John Connolly Books In Order – Complete List

Reading the John Connolly books in order is akin to traveling down a road filled with very disturbed, slightly supernatural, poetic and often gory and gruesome passers-by.

Here are the John Connolly books in order of publication and chronological order for his series, standalone novels, short stories, short story collections, along with nonfiction books. The list will be updated with new books as the author publishes them.

Latest John Connolly Books

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Charlie Parker Books in Publication Order

1. Every Dead Thing, 1999
2. Dark Hollow, 2000
3. The Killing Kind, 2001
4. The White Road, 2002
5. The Black Angel, 2005
6. The Unquiet, 2007
7. The Reapers, 2008
8. The Lovers, 2009
9. The Whisperers, 2010
10. The Burning Soul, 2011
11. The Wrath of Angels, 2012
12. The Wolf in Winter, 2014
13. A Song of Shadows, 2015
14. A Time of Torment, 2016
15. A Game of Ghosts, 2017
16. The Woman in the Wood, 2018
17. A Book of Bone, 2019
18. The Dirty South, 2020 – also a prequel novel
19. The Nameless Ones, 2021
20. The Furies, 2022
21. The Instruments of Darkness, 2024

Charlie Parker Short Stories

• The Reflecting Eye (#4.5), 2004 (included in Nocturnes)

Other Charlie Parker Books

• Charlie Parker: A Mysterious Profile, 2022

Nocturnes Books in Publication Order

supernatural short story collection

1. Nocturnes, 2004 (also includes The Reflecting Eye in the Charlie Parker series)
2. Night Music, 2015
3. Day & Night, 2024

The Book of Lost Things Books in Publication Order

1. The Book of Lost Things, 2006
2. The Land of Lost Things, 2023

Samuel Johnson Vs. The Devil Books in Publication Order

1. The Gates, 2009
2. The Infernals, 2011
3. The Creeps, 2013
4. The Monks of Appalling Dreadfulness, 2020

Chronicles of the Invaders Trilogy

with Jennifer Ridyard

1. Conquest, 2013
2. Empire, 2015
3. Dominion, 2016

Standalone Novels in Order of Publication

• Bad Men, 2003
• Inherit the Dead, 2013
• He, 2017 (a literary imagining of the life of the great comedian Stan Laurel)

Novellas and Short Stories

• The Wanderer in Unknown Realms, 2013

Anthologies and Short Story Collections in Publication Order

• Like a Charm: A Novel in Voices, 2004 (edited by Karin Slaughter)
• Dangerous Women: Original Stories from Today’s Greatest Suspense Writers, 2004
• The Best New British Mysteries Volume II, 2005
• The British Fantasy Society – a Celebration, 2006
• The Best American Crime Writing 2006, 2006
• From the Republic of Conscience, 2009
• Uncage Me, 2009
• Dark Delicacies III: Haunted, 2009
• The Lineup: The World’s Greatest Crime Writers Tell the Inside Story of Their Greatest Detectives, 2009
• Zombie: An Anthology of the Undead, 2010
• The New Dead: A Zombie Anthology, 2010
• Suspense Magazine, August 2010, 2010
• Down These Green Streets: Irish Crime Writing in the 21st Century, 2011
• Crimespree Magazine #1 and 2, 2011
• Crimespree Magazine #11 and 12, 2012
• A Carnivale of Horror, 2012
• Death Sentences: Stories of Deathly Books, Murderous Booksellers and Lethal Literature, 2014
• OxCrimes: 27 Killer Stories from the Cream of Crimewriters, 2014
• Once Upon a Place, 2015
• Trouble is Our Business: New Stories by Irish Crime Writers, 2016
• Echoes of Sherlock Holmes: Stories Inspired by the Holmes Canon, 2016
• Where Nightmares Come From: The Art of Storytelling in the Horror Genre, 2017
• Phantoms: Haunting Tales from Masters of the Genre, 2018
• Exit Wounds, 2019 (edited by Paul Kane and Marie O’Regan)
• First Edition: 21 Years of Goldsboro Books, 2020
• Daggers Drawn, 2021 (with Jeffery Deaver, Ian Rankin, et al)
• Folk Horror Short Stories, 2024

Non-Fiction Books in Publication Order

• Married to a Stranger, 2005 (with Gaylen Ross)
• Books to Die For, 2012
• Filthy Rich: The Shocking True Story of Jeffrey Epstein – The Billionaire’s Sex Scandal, 2016 (with James Patterson, Tim Malloy)
• Shadow Voices: 300 Years of Irish Genre Fiction: A History in Stories, 2021

Series John Connolly Contributed To

• The Underbury Witches, 2006 Open Door Series 5)
• The Caxton Private Lending Library & Book Depository, 2013 (Bibliomysteries / Death Sentences)

John Connolly Biography – About the Author

John Connolly is the Irish author of his popular Charlie Parker supernatural crime mystery series set in Maine, US.

