John Dunning Books In Order – Complete List

John Dunning was an American writer best known for his Cliff Janeaway detective series, his standalone works and non fiction books. Interesting fact about the series – Cliff Janeway is a cop and a rare book expert located in Denver, Colorado, while the author himself owned a rare bookstore in East Denver, called the Old Algonquin Bookstore. Talk about walking the talk!

John Dunning passed away in 2023 at the age of 81.

Here are the John Dunning books in order of publication, which consists of the Cliffe Janeaway series, 3 standalone detective novels, 2 general standalone novels and a few works of non-fiction.

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Cliff Janeaway Books in Publication In Order

  1. Booked to Die, 1992
  2. The Bookman’s Wake, 1995
  3. The Bookman’s Promise, 2004
  4. The Sign of the Book, 2005
  5. The Bookwoman’s Last Fling 2006

Novellas and Short Stories

Standalone Novels in Publication Order

Non-Fiction Books in Publication Order

John Dunning Biography

John Dunning Books In Order – Complete List

John Dunning was born in 1942 in Brooklyn, New York. At the age of 3, he moved with his family Charleston in South Carolina, his father’s hometown. He got a GED certificate from the state of Carolina in the early 1960s.

At the age of 22, he moved to Denver, Colorado where he started working various odd jobs. He admits that he was never very good in school, he left high school, he got kicked out of the army and could never hold a steady job. His inability to concentrate for long times on a job was eventually diagnosed as ADD.

He worked in a glass shop, then worked for various horse trainers on the race tracks, followed by landing a clerk boy job at the Denver Post in the library. Eventually, he worked his way up to become a copy boy and at some point became a journalist.

However, he didn’t stop there. Later on, he worked in politics and eventually opened his own bookstore with his wife Helen Rose Korupp, a caseworker. And of course, he wrote books. As the start of his writing career which he got serious about, was in 1992 when his first novel, Booked To Die (the first book in the Cliff Janeaway series), was published. It featured Denver bookseller and ex-policeman Cliff Janeway.

Dunning closed his bookstore in 1994, focusing thereafter on being an online bookseller and author, especially at the urging of his fellow authors. He was also a member of the Colorado Authors’ League.

Besides, writing and loving books, he also enjoyed radios, especially old time radios. John Dunning wrote two encyclopedic reference books about the radio programming history, and he also hosted a long-running weekly radio show, titled Old-Time Radio.

In 2006 he had a brain surgery to remove a benign tumor, which also caused the loss of one eye. This sadly prevented the author from completing a new novel. Eventually this brain tumor led to his death in 2003 due to a long struggle with dementia that resulted from the old brain tumor.

Adaptations of John Dunning’s Books

While there are no movie or TV series adaptations, some of his novels have been adapted to audiobooks, including Deadline, Recorded Books in 2000; Two O’Clock, Eastern Wartime, Simon & Schuster Audio in 2000; The Bookman’s Promise, Recorded Books in 2004, and The Sign of the Book, in 2005.

John Dunning Awards and Nominations

  • Looking for Ginger North was nominated for the Edgar Award for Best Paperback Original in 1981.
  • Deadline was nominated for the Edgar Award for Best Paperback Original in 1982.
  • Booked To Die received the Nero Award in 1993.
  • Booked To Die received the Dilys Award for Best Book in 1993.
  • Booked To Die was nominated for the Macavity Award for Best Novel in 1993.
  • Booked To Die was nominated for the Anthony Award for Best Novel in 1993.
  • The Bookman’s Wake was nominated for the Macavity Award for Best Novel in 1996.
  • The Bookman’s Wake was nominated for the Edgar Award for Best Novel in 1996.

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