Police book series in reading order

by Ed McBain

by Bill James

by Ngaio Marsh

by Roderic Jeffries / Roderic Graeme

by Alan Hunter

by Faye Kellerman

by Martha Grimes

by H.R.F. Keating

by Quintin Jardine

by Jonathan Kellerman

by Emily Brightwell

by Charles Todd

by Barbara Nadel

by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles

by Elizabeth Linington / Dell Shannon

by Gwendoline Butler

by Roger Silverwood

by Jon Cleary

by Reginald Hill

by Kate Ellis

by W.J. Burley

by Deborah Crombie

by Colin Dexter

by P.D. James

by Mark Billingham

by J.M. Gregson

by Michael Pearce

by Bartholomew Gill

by Elizabeth George

by Michael Dibdin

by Victoria Thompson

by James D. Doss

by J.M. Gregson

by K.C. Constantine

by J.A. Kerley

by Henning Mankell

by Michael McGarrity

by Stephen J. Cannell

by Gwendoline Butler

by Alanna Knight

by Susan Hill

by Per Wahloo

by Karin Fossum

by Dorothy Simpson

by Richard & Frances Lockridge

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).

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.

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.

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.

Nora Roberts

279 books• 37 series

Nora Roberts, born Eleanor Marie Robertson on October 10, 1950, is an American writer of romance under that name. As J. D. Robb, Roberts writes police procedurals with science-fiction elements, and has also published as Jill March and, in the UK, as Sarah Hardesty. This listing carries 280 Roberts books, opening with Irish Thoroughbred (1981); The Missing is scheduled for 2027. Series on the page include the In Death Universe, the MacGregors, Night Tales, the Calhoun Women, the Chesapeake Bay Saga, Irish Hearts and the O'Hurleys.

Donna Leon

42 books• 4 series

Venice is where Donna Leon sets her police procedurals, and Guido Brunetti is the character the books return to, in cases of murder and criminal investigation. Leon's 42 catalogued titles open with Death at La Fenice (1992) and reach Backstage: Stories of a Writing Life in 2025, with a Brunetti companion volume and non-fiction beside the novels. Leon remains actively publishing.

Sally Spencer writes English police procedurals, and the catalogue holds 66 books from Salt of the Earth (1994) to The Final Beat of the Drum (2023). Chief Inspector Charlie Woodend, DCI Monika Paniatowski and Inspector Sam Blackstone are the recurring detectives. Spencer's series also include the Marston Trilogy, Jennie Redhead Mystery and Detective Sam Brody Thriller, alongside standalone novels. The Salton Killings (1998) and Murder at Swann's Lake (1999) are among the earlier titles. No new Spencer title has appeared since 2023.

Martha Grimes is an American detective novelist born on May 2, 1931. The best-known Grimes series features Richard Jury, a Scotland Yard inspector, and Melrose Plant, an aristocrat who became an amateur sleuth. The catalogue opens with The Man With a Load of Mischief (1981), followed by The Old Fox Deceiv'd and The Anodyne Necklace, and totals 40 books through The Red Queen (2025). Emma Graham, Andi Oliver and Foul Matter are among the other series.

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).

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.

Michael Innes was the pen name of John Innes Mackintosh Stewart, a Scottish novelist and academic born in 1906 and died in 1994, equally known for the literary criticism and contemporary novels he published under his own name. As Innes he wrote traditional English detective fiction, chiefly the Sir John Appleby series, which begins with Death at the President's Lodging (1936) and runs through Hamlet, Revenge!, Lament for a Maker and Appleby's End. Charles Honeybath heads a second series. Eighty-nine catalogued titles date from 1936 to 2021.

Two names cover one crime-writing catalogue: Roderic Jeffries and Roderic Graeme. The Inspector Alvarez novels are police procedurals featuring Enrique Alvarez and set in Spain. The Blackshirt books came first, starting with Concerning Blackshirt (1952) and running through the 1950s. The C.I.D. Room, Brandy and Don Kerry series fill out the list. The listing holds 149 titles dated 1952 to 2014, ending with In Search of Murder (2014), and the run reads as finished.

Kate Ellis writes police procedurals in which archaeology recurs alongside murder investigation. Wesley Peterson heads the main series, opening with The Merchant's House (1998), and Joe Plantagenet and Inspector Albert Lincoln lead two more. Forty-four catalogued books reach The Chapel of Bones (2026), at a median length of 346 pages. England, police work and archaeologists recur as subjects.

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.

