Simon Kernick Books in Order (Updated September 10, 2026)

Simon Kernick writes fast-paced British crime and thriller fiction built around corrupt cops, undercover operations, kidnappings, terrorism, fugitives, conspiracies, and ordinary people caught inside situations that deteriorate very quickly. His bibliography is more interconnected than it first appears because characters such as Dennis Milne, Tina Boyd, Mike Bolt, Scope, and Ray Mason cross between novels that can otherwise feel like separate thrillers.

The safest approach is to read Kernick broadly in publication order if you want every crossover. Readers interested in a particular character can instead follow the shorter character paths below. His more recent books, including Kill a Stranger, Good Cop Bad Cop, The First 48 Hrs, and You All Die Tonight, work independently.

The Kernick map is a web rather than a set of isolated series

• Dennis Milne: Begins in The Business of Dying and returns in A Good Day to Die and The Payback.
• Tina Boyd: Enters with The Crime Trade and appears through much of Kernick’s middle-period crime fiction.
• Mike Bolt: Becomes important from Relentless onward and overlaps with several Tina Boyd books.
• Scope: Appears in the high-intensity thrillers Siege and Stay Alive.
• Ray Mason: Leads the later police sequence beginning with The Witness and continuing through books that reconnect with Tina Boyd.

Because these characters overlap, one strict series label can be misleading. Publication order gives the smoothest experience if you intend to read Kernick extensively.

Simon Kernick novels in publication order

1. The Business of Dying (2002): Detective Sergeant Dennis Milne secretly works as a paid killer, but a contract involving apparently ordinary criminals exposes a much darker crime and forces him to confront the moral boundary he has already crossed.
2. The Murder Exchange (2003): A violent criminal deal, murder, police investigation, and competing loyalties collide in another London thriller where almost everyone involved has something to hide.
3. The Crime Trade (2004): Detective Tina Boyd becomes involved in an investigation where police corruption, organised crime, drugs, and undercover operations blur the difference between investigators and the criminals they are hunting.
4. A Good Day to Die (2005): Dennis Milne returns while living outside Britain and is drawn into a dangerous investigation after learning that an old associate has been murdered.
5. Relentless (2006): Ordinary family man Tom Meron receives a terrifying phone call from a dying friend and suddenly finds himself hunted by professional killers while police officer Mike Bolt tries to understand why.
6. Severed (2007): A man wakes beside a murdered woman with no memory of how he got there and is forced into a violent chain of demands while trying to prove he was framed.
7. Deadline (2008): The kidnapping of a wealthy woman’s young daughter becomes increasingly complicated as Tina Boyd investigates a case where ransom, family secrets, and deception do not fit the obvious explanation.
8. Target (2009): A man becomes caught in a violent conspiracy after trying to protect a stranger, while Tina Boyd and Mike Bolt become involved as the danger expands beyond one apparent attack.
9. The Last 10 Seconds (2010): Tina Boyd and Mike Bolt become involved in the hunt for a brutal killer known as the Night Creeper while an undercover cop races against a conspiracy with only seconds to spare.
10. The Payback (2011): Dennis Milne returns to Britain with revenge on his mind and crosses paths with Tina Boyd in a story that brings two of Kernick’s recurring characters into the same dangerous investigation.
11. Siege (2012): Gunmen storm a luxury London hotel and take hostages, while former military operative Scope becomes central to the fight against attackers whose plan is larger than a straightforward siege.
12. Wrong Time, Wrong Place (2013): A short, fast thriller follows an ordinary man who witnesses something he should never have seen and suddenly becomes the target of dangerous criminals.
13. Ultimatum (2013): Terrorists threaten London with a catastrophic attack, leaving Tina Boyd and Mike Bolt working against a deadline while political and intelligence pressures complicate the response.
14. Stay Alive (2014): Scope returns as a family hiding in the Scottish wilderness becomes the target of armed killers, turning remote countryside into a survival zone.
15. The Final Minute (2015): Matt Barron wakes in hospital with severe memory loss and discovers that people believe he committed terrible crimes, while Tina Boyd becomes involved in determining what actually happened.
16. The Witness (2016): A woman witnesses a brutal crime and goes on the run while detective Ray Mason becomes involved in a case where powerful people have every reason to silence her.
17. The Bone Field (2017): Ray Mason investigates human remains discovered years after a young woman’s disappearance and uncovers a much larger network of murder, exploitation, and buried secrets.
18. The Hanged Man (2018): Ray Mason continues pursuing the criminal network exposed in The Bone Field, while Tina Boyd becomes increasingly important to the investigation.
19. We Can See You (2018): A successful woman’s daughter is kidnapped by people who know intimate secrets from her past and warn that they can see everything she does, forcing her into a desperate attempt to recover the child.
20. Die Alone (2019): Ray Mason’s investigation reaches another violent stage as old enemies, organised crime, and hidden alliances bring together several recurring figures from Kernick’s earlier books.
21. Kill a Stranger (2020): A man returns home to find his partner missing and a dead stranger in her place, then receives instructions that he must kill someone else within twenty-four hours if he wants to save her.
22. Good Cop Bad Cop (2021): Retired undercover officer Chris Sketty is blackmailed into telling the truth about the terrorist attack that made him a national hero, raising the possibility that his public reputation hides something far darker.
23. The First 48 Hrs (2023): A disappearance triggers an urgent forty-eight-hour search in which every hour makes the truth harder to uncover and the people involved increasingly difficult to trust.
24. You All Die Tonight (2024): Seven people wake in a locked remote mansion and learn that they have been poisoned, with only one antidote available if someone admits responsibility for a murder committed four years earlier.
25. No One is Safe (expected November 5, 2026): Cal, his wife Mandy, and their son witness a murder beside a freshly dug grave in a Scottish forest, but when Cal returns with police the only body present is Mandy’s and he becomes the prime suspect.

