Spies book series in reading order

by Ally Carter

by L.A. Meyer

by Chris Ryan

Anthony Horowitz

106 books• 23 series

Anthony Horowitz is an English novelist and screenwriter, born 5 April 1955, who specialises in mystery and suspense. For children and young adults Horowitz created Alex Rider, a 14-year-old British boy who spies for MI6, along with The Power of Five (titled The Gatekeepers in the US) and The Diamond Brothers. The catalogue holds 106 Horowitz books from Enter Frederick K. Bower (1978) to A Deadly Episode (2026). Other listed series include Detective Daniel Hawthorne, Susan Ryeland, Groosham Grange and the Pentagram Chronicles. Horowitz is still publishing.

Robert Muchamore

51 books• 7 series

Robert Muchamore, born 26 December 1971, is an English author of young adult fiction known for the CHERUB, Henderson's Boys and Rock War series. The catalogue holds 51 Muchamore books from 2004 to 2026. The Recruit, Kerry's First Mission and CHERUB at Christmas are among the 2004 entries, and Maximum Security followed in 2005. Subjects include spies, teenagers, undercover operations, orphans and World War II, and CHERUB is tagged as an imaginary organization. Robin Hood and CHERUB 2 are also listed, and War and Peas (2026) is the newest title.

Charlie Higson

35 books• 7 series

Charlie Higson, born 3 July 1958, is an English actor, comedian, author and former singer who has also written and produced for television. Higson is the author of The Enemy, a young adult post-apocalyptic series, and wrote the first five Young Bond novels. King of the Ants (1992) opens the catalogue of 35 titles, followed by Happy Now (1993), Full Whack (1995) and Getting Rid of Mister Kitchen (1996). The Dalek Factor (2004) appears next, then SilverFin (2005), Blood Fever (2006), Double or Die (2007) and By Royal Command (2008). Spies, zombies, survival and London appear in the subject tags.

Stuart Gibbs

46 books• 10 series

Stuart Gibbs writes mystery and adventure fiction for readers in grades six to eight. Belly Up (2010) opens the FunJungle series, set around a zoo, and Spy School, Moon Base Alpha, Charlie Thorne, The Last Musketeer and Once Upon a Tim follow. Forty-two catalogued books reach 2027, when There's No Place like Rome arrives.

Ally Carter

29 books• 8 series

Spies, thieves and boarding schools furnish Ally Carter's fiction for young readers. The Gallagher Girls series, set at a school that trains teenage spies, runs from 2006 through Cross My Heart and Hope to Spy, Don't Judge a Girl by Her Cover and Only the Good Spy Young. Heist Society turns to con artists, Embassy Row to diplomatic intrigue, and Winterborne Home for Vengeance and Valor to a mystery for younger readers. Thirty titles make up the catalogue, which began with the adult novel Cheating at Solitaire (2005).

Bill Myers is an American Christian author, film director and film producer, born in Seattle, Washington on September 9, 1953. The animated series McGee and Me! is the work Myers is most noted for. Myers writes across comedy, horror, thriller, fiction and nonfiction. The catalogue holds 132 books, from My Friend William Moved Away (1979) to Commune (2023), with the 1990s as the busiest decade. Series include Incredible Worlds of Wally McDoogle, Forbidden Doors, Bloodhounds Inc., TJ and the Time Stumblers and Secret Agent Dingledorf and His Trusty Dog, SPLAT. Catalogue subjects cover Christian life, children's fiction, humorous stories, time travel and spies.

Greg Rucka

105 books• 35 series

Greg Rucka, born November 29, 1969, is an American novelist and comics writer. The Atticus Kodiak novels carry Rucka's name, as do the creator-owned comics Whiteout, Queen & Country, Stumptown and Lazarus. For DC Comics, Rucka wrote long runs on Detective Comics, Wonder Woman and Gotham Central, and co-created Kate Kane, the second Batwoman; the Marvel work includes Elektra, Wolverine and The Punisher. Crossover material by Rucka includes No Man's Land, Infinite Crisis and New Krypton. The catalogue lists 106 titles from 1994 onward, with Keeper (1996) and Whiteout (1998) among the early entries and a Batwoman collection scheduled for 2027.

