Jeffery Deaver Books In Order – The Complete List of Books

Last Updated on September 20, 2023 Jeffery Deaver is one of the most popular contemporary thriller authors who brought us the well-known Lincoln Rhyme series. Reading the Jeffery Deaver books in order involves picking up this book series and a few other shorter series as well plus several standalone novels.

Here are the Jeffery Deaver books in order for his popular Lincoln Rhyme books in reading order and in publication order, the Kathryn Dance series, the John Pellam series, his Rune trilogy, the new Colter Shaw books, and other novels he has written, including his popular Amazon Original Stories short story collection, based on the publication order. The book series order is listed in brackets for each of Jeffery Deaver’s series.

New Jeffery Deaver Books

The Watchmaker’s Hand (Lincoln Rhyme #16), 2023

Lincoln Rhyme Books in Reading Order and Publication Order

  1. The Bone Collector (Lincoln Rhyme #1), 1997
  2. The Coffin Dancer (Lincoln Rhyme #2), 1998
  3. The Empty Chair (Lincoln Rhyme #3), 2000
  4. The Stone Monkey (Lincoln Rhyme #4), 2002
  5. The Vanished Man (Lincoln Rhyme #5), 2003
  6. The Twelfth Card (Lincoln Rhyme #6), 2005
  7. The Cold Moon (Lincoln Rhyme #7), 2006 (Kathryn Dance appears briefly)
  8. The Broken Window (Lincoln Rhyme #8), 2008
  9. The Burning Wire (Lincoln Rhyme #9), 2010
  10. The Kill Room (Lincoln Rhyme #10), 2013
  11. The Skin Collector (Lincoln Rhyme #11), 2014
  12. The Steel Kiss (Lincoln Rhyme #12), 2016
  13. The Burial Hour (Lincoln Rhyme #13), 2017
  14. The Cutting Edge (Lincoln Rhyme #14), 2018
  15. The Midnight Lock (Lincoln Rhyme #15), 2019
  16. The Watchmaker’s Hand (Lincoln Rhyme #16), 2023

Lincoln Rhyme Short Stories and Related Books in Publication Order

Broken Doll Series in Reading Order and Publication Order

  1. The Pain Hunter (Broken Doll #1), 2022
  2. Dodge (Broken Doll #2), 2022
  3. Execution Day (Broken Doll #3), 2022
  4. Sixty-One Seconds (Broken Doll #4), 2022

Colter Shaw Books in Reading Order and Publication Order

  1. Captivated (Colter Shaw #0.5), 2019
  2. The Never Game (Colter Shaw #1), 2019
  3. The Second Hostage (Colter Shaw #1.5), 2020
  4. The Goodbye Man (Colter Shaw #2), 2020
  5. The Final Twist (Colter Shaw #3), 2021
  6. The Deadline Clock (Colter Shaw #3.5), 2022
  7. Hunting Time (Colter Shaw #4), 2022

Kathryn Dance Series in Reading Order and Publication Order

  1. The Sleeping Doll (Kathryn Dance #1), 2007 (Lincoln Rhyme appears briefly)
  2. Roadside Crosses (Kathryn Dance #2), 2009
  3. XO (Kathryn Dance #3), 2012 (Lincoln Rhyme appears briefly)
  4. Solitude Creek (Kathryn Dance #4), 2015

John Pellam Series in Reading Order and Publication Order

The John Pellam series was originally written under the pseudonym William Jefferies

  1. Shallow Graves (John Pellam #1), 1992
  2. Bloody River Blues (John Pellam #2), 1993
  3. Hell’s Kitchen (John Pellam #3), 2001

Unsettling Series in Reading Order and Publication Order

audiobook novellas / short stories

  1. The Intruder, 2021
  2. Stay Tuned, 2021
  3. Date Night, 2021
  4. The Muse, 2023

Rune Trilogy in Publication Order

  1. Manhattan Is My Beat (Rune #1), 1988
  2. Death of a Blue Movie Star (Rune #2), 1990
  3. Hard News (Rune #3), 1991

Harold Middleton Series in Reading Order and Publication Order

  1. The Chopin Manuscript, 2007 (17-part serial thriller co-authored with 14 other prominent writers)
  2. The Copper Bracelet, 2009
  3. The Starling Project, 2014

