Stephen Leather Books in Order (Updated September 10, 2026)

Stephen Leather has written crime, espionage, military, supernatural, psychological, and cosy mystery fiction across a career spanning several decades. His biggest continuing character is Dan “Spider” Shepherd, a former SAS soldier who moves from undercover policing into national-security work. Other recurring characters include supernatural detective Jack Nightingale, SAS soldier Matt “Lastman” Standing, retired detective Lulu Lewis and her unusual cat Conrad, Singapore detective Inspector Zhang, and assassin Lex Harper.

The most useful way to read Leather is by character rather than by one enormous publication chronology. Start with Hard Landing for Spider Shepherd, Nightfall for Jack Nightingale, Last Man Standing for Matt Standing, or The Cat Who Caught a Killer for Lulu Lewis and Conrad.

Spider Shepherd is the main road through Stephen Leather’s thrillers

Dan “Spider” Shepherd begins as a former SAS soldier working undercover for the police. Over the long series, his professional world expands through the Serious Organised Crime Agency and MI5, allowing Leather to move between organised crime, terrorism, espionage, undercover work, hostage rescue, political assassination, and threats against Spider’s own family.

1. Hard Landing (2004): Spider enters a high-security prison undercover to discover how drugs baron Gerry Carpenter is arranging the intimidation and murder of witnesses despite being locked behind bars.
2. Soft Target (2005): Spider infiltrates an armed police unit suspected of corruption while another undercover operation and a terrorist plot against London’s transport system push several investigations toward the same crisis.
3. Cold Kill (2006): People smuggling and counterfeit currency lead Spider toward a terrorist cell preparing an attack on the Eurostar, forcing an ordinary undercover investigation into the national-security arena.
4. Hot Blood (2007): Spider’s former SAS colleague Geordie Mitchell is kidnapped in Iraq, and the British government’s inability to intervene leaves Spider considering an unofficial rescue before the hostage is executed.
5. Dead Men (2008): Someone is killing former IRA men involved in the murder of an RUC Special Branch officer, leaving Spider in the uncomfortable position of protecting people who once regarded him as an enemy.
6. Live Fire (2009): Spider infiltrates a successful armed-robbery gang while a home-grown terrorist organization develops a campaign of escalating violence against Britain.
7. Rough Justice (2010): Vigilante police officers are beating and killing criminals they believe the courts have failed to punish, and Spider has to enter their group while deciding where legitimate policing ends.
8. Fair Game (2011): Somali pirates seize a yacht carrying a hostage with powerful connections, and Spider goes undercover as part of a plan to penetrate the pirate organization and rescue the captives.
9. False Friends (2012): Two British Muslim students who infiltrated an al-Qaeda cell become targets after information linked to Osama bin Laden’s death exposes their role, leaving Spider responsible for teaching them how to survive undercover.
10. True Colours (2013): A killer begins assassinating some of the world’s wealthiest men, and Spider is assigned to protect an oligarch while investigators try to understand the motive behind the killings.
11. White Lies (2014): When one of Spider’s former undercover protégés is kidnapped in Pakistan, a rescue attempt fails and Spider himself falls into the hands of al-Qaeda.
12. Black Ops (2015): Spider’s MI5 controller Charlie Button uses government resources for a personal revenge mission, forcing Spider to work against her while another plot threatens a visiting head of state.
13. Dark Forces (2016): Spider poses as a hitman to infiltrate a violent South London gang just as intelligence about an Islamic State sniper points toward an exceptionally dangerous terrorist operation on British soil.
14. Light Touch (2017): MI5 sends Spider to investigate undercover officer Lisa Wilson after she stops supplying intelligence about the international drug smuggler she was supposed to penetrate.
15. Tall Order (2018): Spider hunts terrorist mastermind Saladin, whose ability to plan devastating attacks and disappear afterward has frustrated intelligence services around the world.
16. Short Range (2019): Spider must protect a fifteen-year-old boy who is gathering evidence against violent drug dealers and a right-wing terrorist organization.
17. Slow Burn (2020): The return of British women who joined Islamic State in Syria becomes the center of an intelligence problem when officials have to determine whether remorse is genuine or conceals a future threat.
18. Fast Track (2021): Spider pursues a murderous traitor through London, Turkey, and Dubai, turning an internal security problem into an international manhunt.
19. Dirty War (2022): Spider hunts a jihadist whose planned attack has the British prime minister directly in its sights.
20. Clean Kill (2023): Spider returns undercover to a high-security prison to protect two Asian agents penetrating a jihadist group, but he is pulled away when his son Liam is kidnapped in West Africa.
21. First Strike (2024): Spider is ordered to find a rogue MI5 analyst who is assassinating men connected with the planning and financing of the October 2023 Hamas attacks after losing his own daughters in the violence.
22. Last Chance (2025): Spider takes on the Office, a group of professional assassins carrying out killings for the Iranian government, and enters another conflict where identifying the operators is only the first problem.
23. Direct Action (2026): Spider investigates vigilantes who are livestreaming violent punishment and presenting themselves as an alternative system of justice.
24. Broken Promises (expected 2027): Masked gunmen attack London’s Chinatown, and Spider’s investigation points away from conventional extremists toward a billionaire technology figure deeply embedded in Britain’s digital economy.

