Terrorists book series in reading order

by Brad Thor

by Alex Berenson

by Jack Higgins

by David Poyer

by Don Mann

by Traci Hunter Abramson

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 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).

William Wallace Johnstone, October 28, 1938 to February 8, 2004, was an American author of westerns, horror and survivalist fiction. The Devil's Kiss opened the run in 1981, followed by The Last of the Dog Team (1981), Out of the Ashes (1983) and Anarchy in the Ashes (1984). Series filed under the name include Ashes, First Mountain Man, Smoke Jensen, Last Gunfighter, Blood Bond and Duff MacCallister, and subjects include outlaws, frontier and pioneer life, revenge and Texas. The catalogue carries 544 titles under the Johnstone name dated 1981 to 2026, well past the 2004 death date, and 400 of them carry a William W. Johnstone credit.

Brad Thor

30 books• 4 series

Brad Thor, born Bradley George Thor Jr. on August 21, 1969, is an American writer of thriller novels. Scot Harvath is the recurring character, and terrorism and espionage run through the subject headings. The catalogue counts 30 books, from The Lions of Lucerne (2001) to Choke Point (2026). The Last Patriot drew a Best Thriller of the Year nomination from the International Thriller Writers Association, and NPR listeners voted Blowback onto a list of 100 Best Ever Killer Thrillers. Thor also wrote the short story "The Athens Solution" for the anthology Thriller, edited by James Patterson.

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.

Alex Berenson

24 books• 4 series

John Wells, an intelligence officer working undercover, leads Alex Berenson's espionage thrillers from The Faithful Spy (2006). Berenson's catalogue holds 24 books, opening with The Number (2003) and reaching The Fatherhood Manifesto in 2026, with the Unreported Truth titles and other non-fiction beside the novels. Terrorism, the CIA and undercover operations supply the material.

Jon Land is an American thriller author whose Caitlin Strong novels follow a fifth-generation Texas Ranger. The Ben Kamal and Danielle Barnea books pair a Palestinian detective with a chief inspector of the Israeli police. Land is an emeritus board member of International Thriller Writers and sits on its marketing committee, and was a screenwriter for the film Dirty Deeds. The catalogue lists 55 books from The Doomsday Spiral (1983) to Icefall: The Rise of the Nine (2026), with Blaine McCracken, Jared Kimberlain and National Parks Thriller among the other series.

Daniel Silva

30 books• 3 series

Daniel Silva writes espionage thrillers. The catalogue holds 30 books between The Unlikely Spy (1995) and Ransom (2026), with the Gabriel Allon novels as the main sequence, a shorter Michael Osbourne series beside it, and several standalone titles. Art restorers, assassins, terrorism and Israeli intelligence officers run through the subject tags. Silva is still publishing.

Marc Cameron, born 1961, is an American novelist of action adventure fiction. Cameron writes the Jericho Quinn and Arliss Cutter series and has written Jack Ryan novels set in the Ryanverse built on Tom Clancy's characters. The 26 catalogued books span 2005 to 2026. The earliest, Hard Road to Heaven (2005) and The Hell Riders (2006), appeared as Mark Henry. Later titles include National Security (2011) and Act of Terror (2012), and Backtrack (2026) is the newest.

Military aviation drives Dale Brown's technological thrillers. Patrick McLanahan and Brad McLanahan are the recurring characters across a catalogue of 52 books that opens with Flight of the Old Dog (1987) and reaches Devil's Fortress (2024). Dreamland, Puppet Master, Nick Flynn and the Jason Richter books are the named series. The United States Air Force, weapons systems, espionage and terrorism fill the subject tags.

Ted Bell, born Theodore Augustus Bell III (July 3, 1946 – January 20, 2023), was an American suspense novelist. Bell's New York Times bestselling spy thrillers feature Lord Alexander Hawke and include Hawke (2003), Assassin (2004), Pirate (2005), Spy (2006), Warlord (2010) and Phantom (2012). Nick of Time (2000) is the first catalogued book and Warmonger (2026) the newest; Nick McIver Adventures Through Time is a second series, and time travel appears in the subjects. Before writing novels, Bell served as president and chief creative officer of the Leo Burnett Company in Chicago and later as vice chairman and worldwide creative director of Young & Rubicam.

Olen Steinhauer

16 books• 5 series

Espionage is Olen Steinhauer's subject, first in Eastern Europe and then at the CIA. The Ruthenia Quintet runs from The Bridge of Sighs (2003) through The Confession, 36 Yalta Boulevard, Liberation Movements and Victory Square, following police work in a fictional communist state. Milo Weaver takes over with The Tourist (2009) and The Nearest Exit, reaching The Last Tourist in 2020. Sixteen titles make up the catalogue.

