Alex Hawke Books in Order: How to read Ted Bell’s series?

Lord Alexander Hawke is a British secret agent created by American author Ted Bell. While sailing in the Caribbean, young Alex Hawke witnesses an act of unspeakable horror as modern-day pirates brutally murder his parents. It is a tragedy that will haunt him forever, and shape his destiny. Now an adult, Alex Hawke works as a skilled spy for the British government and stops international crises on a regular basis.

How to read the Alex Hawke Series in Order?

Every entry in the Alex Hawke book series works as a standalone story, but the lives of the different characters evolve from one novel to the other.

1. Hawke – As a direct descendant of a legendary English privateer, Lord Alexander Hawke is skilled in the ways of sea combat – and one of England’s most decorated naval heroes. Now, Hawke returns to the Caribbean on a secret mission for the American government. A highly experimental stealth submarine is missing.
2. Assassin – A shadowy terrorist kingpin has orchestrated the systematic slaying of American diplomats, and as the death toll mounts, Alex Hawke is called upon to avert a cataclysmic attack – while avenging a senseless crime that has left him devastated.
3. Pirate – Aboard a ship in the south of France, an American spy faces certain torture and death for the vital intelligence he possesses. In Paris, a powerful descendant of Napoleon has forged an unholy alliance with China for its growing nuclear arsenal, poised to send America and the world to the brink of a showdown. Now, Alex Hawke must enter the nightmare visions of madmen to defuse an axis of evil no historian could have predicted.

4. Spy – When a mysterious explosion destroys his research vessel in search of a lost river, Alex Hawke is captured by indigenous cannibals and enslaved deep within the Amazonian jungle. Before he escapes, he learns that a fearsome foe is preparing for war – but against whom? When he regains contact with his American and British intelligence counterparts, Alex’s worst fears are confirmed.
5. Tsar – Somewhere in Russia, there dwells a man so powerful no one even knows his name. Though he is practically invisible, he is pulling strings. For suddenly, Russia is a far, far more ominous threat than even the most hardened cold warriors ever thought possible. Should America interfere with Russia’s plans? As this political crisis plays out, Russia gains a new leader. Not just a president, but a new tsar. Alex Hawke is the only man who can stop the absolute madness borne and bred inside the “New Russia.”
6. Warlord – Prince Charles has discovered a not-so-subtle threat directed toward the British royal family. The evidence reveals an ominous connection to Charles’s godfather, Lord Mountbatten – the beloved family patriarch assassinated by an ingeniously designed bomb 30 years before. A shadowy figure from the past has the British crown in his sights. The authorities have little to go on and answers are scarce. This is just the call to duty Alex Hawke needs to get back into action.
7. Crash Dive (short story) – Alex Hawke is in hostile foreign waters, flying at nearly the speed of sound, at an altitude no sane man would dare, piloting an F-16 Viper on a highly covert mission. His task is simple: enter another nation’s airspace undetected, meet a secret contact, and find a way to avert a global war. When his plane is discovered by enemy radar, he is forced to improvise–or die trying.

8. Phantom – In the misty calm of a coastal California evening, the world’s premier scientist on the subject of artificial intelligence gets a strange phone call. When he hangs up, he quietly grabs his coat and leaves for a stroll from which he never returns. It’s up to Alex Hawke and former inspector Ambrose Congreve to find out what could possibly be happening.
9. What Comes Around (short story) – A senior CIA officer is found dead of a “heart attack” in a posh Paris hotel, and he is not the first. Alex Hawke discovers that the victims are connected through one man: Spider Payne, a rogue intelligence officer barred from the CIA. Now Spider believes he’s been wronged and is out for vengeance-and Alex Hawke is his number-one target.
10. Warriors – A professor at Cambridge University is murdered, a victim of bizarre, ancient Chinese torture methods. Alex Hawke teams with former Scotland Yard chief inspector Ambrose Congreve to find the killer, but they soon discover that this death is merely the opening gambit in a tense and lethal game of geopolitical brinkmanship.
11. White Death (short story) – A powerful Swiss banker is found dead, frozen at the base of a soaring Alp. When a second man, the head of a rival banking empire, is found dead deep inside a mountain cave, MI6 suspects a bizarre conspiracy. The British royal family’s centuries-old Swiss bank holdings are at risk, shaking the foundations of Her Majesty’s government and the monarchy itself. Sir David Trulove, Chief of British Intelligence (MI6), tasks Alex Hawke with investigating the horrific murders.
12. Patriot – In corrupt Russia, an erratic Vladimir Putin is determined to forge his country into a formidable superpower once again. He intends to redraw the map of Europe, and will go to impossible extremes to realize his fantasies-including shooting down a civilian airliner packed with tourists bound for China. Kremlin scientists have developed a radical new weapon that could forever alter modern warfare. NATO, locked in a tense standoff over Ukraine, Poland, and Estonia, knows Putin will not hesitate to use it. But there is one man who can bring the world back from the brink, Alex Hawke.

13. Overkill – On a ski vacation in the Swiss Alps high above St. Moritz, Alex Hawke and his young son, Alexei, are thrust into danger when the tram carrying them to the top of the mountain bursts into flame, separating the two. Before he can reach Alexei, the boy is snatched from the burning cable car by unknown assailants in a helicopter.
14. Dragonfire – Alex Hawke is recovering from serious injuries incurred during a battle with a malevolent enemy. His recuperation is interrupted by a desperate call from the Queen. Her favorite grandson has disappeared in the Bahamas. Lord Hawke is the only man she trusts with a mission this sensitive. All she knows is that the young prince was last seen at the exclusive Dragonfire nightclub owned by the nefarious Tang brothers, grandsons of Ambassador Tiger Tang.
15. Sea Hawke – There’s an unholy alliance of nations who are plotting to attack Western democracies. The wily intelligence leader plans to use Hawke to drive a knife into the heart of this conspiracy. From an island base off Cuba to a secret jungle lair deep in the Amazon, on the land and the seas, the master spy and his crew of incorrigibles are in for the fight of their lives-the fight for freedom.

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