) and Last But Not Leashed (2022) to Murders of a Feather (2023). Animal puns title every book. Nothing new has been catalogued since 2023.

Jean Hanff Korelitz

10 books• 1 series

Jean Hanff Korelitz has 10 books in the catalogue, from A Jury of Her Peers (1996) to The Sequel (2024). The Sabbathday River (1998), Admission (2009), You Should Have Known (2014), The Plot (2021) and The Latecomer (2022) fall between them. Women lawyers, universities and New York appear among the subject headings. Korelitz, born May 16, 1961, is an American novelist, playwright, theater producer and essayist.

Richard Price is an American novelist and screenwriter whose fiction takes on late twentieth-century urban America. The Wanderers (1974) opens a catalogue of 12 books running through Bloodbrothers (1976), Clockers (1992), Freedomland (1998), Samaritan (2003) and Lush Life (2008) to Lazarus Man (2024). Several novels are set in Dempsy, an invented city in northern New Jersey, and The Whites (2015) appeared under the name Harry Brandt. Price has also written for television dramas including The Wire and The Night Of.