World War, 1914-1918 book series in reading order

by Charles Todd

by Charles Todd

by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles

Charles Todd writes historical mysteries set around the First World War. Inspector Ian Rutledge, a police detective, and Bess Crawford, a nurse, head the two main series in a catalogue of 50 titles that begins with A Test of Wills (1994). A Day of Judgment is the most recent book, and A Deadly Cost is dated 2027. Short stories and standalone novels round out the list.

Cynthia Harrod-Eagles is a British novelist of historical, romance and mystery fiction, born 13 August 1948 at Shepherd's Bush, London. The first Harrod-Eagles novel was written in 1972, during university. Most books carry the author's own name, though Emma Woodhouse and Elizabeth Bennett have also served as pseudonyms, and several 1970s titles on file appear as Emma Woodhouse. The catalogue lists 115 books from 1974 to 2026, and series include Morland Dynasty, Bill Slider, War At Home, Ashmore Castle and the Kirov Trilogy. Deadly Force (2026) is the newest.

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.

Jacqueline Winspear

23 books• 5 series

Jacqueline Winspear, a mystery writer born on 30 April 1955, is the author of Maisie Dobbs, a series examining the aftermath of World War I. Books in the series have won Winspear several mystery writing awards. The catalogue lists 24 Winspear books, starting with Maisie Dobbs (2003) and including Birds of a Feather (2004) and Pardonable Lies (2005). The Comfort of Ghosts (2024) is the newest published title, and Charlie Bright is scheduled for 2027. Subjects include women private investigators, both world wars and missing in action.

Edward Marston writes historical crime fiction, and the catalogue of 117 books runs to The Corpse on the Bristol Train (2026). Inspector Robert Colbeck, Elizabethan Theater, Domesday, Home Front Detective, Dillman & Masefield / Ocean Liner Mysteries, Christopher Redmayne, Captain Rawson and Bow Street Rivals are among the series. Nicholas Bracewell and Lord Westfield's Men appear in the subjects, together with theater, police work, railroad travel and World War I. Alan Saxon and Merlin Richards are further series, and Marston is still publishing.

John Buchan

84 books• 4 series

John Buchan, 1st Baron Tweedsmuir (26 August 1875 to 11 February 1940), was a Scottish novelist, historian, army officer and Unionist politician who served as the 15th Governor General of Canada. Buchan published a first novel in 1895, the year of Sir Quixote of the Moors, the earliest catalogued title, and went on to write more than a hundred books, The Thirty-Nine Steps the best known among them. Series include Richard Hannay, the Leithen Stories and Dickson McCunn. Buchan studied at Glasgow and Oxford, practised as a barrister, and in 1901 was private secretary to Lord Milner in southern Africa near the end of the Boer War. Subjects include the First World War, the 1745 Jacobite Rebellion, the intelligence service and Scotland.

Michael Morpurgo

171 books• 5 series

Sir Michael Morpurgo, born 5 October 1943, is an English author, poet, playwright and librettist best known for children's novels such as War Horse (1982). Morpurgo served as the third Children's Laureate from 2003 to 2005 and is President of BookTrust, a children's reading charity. Recurring themes include outsiders who triumph, survival and bonds with nature, set in places such as the Cornish coast and the First World War trenches. The catalogue holds 171 books from It Never Rained (1974) to Down Burrow Lane (2026), including the Mudpuddle Farm series.

Pat Barker

17 books• 3 series

Pat Barker, born in 1943, is an English novelist whose work returns to memory, trauma and survival. The Regeneration trilogy - Regeneration (1991), The Eye in the Door (1993) and The Ghost Road (1995) - sets poets, soldiers and psychiatrists against the First World War and the treatment of war neurosis. A later sequence retells the Trojan War, opening with The Silence of the Girls in 2018 and running to The Voyage Home in 2024. Barker's catalogue holds 17 books, beginning with Union Street in 1982.

L.M. Montgomery

57 books• 9 series

Lucy Maud Montgomery (November 30, 1874 to April 24, 1942) was a Canadian author who published as L. M. Montgomery. Anne of Green Gables (1908) began the body of work Montgomery is known for, and the orphan Anne Shirley brought Montgomery fame and an international readership. The career produced 20 novels plus more than a thousand short stories and poems, alongside essays. The catalogue lists 57 books, from Anne of Green Gables to editions dated 2025, and holds the Anne Shirley, Emily and Silver Bush series and the published journals.