He was born in 1968 in Dublin, Ireland. He studied English at Trinity College, Dublin, where he got his BA and an M.A. in journalism from Dublin City University.

Before becoming a full-time author, he held several odd jobs, such as being a barman, a waiter, a low-level clerk at Harrods in London, aka a local government official, and a freelance journalist for The Irish Times newspaper, where he remained for 5 years. While no longer employed there, he still contributes articles and interviews other authors every now and then.

John Connolly’s work in the field of journalism was a stepping stone to his career as a mystery author. In fact, he wrote his very first book, Every Dead Thing (which turned out to become the first Charlie Parker book) while he was still freelancing as a journalist. The book was published in 1999, setting the course for a successful career with many books to follow. It received the 2000 Shamus Award for Best First Private Eye Novel and was nominated for the Bram Stoker Award for Best First Novel.

John Connolly is the only non-American author to receive the Shamus Award, and the first Irish author to receive an Edgar Award.

Once John Connolly fully embraced his book author career, he started writing in earnest. John Connolly’s books so far include over 20 stories in several suspense and fantasy series and several standalone novels. Over the years he won various literary awards including the Barry Award, the Agatha Award, the Anthony Award, and the Edgar Award, and others being nominated for several more.

His short story, The New Daughter, included in Nocturnes, the supernatural story collection, was the base of a movie with the same title featuring Kevin Costner and Ivana Baquero.

The most popular of John Connolly’s series, is his Charlie (Bird) Parker thriller series, featuring the ex-cop ex-PI troubled guy who has his very own demons to battle while also fighting the evil that tries to destroy the world, one person at a time. You know, those sadistic serial killers who prey on the innocent and torture them to unspeakable lows before killing them without mercy.

Interestingly enough, I first heard of this author when I’ve bought on an impulse his standalone novel The Book Of Lost Things. I was in a phase in my life when searching and reading the so-called ‘books about books’ aka the Bibliomysteries Books (e.g. cozies involving bookshops, mysteries evolving around strange books, etc.)

I truly got hooked on this author’s writing with the very first Charlie Parker book, called Every Dead Thing. I have read it several years ago, and just now recently went back to read it again along with rest of the series to eventually catch up to his latest novel, published this year called A Time Of Torment.

Most of the John Connolly books have supernatural elements, and early on, the author drew heavy criticism for them from critics. Still, he didn’t give up and continued to add supernatural to his Charlie Parker thriller series.

While the books are set in the US and the author is living in Dublin, Ireland, the author does bring in some elements from him in his stories in the form of folklore, the uncanny, and the supernatural part of the fiction. Some books have quite strong elements of folklore within the pages.

Besides the Charlie Parker Series, John Connolly also wrote several shorter stories, edited a nonfiction book of essays on writing by several other authors, and with He, in 2017, he departed from his usual genre by creating a promising reimagined fictional biography of Stan Laurel. A delightful novel full of humor and biographical tidbits for every lover of the Golden-Age comedy.

Who is Charlie Parker?

Charlie Parker was once a cop with the NYPD. Now, he is a tough private investigator – some might call him an occult detective. Still, he never uses the occult and the paranormal in explaining the various loopholes in the stories.

His past is dire, and Charlie Parker learned the hard way that real evil exists. He accepts it, and he has learned to deal with it. His dark past comes to us right from the start, in the first book – Every Dead Thing – when his wife and young daughter were tortured and killed while he was away binge drinking. Ridden with guilt, he leaves his job at the NYPD and begins working as a PI.

As a private investigator, behind the cases he takes on, however, there is one thing Charlie Parker can’t stop thinking about: finding the one who destroyed his family. A man called The Traveling Man.

After leaving New York, Charlie Parker retreats to Maine, where he begins working in earnest as a PI with the help of his supernatural comrades Louis and Angel.