No One is Safe is not yet released as of September 10, 2026. Its current publication date is November 5, 2026.

Dennis Milne begins Kernick’s recurring-character network

1. The Business of Dying: Dennis is a serving detective who also accepts money to kill people he believes deserve it, until one contract reveals victims who do not fit the story he was given.
2. A Good Day to Die: Dennis is living abroad after the consequences of his earlier choices but returns to violent investigation when someone from his past dies.
3. The Payback: Dennis comes back into the British crime world and crosses directly into Tina Boyd’s storyline.

Read these three in order. Dennis’s moral compromises, exile, enemies, and changing relationship with legitimate policing are continuous rather than reset between books.

The Business of Dying starts with a cop who has already crossed the line

Kernick does not spend an entire novel showing Dennis gradually becoming corrupt. When readers meet him, he already carries out paid killings while working as a detective.

The crisis comes when his confidence in choosing deserving targets collapses. That makes the first book less about whether Dennis is morally compromised and more about what happens when a compromised man discovers that someone has manipulated his private code.

Tina Boyd appears across several different Kernick storylines

Tina Boyd is one of Kernick’s most persistent recurring police characters, but her books are not always marketed as a neat numbered series.

1. The Crime Trade: Tina enters Kernick’s world through organised crime and police corruption.
2. Relentless: She appears during the Tom Meron and Mike Bolt thriller.
3. Deadline: Tina investigates a child’s kidnapping and the family secrets surrounding it.
4. Target: She overlaps again with Mike Bolt during a conspiracy involving a civilian caught in extreme danger.
5. The Last 10 Seconds: Tina becomes central to the hunt for the Night Creeper.
6. The Payback: Her police storyline intersects directly with Dennis Milne.
7. Ultimatum: Tina and Mike Bolt face a major terrorist threat against London.
8. The Final Minute: Tina becomes involved with Matt Barron’s attempt to recover his identity and learn what he has done.
9. The Bone Field: Tina reappears around Ray Mason’s investigation into a large criminal network.
10. The Hanged Man: Her involvement deepens as the Bone Field investigation continues.
11. Die Alone: Tina returns in the later phase of the shared crime universe.

Because Tina moves in and out of other protagonists’ stories, reading Kernick in publication order is easier than trying to isolate only the chapters in which she appears.

Relentless is where the ordinary-man thriller meets the recurring police world

Tom Meron is not a cop or professional killer. He is dragged into the story when a friend phones him while being murdered and says Tom’s name before dying.

