Author Information
Bill James's Latest Book

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  • Bibliography:
    54 Books (2 Series)
  • First Book:
    January 1985
  • Latest Book:
    March 2022
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Full Series List in Order

A Harpur & Iles Mystery

1 - You'd Better Believe It (1985)
2 - The Lolita Man (1986)
3 - Halo Parade (1987)
4 - Protection (1988)
5 - Come Clean (1989)
6 - Take (1990)
7 - Club (1991)
8 - Astride a Grave (1991)
9 - Gospel (1992)
10 - Roses, Roses (1993)
11 - In Good Hands (1994)
12 - The Detective Is Dead (Sep-1995)
13 - Top Banana (Mar-1998)
14 - Lovely Mover (Jun-1999)
15 - Eton Crop (Nov-1999)
16 - Kill Me (May-2000)
17 - Panicking Ralph (May-2001)
18 - Pay Days (Sep-2001)
19 - Naked at the Window (Dec-2002)
20 - The Girl with the Long Back (Mar-2004)
21 - Easy Streets (Jul-2005)
22 - Wolves of Memory (Jul-2006)
23 - The Sixth Man and Other Stories (Oct-2006)
24 - Girls (Sep-2007)
26 - In the Absence of Iles (Jan-2010)
27 - Hotbed (May-2011)
28 - I Am Gold (Dec-2011)
29 - Vacuum (Nov-2011)
29 - Undercover (Oct-2012)
30 - Play Dead (Jun-2013)
31 - Disclosures (Dec-2014)
32 - Blaze Away (Jun-2015)
33 - First Fix Your Alibi (Apr-2016)
34 - Close (May-2017)
35 - Hitmen I Have Known (Oct-2019)
36 - Low Pastures (Mar-2022)

A Simon Abelard Mystery

1 - Split (Mar-2002)

Book List in Order: 54 titles



    • / Police Procedural
    • Buy Buy

    The first title in the popular Harpur and Iles series.Harpur's domain is a small seaport city south of London. It's not unusual for the big-town criminals to consider such a spot as easy prey. At such times a policeman must rely keenly upon his colle...



    • / Police Procedural
    • Buy Buy

    Harpur matches wits with a deadly killer: the "Lolita Man." Five teenage girls have been raped and murdered, and the criminal is still at large. Detective Chief Superintendent Colin Harpur, assigned to the case, is a tough hunter, but so is "the Loli...



    • / Police Procedural
    • Buy Buy

    “Crackling dialogue and seamy people race a no-holds-barred operation to its wickedly satisfying denouement.” —John Coleman, [London] Sunday Times First time in U.S. paperback, the third in Bill James's standout, witty, well above t...



    • / Police Procedural
    • Buy Buy

    Forced to retire from the department under a cloud of suspicion, Detective Colin Harpur's colleague, Hubert Scott, concocts a scheme that will clear his name--one that is related to the kidnapping of underworld informant Bernard "Tenderness" Mellick'...



    • / Police Procedural
    • Buy Buy

    "Le Carré-like psychological ambiguities and fierce double-crosses―from an author who, in an understated sentence or two, can pack a knockout punch."―Kirkus Reviews

    Sarah Iles's latest young lover, Ian Aston, and the seedy gangland club h...



    • / Police Procedural
    • Buy Buy

    Bill James's Come Clean, the fifth novel in his stunning series of British police procedurals, was greeted with unprecedented critical acclaim upon its American publication in 1993. Readers eager for the next in the series will be amply rewarded w...



    • / Police Procedural
    • Buy Buy

    A darkly comic mystery in which Chief Supt. Colin Harper hopes to find the missing brains of a bank robbing gang who has gone missing with more than his share of the loot, before the vengeful members of the gang go beyond simply kidnapping their lead...



    • / Police Procedural
    • Buy Buy

    While trying to rescue a posh club owner from a bank-robbing scheme, Colin Harpur must help his boss avoid conviction for murdering his wife's lover, in a sardonic police procedural by a critically praised Welsh writer. IP. ...