Series the Author Contributed To in Publication Order

  • A Hot and Sultry Night for Crime, 2003 (Mystery Writers of America Presents series)
  • Ice Cold, 2013 with Raymond Benson (Mystery Writers of America Presents series)
  • Death’s Betrayal, 2005 with Sharyn McCrumb (Transgressions series)
  • Carte Blanche, 2011 (James Bond series)

Bibliomysteries Books in Publication Order

  • The Book of Virtue (By: Ken Bruen), 2012
  • Pronghorns of the Third Reich (By: C.J. Box), 2012
  • The Book Thing (By: Laura Lippman), 2012
  • The Book Case (By: Nelson DeMille), 2012
  • An Acceptable Sacrifice (By: Jeffery Deaver), 2012
  • Death Leaves a Bookmark (By: William Link), 2012
  • The Final Testament (By: Peter Blauner), 2013
  • Rides a Stranger (By: David Bell), 2013
  • The Long Sonata of the Dead (By: Andrew Taylor), 2013
  • The Book of Ghosts (By: Reed Farrel Coleman), 2013
  • The Compendium of Srem (By: F. Paul Wilson), 2014
  • What’s in a Name? (By: Thomas H. Cook), 2014
  • Remaindered (By: Peter Lovesey), 2014
  • The Sequel (By: R.L. Stine), 2014
  • The Gospel of Sheba (By: Lyndsay Faye), 2014
  • The Nature of My Inheritance (By: Bradford Morrow), 2014
  • It’s in the Book (By: Mickey Spillane), 2014
  • The Scroll (By: Anne Perry), 2014
  • The Book of the Lion, 2015
  • The Little Men (By: Megan Abbott), 2015
  • Condor in the Stacks (By: James Grady), 2015
  • Mystery, Inc. (By: Joyce Carol Oates), 2015
  • Every Seven Years (By: Denise Mina), 2015
  • From the Queen (By: Carolyn Hart), 2015
  • The Travelling Companion (By: Ian Rankin), 2016
  • Citadel (By: Stephen Hunter), 2016
  • Reconciliation Day (By: Christopher Fowler), 2016
  • Dead Dames Don’t Sing (By: John Harvey), 2016
  • The Haze (By: James W. Hall), 2016
  • Hoodoo Harry (By: Joe R. Lansdale), 2017
  • The Pretty Little Box (By: Charles Todd), 2018
  • Seven Years (By: Peter Robinson), 2018
  • The Hemingway Valise (By: Robert Olen Butler), 2018
  • The Last Honest Horse Thief (By: Michael Koryta), 2018
  • The Caxton Private Lending Library & Book Depository (By: John Connolly), 2018
  • The Dark Door (By: Lisa Unger), 2022

Bibliomysteries Books in Chronological Order

  • The Book of Virtue (By:Ken Bruen), 2012
  • The Scroll (By:Anne Perry), 2014
  • Pronghorns of the Third Reich (By:C.J. Box), 2012
  • An Acceptable Sacrifice (By:Jeffery Deaver), 2012
  • Death Leaves a Bookmark (By:William Link), 2012
  • Seven Years (By:Peter Robinson), 2018
  • The Book Thing (By:Laura Lippman), 2012
  • The Book of Ghosts (By:Reed Farrel Coleman), 2013
  • The Long Sonata of the Dead (By:Andrew Taylor), 2013
  • The Final Testament (By:Peter Blauner), 2013
  • Rides a Stranger (By:David Bell), 2013
  • What’s in a Name? (By:Thomas H. Cook), 2014
  • It’s in the Book (By:Mickey Spillane), 2014
  • The Nature of My Inheritance (By:Bradford Morrow), 2014
  • Remaindered (By:Peter Lovesey), 2014
  • The Compendium of Srem (By:F. Paul Wilson), 2014
  • The Gospel of Sheba (By:Lyndsay Faye), 2014
  • The Sequel (By:R.L. Stine), 2014
  • The Book of the Lion, 2015
  • The Little Men (By:Megan Abbott), 2015
  • From the Queen (By:Carolyn Hart), 2015
  • Every Seven Years (By:Denise Mina), 2015
  • Citadel (By:Stephen Hunter), 2016
  • Condor in the Stacks (By:James Grady), 2015
  • Mystery, Inc. (By:Joyce Carol Oates), 2015
  • The Travelling Companion (By:Ian Rankin), 2016
  • The Haze (By:James W. Hall), 2016
  • Dead Dames Don’t Sing (By:John Harvey), 2016
  • Reconciliation Day (By:Christopher Fowler), 2016
  • Hoodoo Harry (By:Joe R. Lansdale), 2017
  • The Pretty Little Box (By:Charles Todd), 2018
  • The Caxton Private Lending Library & Book Depository (By:John Connolly), 2018
  • The Hemingway Valise (By:Robert Olen Butler), 2018
  • The Last Honest Horse Thief (By:Michael Koryta), 2018
  • The Book Case (By:Nelson DeMille), 2012
  • The Dark Door (By: Lisa Unger), 2022

