Political corruption book series in reading order

by Carl Hiaasen

Peter Schweizer writes non-fiction about political corruption, espionage and power in the United States. 20 catalogued titles run from Friendly Spies (1993) through Victory (1994), Disney: The Mouse Betrayed (1998), The Fall of the Berlin Wall (2000), Reagan's War (2002) and The Bushes (2004), reaching The Invisible Coup. Cold War history, business intelligence and government conduct are the recurring subjects.

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).

Michael Connelly

60 books• 10 series

Michael Connelly is an American crime novelist, born July 21, 1956. The catalogue lists 60 Connelly books, running from The Black Echo (1992) to Ironwood (2026). LAPD detective Harry Bosch and defence attorney Mickey Haller are the recurring leads, and the listed series include Bosch Universe, Lincoln Lawyer and Safe Man. The Black Echo won the Mystery Writers of America Edgar Award for Best First Novel. Clint Eastwood directed and starred in a 2002 film of Blood Work. Subject headings cover police procedurals, legal fiction, serial murder and Los Angeles.

David Baldacci

71 books• 16 series

David Baldacci is an American novelist, born on 5 August 1960, who trained as an attorney and writes mostly suspense fiction and legal thrillers. The catalogue lists 72 Baldacci books, starting with Absolute Power (1996); All In appeared in 2026 and Boom Town is scheduled for 2027. Recurring leads include Amos Decker, Will Robie, John Puller, Atlee Pine and Aloysius Archer, alongside the Camel Club and the Sean King & Michelle Maxwell books. Baldacci novels have been published in more than 80 countries and 45 languages, with worldwide sales above 130 million copies.

Lee Child

78 books• 15 series

Lee Child is the pen name of James Dover Grant, a British thriller writer born on 29 October 1954. The Jack Reacher novels follow a former American military policeman who drifts across the United States. Killing Floor (1997), the first novel, won the Anthony Award and the 1998 Barry Award for Best First Novel, and Die Trying (1998) and Tripwire (1999) came next. The catalogue runs to Chain Reaction (2026), with Zero Margin listed for 2027. Andrew Child shares credit on a line of Jack Reacher short stories and novellas, and a Frances Neagley line also appears. Subjects include military police, ex-police officers, private investigators and murder.

Carl Hiaasen

33 books• 8 series

Carl Hiaasen, born March 12, 1953, is an American journalist and novelist who started out as a newspaper reporter and was writing novels in spare hours by the late 1970s. Hiaasen writes for adults and for middle grade readers. The adult novels are humorous crime thrillers set in Florida, peopled with eccentric and sometimes grotesque characters, satirising American popular culture and often touching on environmentalism and political corruption. Two Hiaasen novels became feature films and two became TV series. The catalogue lists 33 books from Powder Burn (1981) to Fever Beach (2025), with series including Skink, Andrew Yancy and Mick Stranahan.

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.

Seanan McGuire

160 books• 32 series

Seanan McGuire, born January 5, 1978, is an American writer and filker known for urban fantasy. McGuire writes science fiction and horror as Mira Grant, and the Up-and-Under children's portal fantasy series as A. Deborah Baker. McGuire received the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer in 2010, and the work has earned the Alex, Hugo, Locus and Nebula awards. The catalogue records 162 titles, starting with Rosemary and Rue (2009) and A Local Habitation (2010), with A Divided Duty (2026) the newest and A Song of Sugar Sparrows due in 2027. Series include October Daye, InCryptid, Wayward Children, Newsflesh, Velveteen, Alchemical Journeys and Parasitology.

Bob Woodward

26 books• 1 series

Bob Woodward is an American investigative journalist, known for reporting the Watergate scandal at The Washington Post with Carl Bernstein. Woodward's catalogue holds 26 books, from All the President's Men (1974) to Secrets: A Reporting Memoir (2026). Between those sit The Brethren (1979) on the Supreme Court, Veil (1987) on the secret wars of the CIA, The Agenda (1994) on the Clinton White House and Maestro (2000) on Greenspan's Fed. Presidents, politics and government, decision making and military policy define the subject tags, and Woodward is still publishing.

Mario Vargas Llosa

37 books

Mario Vargas Llosa, who lived from 1936 to 2025, was a Peruvian novelist, journalist, essayist and politician, and one of the leading writers of the Latin American Boom. The 2010 Nobel Prize in Literature cited his cartography of structures of power and his images of individual resistance, revolt and defeat. Thirty-seven titles are catalogued, opening with The Time of the Hero (1962) and taking in Conversation in the Cathedral (1969), Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter (1977) and The War of the End of the World (1981). Peru, its social life and its history recur as subjects.

Howie Carr

13 books• 1 series

Howie Carr is an American radio host, reporter and author with 13 catalogued books. The Brothers Bulger (2006) opens the run, followed by Hitman (2011), Hard Knocks (2012), Ratman (2013), Rifleman (2013), Plug Uglies (2014), Killers (2015) and What Really Happened (2018), reaching Mass Corruption in 2025. Two volumes of Kennedy Babylon appeared in 2018 and 2020. Organised crime in Boston, gangsters, murderers, political corruption and Massachusetts politicians run through the subjects. Carr hosts The Howie Carr Show from Wellesley, Massachusetts, broadcast weekdays on WRKO in Boston, and writes three columns a week for the Boston Herald.

Sam Reaves writes crime and suspense set largely in Chicago. The catalogue lists 14 books from A Long Cold Fall (1991) to Blackchain (2021), and Reaves's series are Cooper MacLeish, Pascual Rose and Pascual. Cooper MacLeish is tagged as a fictitious character, and subjects include organized crime, political corruption, ex-police officers, taxicab drivers and veterans of the Iraq War. Other titles are Fear Will Do It and The Republic of Night.

De'nesha Diamond writes urban fiction, with African American women and street lit among the subjects, and has 12 books from 2010 to 2021. The series are Divas and Parker Crime. Heist (2010) is the first title, and Hustlin' Divas (2010), Street Divas (2011) and Gangsta Divas (2012) follow. Subjects also include sisters, female gang members, revenge, political corruption and Tennessee. Justified (2021) is the newest book.

Malka Ann Older

9 books• 2 series

Malka Ann Older, born 30 October 1977, writes science fiction and works as an academic and a humanitarian aid worker, serving as executive director of Global Voices. The Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs named Older its 2015 Senior Fellow for Technology and Risk. Nine books are catalogued, from Tear Tracks (2015) to The Potency of Ungovernable Impulses (2025). Infomocracy (2016) began The Centenal Cycle, continued by Null States (2017) and State Tectonics (2018); State Tectonics drew a Prometheus Award nomination in 2019, and the cycle a Hugo nomination that same year. Mossa & Pleiti is the other series recorded here.

Bill Browder has 2 catalogued books, both accounts of finance and political corruption. Red Notice (2015) is the first and Freezing Order (2022) the second. Foreign investment, financiers and biography fill the subjects. The median Browder book runs to 396 pages, and no new title has appeared since 2022.