Police chiefs book series in reading order

by Michael McGarrity

by James D. Doss

Martin Walker

51 books• 3 series

Martin Walker, born 1947, is a Scottish former journalist and historian who writes the Bruno detective novels, featuring Bruno Courrèges, a police chief in rural France. Walker worked at The Guardian from 1971 to 1999, joined United Press International in 2000 as a Washington correspondent, and is now UPI's editor-in-chief emeritus. The 51 catalogued titles run from The National Front (1977) to A Murder in Springtime (2026). Non-fiction in the list includes The Waking Giant: Soviet Union Under Gorbachev (1986) and The Cold War and the Making of the Modern World (1993).

Robert B. Parker

87 books• 9 series

Robert B. Parker (September 17, 1932 – January 18, 2010) was an American writer working mainly in mystery and detective fiction. The Spenser novels, about a private detective, are Parker's most famous works and inspired the ABC series Spenser: For Hire and a run of TV movies. The Godwulf Manuscript (1973), God Save the Child (1974) and Mortal Stakes (1975) are among the early titles. Jesse Stone and Sunny Randall are further characters, and Virgil Cole & Everett Hitch form another series. Parker's books draw on detailed knowledge of the Boston metropolitan area, and Robert Crais, Harlan Coben and Dennis Lehane are among those who credit the Spenser novels with renewing the detective genre.

Reed Farrel Coleman

57 books• 12 series

Reed Farrel Coleman, born March 29, 1956, is an American crime fiction writer and poet. Series include Moe Prager, Gus Murphy, Gulliver Dowd, Dylan Klein, Nick Ryan and Jack Kenny, and the Joe Serpe books appeared as Tony Spinosa. The catalogue also links Coleman to Jesse Stone. The 57 books run from Life Goes Sleeping (1991) to Blind to Midnight (2024), with Walking the Perfect Square (2002) and Redemption Street (2004) among them. Subjects include private investigators, ex-police officers and police chiefs.

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.

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.

Julia Spencer-Fleming writes a single mystery series, the Rev. Clare Fergusson & Russ Van Alstyne books, where the Episcopal Church and police work meet over murder and missing-person cases. Eleven catalogued titles run from In the Bleak Midwinter (2002) to At Midnight Comes the Cry in 2025, and Spencer-Fleming continues to publish.

Michael McGarrity

19 books• 3 series

New Mexico is the setting for Michael McGarrity's police procedurals, which follow Kevin Kerney from Santa Fe through the state's murder investigations. Tularosa (1996) opens the series, continuing through Mexican Hat, Serpent Gate, Hermit's Peak, The Judas Judge and The Big Gamble. The American West Trilogy and standalone novels bring the catalogue to 19 titles, reaching Night in the City in 2025.

Joan Hess's mysteries run in three series: Claire Malloy, a bookseller who investigates; Arly Hanks, a policewoman in the imaginary Arkansas town of Maggody; and Theo Bloomer. The catalogue holds 45 books, from Strangled Prose (1985) to Caveat Emptor and Other Stories in 2016, with Malice in Maggody (1987) and Dear Miss Demeanor (1987) among the early titles. The catalogue is listed as likely complete.

Patricia Cornwell

45 books• 6 series

Medical examiner Kay Scarpetta is the character that made Patricia Cornwell's name. Cornwell, born Patricia Carroll Daniels on June 9, 1956, is an American crime writer. The first Scarpetta novel drew on a string of murders in Richmond, Virginia, the city where most of the books take place, and the plots lean heavily on forensic science. The catalogue lists 46 Cornwell titles, from Ruth, A Portrait: The Story of Ruth Bell Graham (1983) and Postmortem (1990) through True Crime (2026), with Rapid and Fatal due in 2027. Other series include Andy Brazil/Judy Hammer, Winston Garano and Captain Chase. Cornwell has also named Walter Sickert as Jack the Ripper.

Terry Shames writes small-town police procedural mystery, set in Texas. The Samuel Craddock Mystery series opens with A Killing at Cotton Hill (2013) and continues through Guilt Strikes at Granger's Store (2023); a second series, Jessie Madison, runs alongside it. Murder investigations, family secrets, police chiefs and town life recur across the 14 catalogued books, which date from 2013 to 2025 at a median 265 pages.

Denise Grover Swank has 110 books in the catalogue, from 2011 to Last Reckoning (2026). The 2011 titles include Chosen, Here, Hunted and Twenty-Eight and a Half Wishes. Series include Rose Gardner Mystery, Rose Gardner Investigations, Magnolia Steele Mystery, Harper Adams Mystery, Carly Moore, Curse Keepers, Bluebird Bay, Asheville Brewing, Wedding Pact, Bad Luck Club and Highland Hills. Subjects range over women sleuths, suspense, romance, chick lit, sisters, missing persons, prophecies and curses.

Charlie Moon is the detective in James D. Doss's mysteries, set in Colorado among Ute communities. The Shaman Sings (1994) opens a 17-book run that closed with The Old Gray Wolf in 2012. Police procedure, missing persons and Native American life carry the series, and the shaman titles - The Shaman Laughs, The Shaman's Bones, The Shaman's Game - group its early years.