Jim Eldridge, born November 1944, is an English screenwriter for radio, film and television with hundreds of scripts broadcast over a career of more than 30 years. Radio shows created by Eldridge include King Street Junior, The Demon Headmaster, Shut UP and Parsley Sidings, and television creations include Powers, Time of My Life and Uncle Jack. The catalogue holds 117 books from Down Payment On Death (1972) to The Museum Detectives' Christmas Mystery (2026), with Murder at the Vatican due in 2027. Bogeys, Boils And Bellybuttons (1986), Bad Boyes (1987) and Uncle Jack and Operation Green (1990) are early titles, and series include Museum Mysteries, Hotel Mysteries, Cathedral Mysteries, DCI Paul Stark, SAS and Disgusting Dave.

Sebastian Faulks

24 books• 5 series

Sebastian Faulks is a British writer, born on 20 April 1953, who also works in journalism and broadcasting. Faulks's reputation rests chiefly on three novels of French history: The Girl at the Lion d'Or (1989), Birdsong (1993) and Charlotte Gray (1998). Later books with present-day settings include A Week in December (2009) and Paris Echo (2018). Faulks also wrote two continuation novels: Devil May Care (2008) for James Bond, and Jeeves and the Wedding Bells (2013) for Wodehouse's Jeeves. Faulks was a team captain on The Write Stuff, a BBC Radio 4 books quiz. The catalogue lists 24 titles from A Trick Of The Light (1984) to The Seventh Son (2023).

Graham Ison writes police procedurals set in London. Forty-seven books are catalogued between 1989 and 2021, from Confirm or Deny (1989) to Hardcastle's Secret Agent (2021). Four series divide them: the Brock and Poole Mysteries, the Hardcastle books, Tommy Fox, and Gaffney and Tipper. The Home Secretary Will See You Now (1989), A Damned Serious Business (1990), The Cold Light of Dawn (1990), The Laundry Man (1991) and The Taming of Tango Harris (1993) come from the early run. Murder, criminal investigation, English history and the First World War run through the subjects.

Erich Maria Remarque, born Erich Paul Remark on 22 June 1898, was a German novelist who died on 25 September 1970. All Quiet on the Western Front drew on Remarque's service in the Imperial German Army during World War I; the novel became an international bestseller, was filmed several times and began a new genre of veterans writing about conflict. Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels condemned Remarque as unpatriotic for the anti-war themes. Remarque moved to Switzerland as a refugee and later became a naturalised citizen of the United States. The catalogue holds 14 books, from All Quiet on the Western Front (1929) and The Road Back (1931) to Eight Stories: Tales of War and Loss (2018), including Three Comrades (1936) and Arch of Triumph (1945).

Beatriz Williams

31 books• 8 series

Historical fiction across the two world wars is Beatriz Williams's territory, with New York and France as settings and family secrets as the engine. The Schuyler Sisters and Wicked City are her series, and three more, Affairs by Moonlight, A Princess in Hiding and Emmeline Truelove, are catalogued under the name Juliana Gray. Thirty-one books run from A Lady Never Lies (2012) to When You Loved Me in 2026.

Harry Turtledove

141 books• 28 series

Harry Turtledove, born June 14, 1949, is an American historian and novelist of alternate history, historical fiction, fantasy, science fiction and mystery, based in Southern California. The catalogue counts 142 books, starting with Wereblood and Werenight (1979), published as Eric G. Iverson, and listing The Succulent Succubus for 2027. Other pen names are H. N. Turteltaub, Dan Chernenko and Mark Gordian. The Videssos Cycle, Southern Victory / Timeline-191, Worldwar, Colonization, Crosstime Traffic, The War That Came Early and Gerin the Fox are among the series. World War II and the American Civil War are frequent subjects.

Christian historical romance is where Roseanna White's catalogue sits, with women spies, the First World War, heiresses and aristocracy among the recorded subjects. The listing runs to 41 books, opening with A Stray Drop of Blood (2005) and reaching The Final Cut (2026). Culper Ring, Ladies of the Manor, Shadows Over England, Codebreakers, Secrets of the Isles and Imposters are among the series under the White name. White is recorded as ongoing.