David Poyer, born 1949, is an American author and a retired naval officer. Dan Lenson is a series, and subjects include the United States Navy, officers, sea stories, war and military thrillers and terrorists. Tiller Galloway, Hemlock County and Civil War at Sea are other series. The 51 catalogued books run from White Continent (1980) to Writing Your Memoir In The Age Of AI (2026). The Med (1988), Hatteras Blue (1989) and The Gulf (1990) are among the earlier titles.

Jack Coughlin is a retired United States Marine Corps gunnery sergeant who writes military thrillers and nonfiction. The catalogue opens with his autobiography, Shooter: The Autobiography of the Top-Ranked Marine Sniper (2005), and runs to 13 books ending with In the Crosshairs (2017). The Kyle Swanson Sniper novels carry the fiction. Subjects across the catalogue include snipers, special operations, terrorism and the Iraq War.

Robert K. Tanenbaum was an American trial attorney who also served as mayor of Beverly Hills. The Butch Karp and Marlene Ciampi legal thrillers are his main sequence, catalogued under public prosecutors, women lawyers, murder trials and New York City. Tanenbaum's 34 books run from Badge of the Assassin (1979) and No Lesser Plea (1987) through Depraved Indifference (1989) and Justice Denied (1994) to That Day in Dallas (2025), and the catalogue also holds non-fiction.

Chris Ryan

76 books• 16 series

Chris Ryan is the pen name of Colin Armstrong, a British author, television presenter and security consultant born in 1961 who served as a sergeant in the Special Air Service. After fellow patrol member Andy McNab published Bravo Two Zero in 1993, Ryan told the story of that mission in The One That Got Away (1995). Strike Back became a Sky 1 television series, and Ryan co-created the ITV action series Ultimate Force. The catalogue lists 76 Ryan books up to Traitor (2024), including Stand By, Stand by (1996) and The Kremlin Device (1998). Series include Danny Black, Agent 21, Geordie Sharp, Matt Browning and Special Forces Cadets.

Don Mann's catalogue mixes handbooks with thrillers and runs to 21 books published between 2001 and 2023. The United States Navy SEALs are the recurring subject: Inside SEAL Team Six (2011) and The U.S. Navy SEAL Survival Handbook (2012) sit alongside titles such as Hunt the Wolf (2012), Hunt the Scorpion (2013) and Hunt the Fox (2015). SEAL Team Six is the series the catalogue records for Mann. Special operations, counter-terrorism and cyberterrorism appear among the subjects. History's Assassins: Motives for Murder (2023) is the newest entry.

Marcus Sakey

14 books• 3 series

Marcus Sakey is an American author and the host of the Travel Channel show Hidden City. 14 catalogued books run from The Blade Itself (2007) to Afterlife (2017). The Brilliance Saga is the one series; the rest are standalone novels and short fiction, among them Good People (2008), The Amateurs (2009) and The Two Deaths of Daniel Hayes (2011). Criminals, ex-convicts, kidnapping and a dystopian strand fill the subjects, and 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.

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.

Nelson DeMille

34 books• 8 series

Nelson Richard DeMille, born on 23 August 1943, was an American novelist of action-adventure and suspense fiction who died on 17 September 2024. Plum Island, The Charm School and The General's Daughter are among the DeMille novels, and DeMille also published as Jack Cannon, Kurt Ladner, Ellen Kay and Brad Matthews. The catalogue lists 34 books, from The Sniper (1974) to The Tin Men (2025). Series include Joe Ryker, John Sutter and Scott Brodie & Maggie Taylor, and John Corey and Paul Brenner are among the recurring characters. Subjects include terrorism, espionage and the Middle East.

Iris Johansen writes crime fiction, suspense and romance, and was born on April 7, 1938, in St. Louis, Missouri. The catalogue lists 120 books from Stormy Vows (1983) to Wait and See (2026), with the 1980s as the busiest decade. Eve Duncan, Kendra Michaels and Catherine Ling are the recurring characters, and facial reconstruction and women sculptors appear among the subject headings. Johansen's series also include Sedikhan, Wind Dancer, Clanad and Delaneys.

Traci Hunter Abramson writes romantic and Christian suspense, drawing on Navy SEALs, special operations, witness protection and competitive swimming, with Mormon life among its subjects. The Saint Squad heads her series, and Falcon Point Suspense, Dream's Edge, Luke Steele and Pen & Dagger sit beside it. Fifty-six catalogued books run from Undercurrents (2004) to Treasures of Falcon Point in 2026.

Naval aviation and espionage define Stephen Coonts's thrillers. Jake Grafton leads the series that opens with Flight of the Intruder (1986), Tommy Carmellini heads a later one, and the Saucer books and Deep Black sit alongside. Terrorism, conspiracies, undercover operations and the Vietnam War are recurring subjects. Thirty-eight books run to Dragon's Jaw in 2019, and nothing new has appeared since.