That single call makes Tom and his family targets. Mike Bolt’s police investigation provides the professional side of the story while Tom experiences the crisis as a civilian who does not know why anyone wants him dead.

Mike Bolt is the bridge through the middle books

Mike Bolt first becomes prominent in Relentless and then reappears in multiple later thrillers.

• Relentless: Bolt investigates why professional killers are hunting Tom Meron.
• Severed: The broader police and criminal world continues around another man who has been framed.
• Target: Bolt and Tina Boyd again operate around a rapidly expanding conspiracy.
• The Last 10 Seconds: Bolt becomes involved in the Night Creeper investigation.
• Ultimatum: Terrorism raises the stakes to a city-wide threat.
• Stay Alive: Bolt’s world overlaps with the Scope survival story.
• Die Alone: He returns in the later shared-universe phase.

Scope’s two-book survival route starts with a hotel siege

1. Siege (2012): Armed attackers seize a luxury London hotel, and Scope’s military background makes him one of the few people capable of fighting back from inside the crisis.
2. Stay Alive (2014): Scope becomes involved when armed killers target people hiding in remote Scotland, turning wilderness escape into a pursuit where professional violence follows them far from the city.

Read Siege first. The books use different immediate threats, but Scope’s identity and role are already established when the second adventure begins.

Ray Mason’s story becomes the spine of the later shared novels

1. The Witness (2016): Ray Mason enters through a case involving a woman who has seen something powerful criminals cannot allow her to reveal.
2. The Bone Field (2017): Human remains reveal a pattern of disappearances and murder that expands into a much larger criminal network.
3. The Hanged Man (2018): Mason continues pursuing the network exposed in the previous novel rather than beginning an unrelated investigation.
4. Die Alone (2019): The later phase reconnects Ray with figures from Kernick’s wider crime world as earlier conflicts come back into play.

The Bone Field and The Hanged Man especially should stay together because the second book continues an investigation already in progress.

The Bone Field is where older and newer Kernick characters collide

Ray Mason begins by investigating remains linked to a missing young woman, but the case expands well beyond one victim.

Tina Boyd’s involvement ties the newer Ray Mason material to Kernick’s earlier police novels. Readers who have followed Tina since The Crime Trade therefore gain additional context without needing to treat every preceding book as a direct Ray Mason prequel.

Wrong Time, Wrong Place is short-form Kernick at full speed

The novella uses one of Kernick’s favorite setups: an ordinary person sees something dangerous and instantly becomes part of a criminal problem he does not understand.

It can be read independently and does not need to be inserted into Tina Boyd or Dennis Milne continuity.

Dead Man’s Gift and One By One were built as serial thrillers

Kernick has also experimented with stories released in shorter installments rather than only full-length novels.

• Dead Man’s Gift: A rapid crime story originally released in parts before later appearing with other short fiction.
• One By One: A three-part serial released as Before, During, and After, designed to be read consecutively as one escalating story.
• Dead Man’s Gift and Other Stories (2018): Collects shorter Kernick fiction in one volume rather than adding another full-length recurring-character novel.

We Can See You moves into domestic abduction

The protagonist appears to have the kind of successful life people envy until her daughter is taken.

The kidnappers know secrets she believed were buried and warn that they can see her movements, making ordinary advice such as contacting police feel dangerous. The book works independently from the recurring police characters.

Kill a Stranger is built around an impossible bargain

A man comes home expecting to find the woman he loves and instead finds another woman dead.

The people who arranged the scene have kidnapped his partner and framed him for murder. Their price for restoring his life is simple and horrific: he must kill a person he has never met within twenty-four hours.

Good Cop Bad Cop turns a national hero into an unreliable storyteller

Chris Sketty was celebrated for trying to stop a devastating terrorist attack fourteen years earlier.

Dr Ralph Teller, who lost his wife in the attack, believes Sketty knows the real identity of the mastermind. He uses a dossier of damaging information to force the former undercover officer to tell what happened.

The question is not only whether Sketty is hiding details. It is whether the man remembered as a courageous policeman may have been one of the most dangerous people involved.

