John Corey Books in Order: How to read Nelson DeMille’s series?

Written by prolific American author Nelson DeMille, this action/suspense series is about a retired cop John Corey who starts working for the FBI to track down terrorists. John Corey is indeed a former homicide detective. He is medically retired from the NYPD with 3 gunshot wounds. He ended up in Long Island where his career took an unexpected turn. He’s now working for the FBI’s Anti-Terrorist Task Force.

How to read the John Corey Series in Order?

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

0. The Bookcase – A Prequel Novella. New York City bookstore owner Otis Parker is dead, killed by a falling bookcase. A tragic accident? John Corey isn’t so sure.
1. Plum Island – Wounded in the line of duty, NYPD homicide detective John Corey convalesces in the Long Island township of Southold, home to farmers, fishermen — and at least one killer. Tom and Judy Gordon, a young, attractive couple Corey knows, have been found on their patio, each with a bullet in the head. The local police chief, Sylvester Maxwell, wants Corey’s big-city expertise, but Maxwell gets more than he bargained for.
2. The Lion’s Game – Detective John Corey faces his toughest assignment yet: the pursuit and capture of the world’s most dangerous terrorist — a young Arab known as “The Lion” who has baffled a federal task force and shows no sign of stopping in his quest for revenge against the American pilots who bombed Libya and killed his family.
3. Night Fall – On a Long Island beach at dusk, Bob Mitchell and Janet Whitney conduct their illicit love affair in front of a video camera, set to record each steamy moment. Suddenly a terrible explosion lights up the sky. Grabbing the camera, the couple flees as approaching police cars speed toward the scene. Five years later, the crash of Flight 800 has been attributed to a mechanical malfunction. But for John Corey and Kate Mayfield, both members of the Elite Anti-terrorist Task Force, the case is not closed.

4. Wild Fire – Welcome to the Custer Hill Club – an informal men’s club set in a luxurious Adirondack hunting lodge. One Fall weekend, the Executive Board of the Custer Hill Club gathers to talk about the tragedy of 9/11 and what America must do to retaliate. Their plan is finalized and set into motion. That same weekend, a member of the Federal Anti-Terrorist Task Force is reported missing. His body is soon discovered in the woods near the Custer Hill Club’s game reserve. The death appears to be a hunting accident, but Detective John Corey has his doubts.
5. The Lion – This is a direct sequel to The Lion’s Game. Asad Khalil, the notorious Libyan terrorist otherwise known as “The Lion,” is back. Khalil has returned to America to make good on his threats and take care of unfinished business. “The Lion” is a killing machine once again loose in America with a mission of revenge, and John Corey will stop at nothing to achieve his own goal — to find and kill Khahil.
6. The Panther – John Corey teams up with Paul Brenner on a case. John Corey and his wife, FBI agent Kate Mayfield, have been posted overseas to Sana’a, Yemen-one of the most dangerous places in the Middle East. While there, they will be working with a small team to track down one of the masterminds behind the USS Cole bombing: a high-ranking Al Qaeda operative known as The Panther.

7. Radiant Angel – John Corey has left the Anti-Terrorist Task Force and returned home to New York City, taking a job with the Diplomatic Surveillance Group. And when Vasily Petrov, a colonel in the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service posing as a diplomat with the Russian U.N. Mission, mysteriously disappears from a Russian oligarch’s party in Southampton, it’s up to Corey to track him down.
8. The Maze – Inspired by, and based on the actual and still unsolved Gilgo Beach murders, The Maze takes the reader on a dangerous hunt for an apparent serial killer who has murdered nine-and maybe more-prostitutes and hidden their bodies in the thick undergrowth on a lonely stretch of beach. As Corey digs deeper into this case, which has made national news, he comes to suspect that the failure of the local police to solve this sensational case may not be a result of their inexperience and incompetence-it may be something else. Something more sinister.

• Getaway (short story) – Part of the anthology MatchUp offering a team up between two famous characters from popular series. John Corey finds himself recuperating at a remote lakeside cabin, the last thing he expects is trouble. Then tough-as-nails lawyer Bennie Rosato comes running out of the woods with masked men on her trail. With no phone reception and unknown dangers lurking, can these two alpha personalities work together to survive the night?

If you like John Corey, you may also want to check out Scot Harvath. Don’t hesitate to follow us on Twitter or Facebook to discover more book series.