Thomas Keneally

66 books• 4 series

Thomas Keneally, born 7 October 1935, is an Australian novelist, playwright, essayist and actor. Schindler's Ark, a historical novel about Oskar Schindler's rescue of Jews during the Holocaust, won the 1982 Booker Prize and became the basis for Steven Spielberg's 1993 film Schindler's List. The catalogue holds 66 titles, including Bring Larks And Heroes (1967), The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith (1972) and Gossip from the Forest (1975), plus the Monsarrat Mystery series. Subjects include Australia, Aboriginal Australians, penal colonies and both world wars.

Matthew Hervey, an officer of the fictional British 6th Light Dragoons, carries Allan Mallinson's fiction from the late Napoleonic Wars into colonial campaigns in India, North America and South Africa. A Close Run Thing (1999) opens the sequence, followed by The Nizam's Daughters (2000), A Regimental Affair (2001), A Call to Arms (2002), The Sabre's Edge (2003) and Company of Spears (2006). Mallinson, born in 1949, is an English author and a retired British Army brigadier, and also writes military history, reaching the First World War. The catalogue holds 19 books through 2020, at a median 448 pages.

Across 194 catalogued books, Danielle Steel writes contemporary romance and family drama: love stories, marriages, widowhood and the turns that reshape a life. The run starts with Going Home (1973) and continues through Celebration, with 24 Hours scheduled for 2027. Steel's catalogue also holds children's picture books, short stories and non-fiction beside the standalone novels that make up most of it.

Erik Larson

11 books• 2 series

Erik Larson is an American journalist, born in 1954, who writes mainly historical nonfiction. The Devil in the White City (2003) won the 2004 Edgar Award for Best Fact Crime. The catalogue holds 11 books from 1992 to 2024, opening with The Naked Consumer (1992) and continuing through Isaac's Storm (1999), In the Garden of Beasts (2011), Dead Wake (2015) and The Splendid and the Vile (2020). The newest is The Demon of Unrest (2024). Subjects include history, biography and murder.

Wilbur Smith was a British-South African novelist born in Northern Rhodesia. Smith's historical fiction covers four centuries of international involvement in Southern Africa. The catalogue lists 66 books, from When the Lion Feeds (1964) to Flashpoint (2026). Series include Courtney, Jack Courtney, Ancient Egypt, Hector Cross and Prey Zone. Recurring character listings include the Courtney family, Ballantyne and Hector Cross. David Churchill and Tom Harper each share the credit on 1 book. Subjects include Africa, Egypt, revenge, espionage and terrorism.

Alyssa Maxwell writes historical cozy mysteries in two series. The Gilded Newport Mysteries follow a woman journalist through murders in the Rhode Island mansions, opening with Murder at the Breakers (2014) and continuing through Murder at Beechwood, Murder at Rough Point and Murder at Chateau Sur Mer. A Lady and Lady's Maid Mystery runs alongside. Twenty-three books reach Murder at Rosecliff in 2026.

Zane Grey

144 books• 13 series

Zane Grey, born Pearl Zane Grey (January 31, 1872 – October 23, 1939), was an American author of adventure novels and stories in the Western genre who presented an idealised American frontier. Riders of the Purple Sage (1912) was Grey's best-selling book. Adaptations of Grey's novels and stories number 112 films, two television episodes and the television series Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theatre. The catalogue opens with Betty Zane (1903), followed by The Spirit of the Border (1906), The Last of the Plainsmen (1908), The Last Trail (1909) and The Heritage of the Desert (1910). Outlaws, cattle stealing, Mormons and fishing appear among the subjects, and series include the Ohio River Trilogy, Ken Ward and Jim Traft.

Ghost stories crossed with murder investigation are Simone St. James's form. The Haunting of Maddy Clare (2012) opens a catalogue of 11 books that reaches A Box Full of Darkness in 2026, taking in The Broken Girls (2018), The Sun Down Motel (2020), The Book of Cold Cases (2022) and Murder Road (2024). The First World War, veterans and nurses appear among the earlier subjects. Every title stands alone.