Direct Action is the latest released Spider Shepherd novel as of September 10, 2026. Broken Promises is the announced twenty-fourth novel and remains upcoming for 2027.

Why Hard Landing still belongs first despite Spider’s SAS prequels

Hard Landing is the first full Spider Shepherd novel and the book designed to introduce him as a continuing protagonist. Spider already has a military history, but the reader learns about that background from the perspective of the man he has become.

Leather later returned to Spider’s SAS years in short stories and novellas. Those stories occur earlier chronologically, but they are better treated as supplementary prequels after readers already know Spider from the main series.

Spider Shepherd’s SAS years form a separate prequel shelf

Leather has written numerous shorter stories set while Spider was still serving with the SAS. These stories introduce military versions of characters who later appear in the contemporary novels.

1. Spider Shepherd: SAS, Volume 1: Collects six earlier military stories, Hard Targets, Natural Selection, Narrow Escape, Warning Order, Hostile Territory, and Rough Diamonds, all showing Spider before his police and MI5 career.
2. Spider Shepherd: SAS, Volume 2: Collects another six SAS stories, including Personal Protection, The Rope, Planning Pack, Friendly Fire, Dead Drop, and Kill Zone.
3. Russian Roulette: Spider operates in Belarus during his SAS years, long before he becomes an undercover police officer.
4. Moving Targets: Another military-era Spider story places his SAS skills at the center rather than the undercover identities of the later novels.
5. The Sandpit: Spider and his SAS team enter Afghanistan to train fighters opposing the Taliban, only for the instructional mission to turn into direct combat.
6. Drop Zone: Spider’s SAS team confronts another terrorist threat in a story set decades before his MI5 operations.
7. Baltic Black Ops (2023): Near the end of the twentieth century, Spider leads an SAS team into Lithuania and Kaliningrad on a campaign of sabotage, assassination, and covert disruption against Russian operations.

Chronological readers can move these military stories before Hard Landing, but publication order remains the stronger first experience because later prequels assume readers recognize Spider and his recurring associates.

Jack Nightingale begins with a soul already promised to Hell

Jack Nightingale is a former Metropolitan Police hostage negotiator who becomes a private investigator after a traumatic case ends his police career. The series starts as a tightly connected supernatural trilogy and then expands into individual occult investigations in Britain and the United States.

