Alex Berenson Books in Order - John Wells Series Guide

Alex Berenson is an American spy thriller author best known for the John Wells series, featuring a CIA operative who was working undercover inside al-Qaeda for twelve years before coming back to a changed world that no longer wanted or needed him. Before writing fiction full time, Alex Berenson was a reporter for The Denver Post, TheStreet.com, and The New York Times, where he covered heavy topics, including the drug industry, Hurricane Katrina, and the Iraq occupation, all which influenced his fiction books which describe a world involved with terrorism, foreign policy pressure, CIA politics, and what operatives have to pay for doing undercover work.

This page lists all Alex Berenson books in order, including the John Wells series, his standalone thriller The Power Couple, and his nonfiction books.

Latest Alex Berenson Books

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Where to Start with Alex Berenson

→ New to Alex Berenson? Start with The Faithful Spy (John Wells #1). It introduces John Wells, his years undercover, and the reason the CIA is not sure what to do with him when he comes home.
→ Want the main spy-thriller books? Read the John Wells books in publication order. Later books bring back old CIA relationships, especially Ellis Shafer and Vinnie Duto, and the political stakes become bigger and bigger as the series goes on.
→ Prefer a standalone thriller? Try The Power Couple. It follows an FBI counterterrorism agent and an NSA coder after their daughter is kidnapped during a family trip in Europe.
→ Looking for nonfiction books? Alex Berenson’s nonfiction is very different from his fiction, covering business, public policy, COVID-era arguments, and fatherhood.

John Wells Series (Books in Order)

The John Wells series follows Montana-born CIA operative John Wells who spent years undercover infiltrating Al-Qaeda and then returns to the US not sure whom to trust anymore, while his CIA handlers are not sure whether he can be trusted anymore either. Set during the post-9/11 intelligence operations, the first book begins with Wells coming home after several years in the field, and over the rest of the series, he is send back into conflicts around the world involving terrorism, rival agencies, black sites, foreign governments, and political decisions that he can only follow but not contribute to. All this because he can go to places other American operatives can not. The series gives a good idea on how much it costs and what it takes from a person – psychologically or otherwise – to go deep undercover.

The Faithful Spy, 2006
The Ghost War (also titled The Ghost Agent), 2008
The Silent Man, 2009
The Midnight House, 2010
The Secret Soldier, 2011
The Shadow Patrol, 2012
The Night Ranger, 2012
The Counterfeit Agent, 2014
Twelve Days, 2015
The Wolves, 2016
The Prisoner, 2017
The Deceivers, 2018

Standalone Novels

The Power Couple, 2021

Non-Fiction Books

The Number, 2003
Lost in Kandahar, 2011
The Prince of Beers, 2012
Tell Your Children, 2019
Unreported Truths about COVID-19 and Lockdowns, 2020
Pandemia, 2021
The Fatherhood Manifesto, 2026

Alex Berenson Biography

Alex Berenson is an American author and journalist whose books include the John Wells spy thriller series, the standalone thriller The Power Couple, and several non0fiction books. He has published 13 novels since 2006, with The Faithful Spy, the first John Wells book.
Official website: alexberenson.com

Alex Berenson was born in 1973 in New York and grew up in Englewood, New Jersey. He studied history and economics at Yale University, graduating in 1994. Next, he began his career as a business reporter at the Denver Post, joined TheStreet.com in 1996, and moved to The New York Times in 1999 as an investigative reporter. As a journalist, he covered the Iraq occupation (where he spent approximately five months in Iraq in 2003–2004), pharmaceutical industry practices, Hurricane Katrina, and the Bernard Madoff scandal.

While working at the Times, Alex Berenson began writing his fiction books, starting the John Wells series in 2006 with The Faithful Spy. The novel won the Edgar Award for Best First Novel, giving the series a strong start right from the start.

He left The New York Times in 2010 to write full time. He wrote 12 John Wells novels, published between 2006 and 2018, and they all have traces of his work as a reporter: intelligence work, decisions of foreign policy, and operational details that are a main part of the story. He later wrote The Power Couple, a standard thriller about an FBI counterterrorism agent, an NSA coder, and a kidnapping in Barcelona. He also wrote several non-fiction books on contemporary topics like the pandemic, business topics, and fatherhood.

During his research for his novels, he interviewed former CIA officers, soldiers, and State Department personnel, and traveled to various locations mentioned in his books.

In recent years, Alex Berenson has also written through his Unreported Truths Substack. He currently lives in New York.

Alex Berenson Awards and Honors

Awards

The Faithful Spy – Edgar Award for Best First Novel (2007)

Nominations and Shortlists

The Faithful Spy – Barry Award for Best First Novel (2007)
The Faithful Spy – CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger (2007)

Edited by

Marika

Founder of Mystery Sequels, a reference site focused on listing mystery and thriller books in the correct reading order. I maintain and update the site’s bibliographies as new titles are released, ensuring accuracy and consistency across author and series pages.