Paris (France) book series in reading order

by Mark Pryor

Georges Simenon

187 books• 5 series

Inspector Maigret, a policeman in Paris, is the centre of Georges Simenon's crime fiction. The catalogue holds 187 books, beginning in 1931 with Pietr the Latvian. Short novels are the form, at a median 169 pages, and the 1950s were the densest decade. Standalone novels, short stories and non-fiction sit beside the Maigret run, most of it translated from the French.

Cara Black

25 books• 4 series

Paris is the setting for Cara Black's crime fiction. Murder in the Marais (1999) opens the Aimee Leduc Investigations, a series of private-investigator mysteries named for the districts they take place in, from Belleville and the Sentier to the Bastille, Clichy and Montmartre. Black's 25 catalogued books also include the Kate Rees novels and non-fiction, running to Huguette in 2025.

Fred Vargas

12 books• 2 series

Commissaire Jean-Baptiste Adamsberg is a police chief in Paris, and Fred Vargas built the longer of two series around him. The Chalk Circle Man (1991) opens that run, with Have Mercy on Us All (2001), This Night's Foul Work (2006) and Wash This Blood Clean from My Hand (2007) after it. The Three Evangelists (1995) starts a second sequence. Twelve titles are catalogued, the last of them dated 2017.

Across 194 catalogued books, Danielle Steel writes contemporary romance and family drama: love stories, marriages, widowhood and the turns that reshape a life. The run starts with Going Home (1973) and continues through Celebration, with 24 Hours scheduled for 2027. Steel's catalogue also holds children's picture books, short stories and non-fiction beside the standalone novels that make up most of it.

Hugo Marston, an American in Paris, leads Mark Pryor's mystery series. Pryor's 16 catalogued books open with The Bookseller (2012) and reach The Most Mysterious Bookshop in Paris (2026). Inspector Henri Lefort, the Hollow Man books and the Paris Bookshop Mysteries are the other lines. Paris settings, murder investigation and embassy work recur as subjects.

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.

Robert Goddard

33 books• 4 series

Robert Goddard, an English novelist born in 1954, writes mystery and suspense. Past Caring (1986) was his first novel, and the catalogue has grown to 33 titles through to This is the Day They Dream Of (2025). Four series carry recurring figures: James "Max" Maxted, Harry Barnett, Umiko Wada and Inspector Taleb. Long Time Coming took the 2011 Edgar Award for Best Original Paperback, and the Crime Writers' Association gave Goddard its Cartier Diamond Dagger in 2019.

Fiona McIntosh

42 books• 10 series

Betrayal (2001) opens Fiona McIntosh's catalogue of 42 books, which reaches 2026 at a median 498 pages. McIntosh writes epic fantasy in the Quickening, Percheron and Valisar sequences, crime in the DCI Jack Hawksworth series, and historical fiction and romance in Luc & Lisette and the standalone novels. Kings and rulers, succession, exile, harems and Paris recur across the work. McIntosh, born in 1960, is an English-born Australian author of books for adults and children, and has also published as Lauren Crow.

Louise Penny

24 books• 3 series

Louise Penny, born in 1958, is a Canadian writer of crime fiction, best known for the Chief Inspector Armand Gamache novels set in Quebec. The catalogue holds 24 of her books, running from Still Life (2005) to Miss Wolcott's Ghost (2026), and the Gamache series continues. Her other listings are standalone novels and a set of Gamache short stories and novellas. Hillary Rodham Clinton shares the credit on 1 of the 24 books. Penny's novels appear in more than 23 languages, and her honours include Agatha and Anthony Awards plus 2017 appointments to the Order of Canada and the National Order of Quebec.

Daniel Silva

30 books• 3 series

Daniel Silva writes espionage thrillers. The catalogue holds 30 books between The Unlikely Spy (1995) and Ransom (2026), with the Gabriel Allon novels as the main sequence, a shorter Michael Osbourne series beside it, and several standalone titles. Art restorers, assassins, terrorism and Israeli intelligence officers run through the subject tags. Silva is still publishing.

Former attorney Steve Berry practised as a trial lawyer for three decades and served fourteen years in elected office. The American author was born on September 2, 1955, and lives in St. Augustine, Florida. The Amber Room (2003) and The Romanov Prophecy (2004) were his first works, and the catalogue now counts 44 books, with The Sorcerer's Veil announced and the list reaching 2027. Cotton Malone is the recurring character; other listings include Cassiopeia Vitt Adventure, Luke Daniels and standalone novels. Subjects include espionage, political thrillers, popes and booksellers.

Alan Furst wrote espionage novels set in Europe before and during the Second World War, among resistance movements and intelligence services. The catalogue opens with earlier crime writing, Your Day in the Barrel (1976), The Paris Drop (1980), The Caribbean Account (1981) and Shadow Trade (1984), then turns to the Night Soldiers books with Night Soldiers (1988) and Dark Star (1991). 22 titles are catalogued in all, closing with Under Occupation in 2019.

Barbara Taylor Bradford began in non-fiction, with Fashions That Please Him (1970) and a run of interior decorating guides, then wrote A Woman of Substance (1979) and the family sagas that followed. Businesswomen, inheritance and mothers and daughters are the standing subjects. 47 catalogued books include the Emma Harte and Harte Family sagas, Cavendon Hall, the House of Falconer and the Ravenscar novels. The Wonder of It All, published in 2023, closes the catalogue.

Tanith Lee

132 books• 22 series

Tanith Lee was a British writer of science fiction and fantasy, born 19 September 1947, who died on 24 May 2015, leaving more than 90 novels and 300 short stories. Death's Master (1980) made Lee the first woman to take the British Fantasy Award for Best Novel, the August Derleth Award, and Lee also won several World Fantasy Awards plus lifetime achievement honours from the World Fantasy and Bram Stoker awards. Lee wrote the Blake's 7 episodes "Sand" and "Sarcophagus", poems, and the picture book Animal Castle (1972). The catalogue lists 132 books from The Betrothed (1968) to The Earth is Flat (2023), including The Birthgrave (1975) and Don't Bite the Sun (1976). Series include Tales from the Flat Earth, Secret Books of Paradys, Claidi Journals, Blood Opera and Piratica.

Andrew Miller

11 books• 1 series

Andrew Miller, born Andrew Brooke Miller on 29 April 1960, is an English novelist and a Booker Prize shortlistee. Miller's prizes include the International Dublin Literary Award, the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, the Walter Scott Prize, the Winston Graham Historical Prize and the Costa Book of the Year. The catalogue holds 11 books from Ingenious Pain (1997) to The Land in Winter (2024), including Casanova (1998), Oxygen (2001), The Optimists (2005), Pure (2011), The Crossing (2015), Now We Shall Be Entirely Free (2018) and The Slowworm's Song (2022). Historical fiction, England, Paris and Casanova appear among the subjects.