Other Jeffery Deaver Books, Novellas, and Short Stories

Jeffery Deaver Short Story Collections and Anthologies in Publication Order

Amazon Original Short Stories in Publication Order

Hush Collection Short Stories in Publication Order

The World’s Finest Mysteries Series in Publication Order

annual collection of mystery novels by various authors

  1. The World’s Finest Mystery and Crime Stories 1, 2000
  2. The World’s Finest Mystery and Crime Stories 2, 2020
  3. The World’s Finest Mystery and Crime Stories 3, 2002
  4. The World’s Finest Mystery and Crime Stories 4, 2003
  5. The World’s Finest Mystery and Crime Stories 5, 2004

Jeffery Deaver’s Non Fiction Books

Who is Lincoln Rhyme?

Lincoln Rhyme is the best-known character among the many the author Jeffery Deaver has written about so far. He is a brilliant Forensic Criminalist Consultant with the Dept. and a former NYPD Homicide Detective who changed jobs due to physical reasons. After being involved in an accident at a crime scene where an oak beam fell on him, which ended up crushing his  C4 vertebrae, it also left him paralyzed from his shoulders down, effectively making him quadriplegic. Except for his very upper body, he can only move his left ring finger.

He is first introduced in The Bone Collector, which teams him up with Amelia Sachs, a 31-year-old police officer who gets involved in the case and basically becomes Lincoln’s ears, eyes, brains, and fingers on the crime scenes. Ever since then he has been confined to a bed, equipment and manual care by others in order to survive.

Just before their first case together, Lincoln Rhyme was actually contemplating suicide with the help of Dr. William Berger, who is a pro-euthanasia doctor. Thankfully for this case and Amelia, our main character got to live for many books more so the two can solve many homicide crimes.

In the first main case, Lincoln is visited by his former partner, Lon Sellitto, who needs help with a puzzling case where two people have been kidnapped. One is alive and the other one is still missing. Initially, Lincoln has no major interest in the case since he is busy with ending his life, but soon he gets hooked on the case details against his own reluctance.

In the Lincoln Rhyme books, as the story progresses, Lincoln Rhyme and Amelia Sachs not only form a work-related partnership but also a real relationship.

The Lincoln Rhyme character was soon introduced to the big screen in a movie from 1999 titled The Bone Collector, which featured mostly the plot from the first book. It is one of the finest mystery thriller books and crime stories to be transferred to the cinema.

For those unfamiliar with Jeffery Deaver’s works, this debut novel should be a great introduction to immerse yourself into the world of this wonderful author. Reading the Jeffery Deaver books in order should start with it.

Jeffery Deaver Biography – About the Author

Jeffery Deaver author

Jeffery Deaver was born in 1950 in  Glen Ellyn, outside Chicago, Illinois. He attended the University of Missouri from where he obtained a bachelor degree in journalism, after which he worked as a magazine writer for a bit, before returning to study law at the Fordham University in New York City.

After getting his law degree, he worked as a corporate lawyer on Wall Street.

In his spare time, however, he kept on writing and trying to get his books published. After several rejections (or self-terminations due to the author realizing that what he wrote were not up to par), his next work, Hoodoo, got accepted by a smaller publisher. His next book, Always A Thief got accepted eventually as well.

Over time, however, Jeffery Deaver changed the way he wrote books. He even admits these days that he’s not overly fond of his earlier creations and he doesn’t mind if those books are continuously out of print (in fact I haven’t been able to find a copy of either of those early novels, no matter how much I searched. Still not giving up…)

Reading the Jeffery Deaver books in order is a real treat for every FBI-style thrillers reader. The author has written close to 30 novels which have been translated into 25 languages and were sold in over 150 countries. My first encounter with his books was with his debut novel, The Bone Collector. Needless to say, I was hooked.

