Police corruption book series in reading order

by Stephen J. Cannell

by Bill James

Stephen J. Cannell made television before he wrote novels: The Rockford Files, The A-Team, The Greatest American Hero, 21 Jump Street, Hunter, Renegade and The Commish came from his production companies between the 1970s and the 1990s, several co-created with Frank Lupo. The fiction runs to 18 catalogued books, from The Plan (1995) to Vigilante (2011), with the Shane Scully mysteries at its core and standalone novels beside them: King Con (1997), Riding The Snake (1998), The Tin Collectors (2001), The Viking Funeral (2002), Hollywood Tough (2003) and Vertical Coffin (2004) among them. Police corruption, undercover work and serial murder supply the subject matter. Cannell lived from 1941 to 2010.

Bill James was the main pen name of Allan James Tucker, a Welsh novelist born 15 August 1929 and died 17 June 2023. Tucker reported for the Daily Mirror and other newspapers after RAF service, lived in South Wales, and also published as David Craig and Judith Jones. Most of the Bill James output is the Harpur and Iles series, which sets Detective Chief Superintendent Colin Harpur against Assistant Chief Constable Desmond Iles in an unnamed coastal city in south-western England, with a shifting cast on both sides of the law. His catalogue holds 73 titles from 1966 to 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 Eugene Pendleton (December 12, 1927 to October 23, 1995) was an American author of fiction and non-fiction who created Mack Bolan, a character with hundreds of millions of copies sold since a 1969 debut. From 1980, other authors wrote the Bolan books under the Pendleton name, at first with Pendleton's editorial guidance. Pendleton also wrote six Joe Copp, Private Eye novels and six Ashton Ford, Psychic Detective novels. Early titles include The Insatiables (1967), War Against the Mafia (1969) and Miami Massacre (1970).

Robert Crais

30 books• 5 series

Robert Crais, born June 20, 1953, is an American writer of detective fiction who first worked as a screenwriter. Crais wrote television scripts for Hill Street Blues, Cagney & Lacey, Quincy, Miami Vice and L.A. Law. Crais names Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, Ernest Hemingway, Robert B. Parker and John Steinbeck as influences, and the novels appear in 62 countries. The catalogue counts 30 books, from The Monkey's Raincoat (1987) to The Big Empty (2025), set largely around Los Angeles private investigators Elvis Cole and Joe Pike. Scott James & Maggie is a second series.

K.A. Tucker, whose full first name is Kathleen, is a Canadian romance writer. The catalogue lists 41 Tucker books, opening with Anathema (2011) and reaching North Country (2026). Series include Ten Tiny Breaths, Burying Water, Simple Wild, Causal Enchantment, Fate & Flame, Polson Falls and Dirty Empire, and the Wolf Hotel books appear under the name Nina West. Subjects include romantic suspense, sisters, post-traumatic stress disorder and orphans.

James Ellroy

28 books• 5 series

Los Angeles crime is James Ellroy's territory - police, murder and hard-boiled detective fiction. Brown's Requiem (1981) opens the catalogue; the Lloyd Hopkins books follow in the mid-1980s, and The Black Dahlia (1987) and The Big Nowhere (1988) start the L.A. Quartet. Underworld U.S.A. and a Second L.A. Quartet came after. Ellroy has 28 titles catalogued, arriving at Red Sheet in 2026.

Ken Bruen has 47 books in the catalogue, from Funeral: Tales of Irish Morbidities (1992) to Galway's Edge (2025). Bruen, an Irish author of hardboiled and noir crime fiction, was born on 3 January 1951 and died on 29 March 2025. Series include Jack Taylor, Inspector Brant and Max and Angela. Early titles include Rilke on Black (1997), The Hackman Blues (1997), A White Arrest (1998) and The Guards (2001). Subjects include private investigators, ex-police officers, Ireland, London and the characters Detective Sergeant Brant and Chief Inspector Roberts.

Stephen Leather

134 books• 14 series

Stephen Leather is a British thriller writer, born 25 October 1956 and published by Hodder & Stoughton. Leather has also written for television, on London's Burning, The Knock and the BBC's Murder in Mind, and ranked as the second bestselling UK author worldwide on Kindle in 2011. The catalogue holds 135 books from Pay Off (1987) to Underdogs (2026), with Broken Promises scheduled for 2027. Dan 'Spider' Shepherd carries the Spider Shepherd SAS novels, and Jack Nightingale, Mike Cramer, Lex Harper, Matt Standing and Inspector Zhang head further series. Undercover operations, terrorism and private investigators recur as subjects.

Duane Swierczynski (Duane Louis Swierczynski, born February 22, 1972) is an American crime writer whose work spans non-fiction, novels and comic books. The Complete Idiot's Guide to Frauds, Scams, and Cons (2002) is the first catalogued title, and Secret Dead Men (2005) and The Wheelman (2005) are early titles. Series in the listing include Cable, Birds of Prey, Bloodshot, Black Hood, Level 26 and Charlie Hardie. Comics, superheroes, Judge Dredd, ex-police officers and Philadelphia appear among the subjects.

Peter Turnbull writes police procedurals. 48 catalogued books run from Deep and Crisp and Even (1981) to Cold Wrath (2018), across three series: Hennessey & Yellich, Harry Vicary and Maurice Mundy. George Hennessey and Somerled Yellich are the recurring detectives, and England and Scotland are both settings across the run. Turnbull, born in Rotherham in 1950, studied at Cambridge College of Arts and Technology, at Huddersfield and at Cardiff, and worked as a social worker for Strathclyde Regional Council in Glasgow from 1978 to 1995.

George P. Pelecanos

27 books• 8 series

Washington, D.C. is the home ground of George P. Pelecanos, an American crime novelist who also works in television as a writer and producer. The 27 catalogued Pelecanos books run from A Firing Offense (1992) to The Blue Flame (2026). The Nick Stefanos, Derek Strange & Terry Quinn and Spero Lucas series sit beside the D.C. Quartet and standalone novels. For television, Pelecanos wrote episodes of The Wire and Treme with David Simon, and the two co-created The Deuce and We Own This City for HBO. Pelecanos was born in 1957.

Connie Dial's 10 catalogued books carry subject headings on police internal investigation, police corruption, policewomen, undercover operations and missing children, and are filed under mystery and thrillers. The series on the site are Josie Corsino Mystery, Mike Turner Mystery and Amanda Cleveland Mystery. Internal Affairs (2009) is the earliest and The Snow Raven (2020) the newest, with The Broken Blue Line (2010), The Mayor of Dupont Street (2011), Dead Wrong (2013), Set the Night on Fire (2016) and Warning Shots (2018) between. The list is likely complete.