1. Nightfall (2010): Nightingale learns that he was adopted, that his biological father was a Satanist, and that his soul was supposedly sold to a demon that intends to collect it on his thirty-third birthday.
2. Midnight (2011): Jack discovers that he has a sister whose soul may also have been promised to Hell, and his attempt to find and save her brings him deeper into the occult world he once doubted existed.
3. Nightmare (2012): The suicide of a young girl whose death helped destroy Jack’s police career returns to haunt him as he tries to determine whether she is truly calling to him from beyond the grave.
4. Nightshade (2013): A farmer murders children at a school before killing himself, and evidence of Satanic practices on his property leads Jack to suspect that ordinary criminal explanations are not enough.
5. Lastnight (2014): Jack faces another supernatural investigation in which demonic forces, human cruelty, and his own vulnerable soul remain difficult to separate.
6. San Francisco Night: Jack travels to California to stop a Satanic coven whose murders and rituals are intended to open a doorway between Hell and the human world.
7. New York Night: Teenagers in New York begin committing sadistic murders while apparently possessed, and Jack investigates who or what is driving the violence.
8. Tennessee Night: A disturbing pattern of children dying by suicide leads Jack toward a mysterious list of young people who may be marked for supernatural danger.
9. New Orleans Night: Jack enters a city of voodoo traditions and supernatural danger while investigating zombie assassins and forces that do not fit normal criminal logic.
10. Las Vegas Night: Nightingale takes his occult investigations to Las Vegas, where the idea of Sin City becomes more literal than most visitors realize.
11. Rio Grande Night: Jack crosses into Mexico as a rising death toll reveals another confrontation between human violence and forces from Hell.
12. Houston Night: A series of killings in Texas appears to be directed by a demon, leaving Jack to identify the human participants before more victims die.
13. Chicago Night: Jack travels to Chicago while hunting a killer who has apparently received immortality in exchange for carrying out assassinations.

Nightfall, Midnight and Nightmare are the trilogy inside the larger series

The first three Nightingale books were conceived as one connected arc. Nightfall raises the question of Jack’s soul, Midnight expands the family mystery, and Nightmare resolves major threads while establishing Jack as a character who can continue investigating supernatural cases afterward.

For that reason, readers should not begin with Nightmare. The later location-based novels are more episodic, but they still benefit from knowing how Jack entered the occult world.

Nightingale 1 and Nightingale 2 collect the shorter cases

1. Nightingale 1: Collects nine Jack Nightingale stories involving demons, Satanists, monsters, murder, and supernatural threats, including Still Bleeding, Cursed, Blood Bath, I Know Who Did It, and My Name Is Lydia.
2. Nightingale 2: Collects another nine stories, including Knock Knock, Watery Grave, The Cards, Possession, Claws, The Asylum, The Doll, The Mansion, and Wrong Turn.

These collections are optional additions rather than numbered replacements for the full-length novels.

Devilzone came before Nightfall in screenplay form

Before Nightfall became the first published Nightingale novel, Leather developed the basic character and soul-forfeit premise as a screenplay called Devilzone.

The screenplay was later published, but it should not be treated as Jack Nightingale Book 0 in a normal novel reading order. It is an earlier version of material that evolved into the series.

Matt Standing trades undercover identities for direct SAS action

Matt “Lastman” Standing is an SAS soldier whose books lean more heavily into military and special-operations action than the modern Spider Shepherd novels.

1. Last Man Standing: Matt learns that a former Navy SEAL who once saved his life is in trouble in Los Angeles and crosses the Atlantic to repay that debt.
2. Standing Alone: Matt enters the illegal cannabis-growing region of northern California while hunting a rogue Navy SEAL, with Charlotte Button also appearing in the story.
3. Still Standing: The supposed suicide of SAS soldier Pete Green in Thailand does not convince his twin brother, and Matt joins the investigation when evidence begins suggesting murder.
4. Standing Strong: After Russia invades Ukraine in 2022, Matt and an SAS team are sent to support Ukrainian forces before their mission escalates toward the highest level of Russian power.

Read the Matt Standing books in publication order. They can deliver self-contained missions, but Matt’s professional history and relationships develop from one operation to the next.