It was published in 1997, and two years later the overnight hit movie with the same title featuring two of my favorite actors, Denzel Washington and Angelina Jolie played in theaters. I have to say, the actors did a good job transplanting what the book had to offer to the big screen.

The Bone Collector

His first serious debut novel, The Bone Collector, and probably the best of Jeffery Deaver’s novels, was not intended to become part of a series. But I’m glad it did because Lincoln Rhyme is one of the most interesting characters I met in books.

A quadriplegic from the very first book, he is up against the most ruthless of criminals, and only his sharp wits and his above-average mind and intellect helps him solve crimes after crimes from a physical impairment position where most people would give up on the world and will to live by now.

In Coffin Dancer, the story of the main character and Amelia Sachs continues with a more harrowing case.

In the newer Jeffery Deaver book, The Cutting Edge, which is book #14 in the book series, Lincoln Rhyme and his bride and partner, Amelia Sachs, return from their honeymoon in Italy just in time to realize that their home city, New York, is under terror by a serial killer. Newspapers and media called him Fiancé Killer and as usual, the name stuck.

The killer’s MO is following newly engaged couples to jewelry stores and killing them before they get the chance to actually buy the wedding ring. When the killer escapes once again, the police asks Lincoln to kindly lend a hand and his unbeatable forensic expertise in catching the monster roaming the New York City streets.

But the closer Lincoln and Amelia get to the killer, the nearer he gets to them. Now, the couple has to stop them before their lives are stopped…for good.

Jeffery Deaver’s Colter Shaw books starting in 2019 features private investigator / excellent tracker/problem solver guy who, in The Never Game, is tasked by a man to find his missing daughter. Shaw is perfect for the job since, as the son of a survivalist family, he has uncanny tracking abilities, and he puts those to good use while he is traveling across the country to solve cases that need his particular flavor of expertise.

Soon, however, a second victim goes missing, and all signs point to a particular video game which has as topic survival in unfriendly places after being abandoned there. Could there be a connection between the two cases and to the said video game?

The book series starts with the short novella, Captivated, which introduces us to Colter Shaw, where he is already working the case of a missing woman who might have fled from her husband and gone to a retreat in Indiana. But the more he investigates, the clearer it is that things are a bit more complicated than initially anticipated.

Jeffery Deaver has also started writing crime stories / short story collections, especially for Amazon, all crime stories of around 60 pages each. There are also several Lincoln Rhyme short stories, including one with Lincoln Rhyme vs Lucas Davenport, titled Rhymes with Prey.

The short story was initially included in the Face Off collection. These stories are also part of the Lincoln Rhyme books, albeit very short.

The author also contributed to the James Bond Extended series with Jeffery Deaver’s Carte Blanche, a novel published in 2011. The series original was written by Ian Flemming, and then was continued by authors such as Robert Markham, John George Pearson, Christopher Wood, Raymond Benson, and John Gardner, who wrote several novels in the series.

The Jeffery Deaver books have appeared on several bestseller lists around the world, including The New York Times, The Times, The Sydney Morning Herald, Corriere della Sera in Italy, and The Los Angeles Times.

Jeffery Deaver’s Awards and Nominations

Jeffery Deaver was nominated for and has received several awards over the years, including:

  • The Bodies Left Behind was named Novel of the Year by the International Thriller Writers Association
  • The Broken Window and Edge were nominated for the same award
  • The Garden of Beasts won the Steel Dagger from the Crime Writers Association in England
  • He has been nominated for three Edgar Awards from the Mystery Writers of America
  • The author has been given the Lifetime Achievement Award by the Bouchercon World Mystery Convention, the Strand Magazine’s Lifetime Achievement Award, and the Raymond Chandler Lifetime Achievement Award in Italy.

Jeffery Deaver’s Books into Movies

Currently, three Jeffery Deaver books have been turned into movies:

The Bone Collector

Dead Silence

The Devil’s Teardrop

Like these books

3 Comments

  1. One of my favorite 2 authors….Stories packed with intelligent and detailed subject matter. Needs to write more novels!

    Reply

  3. Can you tell me the title of the book that is about the use of data (loyalty cards) in frame people for murders? Thamnk you.

    Reply

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