Ben Macintyre

17 books

Ben Macintyre writes narrative history and biography, much of it about spies and the two world wars. 17 catalogued titles run from Forgotten Fatherland (1992) through The Napoleon of Crime (1997), A Foreign Field (2001), The Englishman's Daughter (2001) and Agent Zigzag (2007). Prisoners of war, missing soldiers and wartime deception recur across the work, which reaches Redwood in 2026.

Francine Pascal (née Rubin, 1932–2024) was an American author whose name is tied to the Sweet Valley books for young adults. Sweet Valley High anchored that collection, was adapted for television, and branched into spin-offs such as The Unicorn Club and Sweet Valley University. The catalogue opens with Hangin' Out with Cici (1977) and also carries the Fearless series. Subjects include twins, sisters, high schools, friendship and dating. Most Sweet Valley books came out in the 1980s and 1990s, and several titles were re-released decades later.

John Le Carre

30 books• 5 series

John le Carré was the pen name of David John Moore Cornwell, an English novelist of espionage who lived from 19 October 1931 to 12 December 2020. During the 1950s and 1960s Cornwell worked for MI5 and MI6, and late in life took Irish citizenship. The catalogue counts 30 books, from Call for the Dead (1961) to A Private Spy: The Letters of John le Carré (2022). The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1963), the third novel, was an international bestseller and an award-winning film. George Smiley is the recurring figure, with Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (1974) and Smiley's People (1979) in the list. Subjects include the Cold War, spies and intelligence officers.

Espionage, terrorism and the Second World War supply Jack Higgins with his material. Higgins published the earliest of 76 catalogued books as Harry Patterson, among them Sad Wind from the Sea (1959), Cry of the Hunter (1960) and Hell Is Too Crowded (1962). Sean Dillon, Paul Chavasse, Liam Devlin and Martin Fallon head series of their own, alongside standalone thrillers. The Midnight Bell, published in 2016, closes the catalogue.

Susanna Gregory is the pen name of Elizabeth Cruwys, a Cambridge academic and former coroner's officer who writes historical detective fiction. Matthew Bartholomew, a physician investigating murders in fourteenth-century Cambridge, carries her longest sequence, which opens with A Plague on Both Your Houses (1996). Thomas Chaloner heads a second series. Under a further name, Simon Beaufort, she wrote the Sir Geoffrey Mappestone and Alec Lonsdale books. The catalogue holds 52 books published between 1996 and 2022, and nothing has followed The Pudding Lane Plot (2022).

Roland Smith, born November 30, 1951, is an American author of young adult fiction and of nonfiction for children. The catalogue lists 51 titles from Sea Otter Rescue (1990) to The Vaquita (2025), with early books on zoo animals, Primates in the Zoo, Snakes in the Zoo, Inside the Zoo Nursery, sitting beside later adventure fiction. Series include I, Q, Peak, Storm Runners, Zach's Lie, Jacob Lansa, Marty and Grace and the Alphabet Picture books; Marie Smith shares credit on 3 of the titles. Subjects name survival, adventure, spies, mountaineering and terrorism.

Ridley Pearson

56 books• 11 series

Ridley Pearson, born March 13, 1953, is an American author of suspense, thriller and adventure books, several of which have made The New York Times Best Seller list. The catalogue lists 56 titles, opening with Never Look Back (1985) and Blood of the Albatross (1986). Undercurrents (1988), Probable Cause (1990) and The Angel Maker (1993) are among the earlier books, and Tiana's Bayou Adventure (2026) is the newest. Series include Boldt & Matthews, Walt Fleming, Risk Agent, Lock and Key, Steel Trapp and Kingdom Keepers. Subject tags name Lou Boldt, Daphne Matthews and police psychologists, alongside children's fiction and fantasy.

Barbara Cartland

702 books• 3 series

Barbara Cartland, born Mary Barbara Hamilton Cartland on 9 July 1901 and died on 21 May 2000, was an English romance novelist and socialite. This directory catalogues 702 titles under Cartland's name, from His Hour (1910) through to A Heart in the Highlands (2024), with the 1980s the heaviest decade. The Eternal Collection, the Pink Collection and the Camfield Novels Of Love group the bulk of that output. Cartland wrote contemporary as well as historical romance, the historical novels set mainly in the Victorian and Edwardian periods, and ranks fifth among the most translated authors worldwide.