Mike Cramer connects three older Leather thrillers

Before Spider Shepherd became Leather’s long-running action hero, Mike “Joker” Cramer appeared across three thrillers. This is an older and much shorter character arc.

1. The Chinaman: Cramer appears in Leather’s international revenge thriller involving a Vietnamese veteran whose family is killed in a London bombing and who turns his military skills against the political network he blames.
2. The Long Shot: Cramer becomes involved in the hunt for an exceptionally dangerous sniper, bringing military skill and counter-assassination into the center of the plot.
3. The Double Tap: Cramer’s storyline reaches its conclusion in another high-stakes assassination thriller where professional killers, intelligence interests, and personal survival converge.

These books predate the Spider Shepherd series and should not be inserted into Spider’s chronology simply because both protagonists have military backgrounds.

Lulu Lewis and Conrad are Leather’s cosy-crime detour

Lulu Lewis is a retired police detective living on a canal boat. Conrad is the extraordinary cat who speaks to Lulu and helps her notice clues other people miss.

1. The Cat Who Caught a Killer: The suspicious death of Lulu’s mother-in-law convinces the retired detective that someone has committed murder, and Conrad becomes her unusual investigative partner.
2. The Cat Who Solved Three Murders: Lulu takes her narrowboat to Oxford for a friend’s birthday and instead finds herself and Conrad investigating a series of deaths.
3. The Cat Who Cracked a Cold Case: A visit to Manchester exposes a sequence of bodies echoing unsolved murders from Lulu’s police career in London.
4. The Cat and the Christmas Kidnapper: Lulu and Conrad move from festive plans into a kidnapping mystery where solving the case becomes more urgent than enjoying Christmas.
5. The Cat and the Halloween Murder (expected October 2026): The announced fifth Lulu Lewis and Conrad mystery continues the cosy-crime series around a Halloween murder.

As of September 10, 2026, the first four Lulu Lewis novels are published. The Cat and the Halloween Murder is scheduled for October 2026 and should remain marked as upcoming until release.

Inspector Zhang solves impossible crimes in Singapore

Inspector Zhang is a Singapore detective who approaches apparently impossible murders with the logic of classic detective fiction. Leather uses the stories to play with locked rooms, false suicides, misleading evidence, and the traditions of writers such as Arthur Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie.

• The Inspector Zhang Collection: Collects eight shorter mysteries in which Zhang uses observation, deduction, and knowledge of classic crime fiction to solve cases that initially seem to contradict the evidence.

Lex Harper branches out from Spider Shepherd’s world

Hitman-for-hire Lex Harper appears around the Spider Shepherd universe before taking the lead in his own thrillers. He occupies the same broad covert-action landscape without simply becoming a replacement for Spider.

1. Takedown: After a British Special Forces soldier launches a deadly attack at an American base in Syria, Lex assembles an elite team to stop him before the rogue soldier can strike in Britain.
2. Plausible Deniability: Lex accepts a mission connected with the drug war that is too politically dirty for MI5 to handle openly.
3. Breakout: A friend from Lex’s past lands in a Bolivian prison, and Lex travels to South America rather than leave him to survive alone.

Read these as a separate Lex Harper lane after becoming familiar with Leather’s covert world.

Richard Yokely can step out of Spider’s supporting cast too

• The Chase: American intelligence operative Richard Yokely hunts an Iranian defector whose information could trigger a crisis with consequences approaching a new world war.
• Rogue Warrior: A shorter Yokely story follows the operative working for a deeply secret American organization on missions the White House would rather keep deniable.

Yokely also appears in Spider Shepherd stories, so readers of both lanes will recognize shared characters even when Spider is not the protagonist.