Anne Perry

111 books• 14 series

Anne Perry (28 October 1938 – 10 April 2023), born Juliet Marion Hulme, was a British writer of historical detective fiction. Perry wrote the Thomas and Charlotte Pitt novels and the William Monk series. In 1994 it became public that Perry, at fifteen, had been convicted in 1954 in Christchurch, New Zealand, of murdering Honorah Parker, mother of Perry's friend Pauline Parker; after a five-year sentence, Perry took a new name and returned to the United Kingdom. The catalogue holds 111 Perry books, opening with The Cater Street Hangman (1979) and reaching Death Times Seven (2026). Other series include Daniel Pitt, Elena Standish, Timepiece and Tathea.

H.R.F. Keating was an English crime novelist, born 31 October 1926 and died 27 March 2011. Inspector Ganesh Ghote of the Bombay CID is the detective Keating is known for, in titles such as Inspector Ghote's Good Crusade (1966) and Inspector Ghote Hunts the Peacock (1968). Harriet Martens and Harriet Unwin head two further series. Police procedure, India and traditional detection run through the subjects. The listing holds 62 books, from Death and the Visiting Firemen (1959) to A Small Case for Inspector Ghote? (2009).

Gwendoline Butler, who lived from 1922 to 2013, was a British writer of mysteries and romances who also published as Jennie Melville. Butler is credited with inventing the woman's police procedural. Her two main sequences are the Inspector John Coffin novels and the Charmian Daniels books, the latter issued under the Melville name. The catalogue holds 76 titles from Receipt for Murder in 1956 onward, taking in Victorian mysteries, gothic tales and romantic novels as well as contemporary detection.

Marion Chesney

184 books• 22 series

Marion Chesney, later Marion Gibbons (1936-2019), was a Scottish writer of romance and mystery whose published career began in 1979. Historical romances appeared under the Chesney name, the Travelling Matchmaker and Daughters of Mannerling books among them, while the Agatha Raisin and Hamish Macbeth mysteries appeared as M. C. Beaton; both of those mystery runs were adapted for television. Helen Crampton, Ann Fairfax, Charlotte Ward, Jennie Tremaine and Sarah Chester are further pen names on the record. This listing gathers 185 books dated from 1979 onward, including later titles on which R.W. Green is credited.

Faye Kellerman (Faye Marder Kellerman, born July 31, 1952) is an American author of mystery novels. The Peter Decker and Rina Lazarus series is the centre of the work, and the catalogue opens with The Ritual Bath in 1986. Kellerman also wrote non-series novels, among them The Quality of Mercy (1989). The catalogue contains 37 books through The Hunt (2022). Police procedure, murder investigation and Jewish life appear in the subjects.

Ian Rankin

74 books• 13 series

Sir Ian Rankin is a Scottish crime writer and philanthropist, born in Fife on 28 April 1960, and the creator of the Inspector Rebus novels. Rankin was the first member of the family to go to university and held several jobs before turning to writing. The Rebus novels belong to the tartan noir genre, have won domestic and international awards and have sold more than 35 million copies. Knots and Crosses (1987), the first Rebus book, placed eighth in a 2016 poll of the best Scottish novels. The catalogue holds 74 Rankin books, from The Flood (1986) to The Heights (2026), including the Malcolm Fox series and Edinburgh-set police procedurals.

Reginald Hill wrote English police procedurals, and Dalziel and Pascoe is the partnership he is known for, introduced in A Clubbable Woman (1970). Joe Sixsmith, a private investigator, heads a second series, and Hill also published as Patrick Ruell and Dick Morland, with titles including The Castle of the Demon and Matlock's System. Sixty titles make up the catalogue, which ends with the collection A Candle for Christmas & Other Stories.

Alan Hunter (1922-2005) was an English crime novelist and the creator of Inspector George Gently, who features in 46 of his books. The 51 catalogued titles open with Gently Does It (1955) and carry the detective's name through the run, from Gently By the Shore (1956) to Gently with Passion (2016). Hunter farmed and then dealt in antiquarian books before publishing his first novel. Police procedure, murder investigation and English settings define the series.

J.A. Jance writes mysteries and police procedurals, with J.P. Beaumont, Joanna Brady and Ali Reynolds as recurring leads. The catalogue lists 82 books, starting with After the Fire (1984) and Until Proven Guilty (1985). The Taken Ones arrived in 2026, and Smoke and Mirrors is scheduled for 2027. Subjects include sheriffs, policewomen and women sleuths, and the Joanna Brady books form a named series alongside Jance's standalone novels.

Jonathan Kellerman, born August 9, 1949, is both an American novelist and a psychologist. Kellerman has won Edgar and Anthony awards, and the character most associated with the name is Alex Delaware, a child psychologist who consults for the Los Angeles Police Department. The catalogue holds 67 Kellerman titles, beginning with the non-fiction Helping the Fearful Child (1981) and When the Bough Breaks (1985), and running to Jigsaw (2026). Beyond Alex Delaware there are the Clay Edison, Petra Connor and Detective Jacob Lev series. Milo Sturgis appears in the subject tags alongside Delaware.