James Ponti writes mystery and adventure fiction for readers in grades 3 to 5. The catalogue lists 38 books between 1992 and 2027, starting with Hollywood East: Florida's Fabulous Flicks (1992) and reaching Operation Oz, scheduled for 2027. City Spies, Dead City, the Sherlock Society and the Florian Bates T.O.A.S.T. mysteries are the series recorded. Early entries include junior novelizations, among them Around the World in 80 Days Jr. Novel (2004) and The Santa Clause 3: Escape Clause (2006).

John Patrick Green is an American author and illustrator, known for creating the children's graphic novel series InvestiGators and for illustrating the comic Jax Epoch and the Quicken Forbidden. Alligators, detectives, humour, friendship and sibling rivalry appear among the subjects of 26 catalogued books published between 2010 and 2026, from Nothing but Trouble to Weather or Not. InvestiGators: Agents of S.U.I.T., Kitten Construction Company, Teen Boat! and the Phineas and Ferb Comic Readers are the named series.

Jennifer L. Holm

66 books• 13 series

Jennifer L. Holm, born in 1968, writes for children in both prose and comics, and holds three Newbery Honors and an Eisner Award. Babymouse, an imaginative mouse at school, recurs across the Babymouse and BIG Adventures of Babymouse books, with Squish, Sunny, My First Comics and Evil Princess vs. the Brave Knight as the other graphic series. May Amelia, Boston Jane, Turtle in Paradise and The Fourteenth Goldfish sit alongside them in prose. Holm's 66 catalogued books run from Our Only May Amelia (1999) to Sunny Figures It Out (2025), at a median of 126 pages.

Wendy Mass, born 22 April 1967, is an American author of children's books and young adult novels. A Mango-Shaped Space (2003) received the ALA Schneider Family Book Award for Middle School in 2004, and Jeremy Fink and the Meaning of Life was adapted into a feature film in 2011. 11 Birthdays and Every Soul a Star are other noted titles. The catalogue holds 46 books from 1997 to 2023, beginning with Teen Drug Abuse (1997) and ending with Lo and Behold (2023). Willow Falls, Candymakers, Space Taxi and Time Jumpers are among the series.

Tom Clancy

72 books• 9 series

Tom Clancy, born Thomas Leo Clancy Jr. on April 12, 1947 and dead on October 1, 2013, was an American writer of techno-thrillers, a form that carries technical detail about espionage and military science. An insurance agent before publishing, Clancy debuted with The Hunt for Red October in 1984. The Ryanverse books follow Jack Ryan, an analyst with the Central Intelligence Agency. Subjects across the listing include terrorism, suspense and espionage. The catalogue carries 72 titles under the Clancy name dated 1984 to 2023, with Bill McCay, Grant Blackwood and Peter Telep credited on one or two each.

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).

Jennifer Lynn Barnes

33 books• 9 series

Young adult novels are the core of Jennifer Lynn Barnes's work; the American writer, born October 19, 1984, is best known for the Inheritance Games saga and The Naturals. The catalogue holds 33 Barnes books, from Golden (2006) to Dangerous Impulses (2026). Other series include Fixer, The Grandest Game, Raised By Wolves, Debutantes and Squad. Subjects attached to the books include high schools, friendship, extrasensory perception, the supernatural, werewolves and mythology.

Robert Ludlum (May 25, 1927 to March 12, 2001) was an American thriller author who wrote 27 novels and created Jason Bourne. Between 300 million and 500 million copies of Ludlum's books are estimated to be in print, in 33 languages and 40 countries. The catalogue opens with The Scarlatti Inheritance (1971), followed by The Osterman Weekend (1972) and The Matlock Paper (1973). Ludlum also wrote as Jonathan Ryder and Michael Shepherd. The catalogue also carries Covert-One and Paul Janson entries, plus titles dated after 2001 such as The Bourne Revenge (2026).

Gail Carriger

37 books• 13 series

Gail Carriger is an American author of steampunk fiction. Carriger's 37 catalogued books span 1999 to 2024 and cover the Alexia Tarabotti, Finishing School, Custard Protocol and Delightfully Deadly series, plus a Parasol Protectorate manga line and titles issued as G.L. Carriger. Werewolves, vampires, London society and etiquette run through the work, and Carriger remains actively publishing.