A few important Stephen Leather standalones

1. Private Dancer: Travel writer Pete falls for a Bangkok bar girl and gradually realizes that the relationship he imagines and the relationship she is living may be completely different.
2. The Basement: A dark psychological thriller builds toward a major reversal as an apparently contained story of violence and captivity reveals a different structure underneath.
3. Once Bitten: Los Angeles police psychologist Jamie Beaverbrook is called in during a full moon and encounters a case whose bizarre details make ordinary explanations increasingly difficult.
4. Dreamer’s Cat: A science-fiction murder mystery explores a future in which virtual reality has become deeply embedded in everyday life.
5. First Response: Nine suicide bombers simultaneously take hostages across London and threaten to detonate unless jihadist prisoners are released by a fixed deadline.
6. Penalties: Premier League footballer Gabe Savage learns that his wife and son have been kidnapped and will be killed if his team wins the match he is about to play.
7. The Shout: Firefighter Vicky Lewis suffers devastating injuries during a rescue and is transferred to fire investigation, where a suspicious blaze forces her into a partnership with veteran investigator Des Farmer.
8. The Hunting: British doctor Raj Patel becomes the target of a billionaire big-game hunter after a case of mistaken identity turns a personal revenge fantasy into a manhunt.
9. Desperate Measures: People trafficking and London’s sex trade during the COVID period provide the setting for a standalone crime thriller.
10. Triggers (2023): Assassin Marianne kills for revenge rather than money, while people hoping to manipulate her fail to understand the secret behind her identity.
11. Recall: A man wakes in hospital after a car crash with no memory of his identity, then learns that police discovered a dead body in the boot of his vehicle.
12. Underdogs: Homeless SAS veteran Andy “Deadman” Bird and his battle-tested dog witness a murder in London and become targets of the killers.

If you only want Stephen Leather’s biggest continuing stories

1. Hard Landing: Begin the modern Spider Shepherd sequence and follow it in publication order through Direct Action.
2. Nightfall: Begin Jack Nightingale and read the first three books consecutively before moving into the later supernatural cases.
3. Last Man Standing: Begin Matt Standing when you want a shorter run centered more directly on SAS operations.
4. The Cat Who Caught a Killer: Begin Lulu Lewis if you want Leather’s lighter cosy-crime series.

Current Stephen Leather release picture

As of September 10, 2026, Direct Action is Spider Shepherd Book 23 and the newest released novel in Leather’s flagship series. Broken Promises is announced as Book 24 for 2027.

Jack Nightingale has reached a thirteenth full-length supernatural adventure with Chicago Night. The Lulu Lewis and Conrad series has four released books, with The Cat and the Halloween Murder scheduled for October 2026.

Stephen Leather reading questions

What Stephen Leather book should I read first?

Start with Hard Landing for contemporary espionage and undercover action or Nightfall for supernatural crime.

How many Spider Shepherd novels are published?

Twenty-three full-length Spider Shepherd novels are published through Direct Action as of this update. Broken Promises is announced as Book 24 for 2027.

Should the SAS stories be read before Hard Landing?

Not on a first read. They occur earlier in Spider’s life, but Hard Landing was written as his proper introduction and remains the best starting point.

How many Jack Nightingale novels are there?

The full-length sequence has reached thirteen books through Chicago Night, with additional short stories collected separately.

Are Nightingale 1 and Nightingale 2 new novels?

No. They are collections of shorter Jack Nightingale stories.

Is Broken Promises released?

No. It is currently an announced 2027 Spider Shepherd novel.

Does Stephen Leather only write thrillers?

No. His catalog also includes supernatural detective fiction, science fiction, psychological suspense, classic-style mysteries, and cosy crime.

The cleanest Stephen Leather shelf

Give Spider Shepherd his own long shelf from Hard Landing onward, keeping the SAS stories beside it as optional prequels rather than moving them automatically to the beginning.

Keep Jack Nightingale separate from Spider despite occasional similarities in London settings and dangerous investigations. Place Matt Standing, Lex Harper, Richard Yokely, Inspector Zhang, and Lulu Lewis in their own character groups.

Everything else can be treated as standalone fiction unless a recurring protagonist is explicitly present. That structure makes Leather’s very large bibliography much easier to navigate.