You All Die Tonight is Kernick’s locked-house pressure cooker

Seven strangers wake inside a remote mansion with the doors locked. They eventually learn that every person present had some connection to the victims of a terrible crime committed four years earlier.

A recorded voice tells them that all seven have been poisoned and have less than twelve hours to live. An antidote exists, but they will receive it only if someone confesses to being the killer.

The premise turns the novel into a closed-circle thriller where survival depends on deciding which person is lying before time runs out.

No One is Safe puts a family at the scene of a murder no one can prove happened

Cal, Mandy, and their son are hiking in an isolated Scottish forest when they discover a freshly dug grave and then witness a man being murdered.

Cal and his son escape after becoming separated from Mandy. When police return with them, the murdered man’s body has vanished and Mandy is dead instead.

Cal now faces two linked problems: convincing police that the first murder really happened and proving that he did not kill his own wife.

A Kernick route for readers who want recurring characters first

1. The Business of Dying: Meet Dennis Milne and the morally compromised world from which several later connections grow.
2. The Crime Trade: Introduce Tina Boyd and move deeper into police corruption and organised crime.
3. Relentless: Meet Mike Bolt while an ordinary civilian becomes the target of professional killers.
4. The Last 10 Seconds: See Tina and Bolt working inside a major serial-killer and conspiracy thriller.
5. The Payback: Bring Dennis Milne and Tina Boyd into the same book.
6. Siege: Meet Scope during a London hotel attack.
7. The Witness: Begin Ray Mason’s later-era investigations.
8. The Bone Field: Continue into the criminal network that drives the later books.
9. The Hanged Man: Stay with the same developing investigation.
10. Die Alone: Finish the major later shared-character phase.

For standalone readers, begin much later

1. We Can See You: A mother’s secrets become leverage after her daughter is abducted.
2. Kill a Stranger: A kidnapped partner and murder frame-up create a twenty-four-hour ultimatum.
3. Good Cop Bad Cop: An undercover hero is forced to explain what really happened during a historic terrorist attack.
4. The First 48 Hrs: A disappearance is compressed into the most crucial early hours of a search.
5. You All Die Tonight: Seven poisoned people must identify a murderer inside a locked mansion.
6. No One is Safe: Add the Scottish forest thriller after its November 2026 release.

Current Simon Kernick release status

As of September 10, 2026, You All Die Tonight is Kernick’s latest released full-length novel. It was first published in November 2024.

No One is Safe is scheduled for November 5, 2026 and should remain marked as forthcoming until that date.

Questions that make Kernick’s crossovers easier

What Simon Kernick book should I read first?

Start with The Business of Dying if you intend to read broadly in publication order. It introduces Dennis Milne and the early crime world from which later recurring characters emerge.

How many Dennis Milne books are there?

The principal Dennis Milne sequence contains The Business of Dying, A Good Day to Die, and The Payback.

Where should I start with Tina Boyd?

Begin with The Crime Trade. Tina later appears across books shared with Mike Bolt, Dennis Milne, and Ray Mason.

Do The Bone Field and The Hanged Man connect?

Yes. The Hanged Man continues Ray Mason’s investigation into the criminal network exposed in The Bone Field.

Is Kill a Stranger part of the Tina Boyd series?

No. It is a standalone thriller with a new cast.

Is You All Die Tonight connected to earlier Kernick books?

No continuing-character knowledge is required. It is a self-contained locked-house thriller.

Is No One is Safe published yet?

No. As of this update, its scheduled publication date is November 5, 2026.

The most reliable Kernick reading strategy

Use publication order from The Business of Dying onward if you want to see every recurring character appear naturally. This prevents problems caused by Tina Boyd, Mike Bolt, Dennis Milne, Scope, and Ray Mason crossing between stories that are not always marketed under one series name.

If you prefer modern standalone thrillers, you can begin with We Can See You, Kill a Stranger, Good Cop Bad Cop, or You All Die Tonight without learning the older continuity first.

That split gives Kernick’s bibliography two clear lanes: an interconnected British crime universe through much of his earlier career, and later high-concept thrillers that can be read completely on their own.