    • / Police Procedural
    • Buy Buy

    "James's police procedurals are second to none. . . . An entertaining and provocative addition to an impressive series."? Booklist At nineteen years old, Colin Harpur's girlfriend Denise Prior knows little about criminals, and even less about the law...






    • / Police Procedural
    • Buy Buy

    "Bill James writes a superior brand of police procedural about a steely English detective named Colin Harpur, but he has never written a story as cold, dark and dangerously funny as Roses, Roses." -Marilyn Stasio ? New York Times Book Review-Megan Ha...



    • / Police Procedural
    • Buy Buy

    Fear Grips The drug underworld after two principals in the trade are murdered, and even A.C.C. Desmond Iles is under a cloud of suspicion. Now the chief players start closing in on a fortune, while Iles, Chief Constable Mark Lane, and Detective Chief...







  • No one, including Detective Chief Superintendent Harpur, is willing to testify at the murder trial of three crooks in the drug trade, so the killers go free. Meanwhile, would-be drug kingpin Keith Vine is playing a dangerous double game as an informa...



  • Crime in all its devious incarnations is presented in this treat of murderous morsels dished out by old ppros and promising newcomers. Artfully crafted and impossible to put down, each story bountifully demooonstrates why these authors are la creme d...



  • In World War II, teenager Valerie Buck become involved with evacuee Peter, but one day he vanished. Valerie knew what had happened to him, and now 50 years later, the memories obsess her. Retracing her sexual awakenings forces a confrontation of the ...



  • When thirteen-year-old drug runner Mandy Walsh is killed in a shootout between rival drug gangs, the police assume at first that she was accidentally caught in the crossfire. But someone shot her intentionally, and the deeper that DCS Colin Harpur an...



  • Rivals A.C.C. Desmond Iles and D.C.I. Colin Harpur are confronted with a murder that threatens to tip the dangerous balance among the drug barons? and the police. It was tragic. There was no other word for it. Eleri ap Vaughan, sixty years old and st...



  • Stalked by shadowy figures, Simon Pilgrim fled in terror from the floating restaurant Eton Boating Song, where he discreetly sold drugs to well-to-do patrons. Now he's dead, and the police know that the drug syndicates are at war--with the Eton's luc...






  • "[A] terrific series. . . . Get these books; settle into peril and chaos."? Bloomsbury Review Naomi Anstruther's undercover operation among the drug gangs, planned carefully by Detective Chief Superintendent Colin Harpur, has ended in a bloody shoot-...



  • "Some of the finest black comedy in contemporary English fiction, criminal or otherwise."―Boston Globe's "New and Recommended"

    Ralph Ember, owner of the shady drinking club The Monty, longs to be respectable. The trouble is, his money comes ...



  • Detective Chief Superintendent Colin Harpur and his brilliant, amoral superior ACC Desmond Iles face a dilemma that's both political and personal when they suspect a police officer of taking bribes from underworld criminals Panicking Ralph Ember a...



  • Known for his British procedurals featuring detectives Harpur and Iles, James introduces a new protagonist of mixed black-and-white parentage named Simon Abelard. Recruited into the `Outfit' (British Intelligence) as a token but then rapidly advanced...



  • With the aid of the victim's mother, married Detective Sergeant Kerry Lake investigates her older detective lover's connection to the cover-up of the murder of a young black American woman by two white men....



  • The latest dark suspense from "the Elmore Leonard of Britain's underworld" ―Kirkus Reviews.

    Big drug dealer Ralph Ember stumbles on a ghastly surprise when he and sidekick Beau Derek arrive at the house of yachtsman Barney Coss, his bulk sup...



  • Harpur and Iles are back on the scene, and this time the danger is even closer to home.

    With the rumored transfer of Chief of Police Mark Lane, London's competitive drug lords are on edge. In the past, Desmond Iles has managed to maintain the ...




  • "A brilliant combination of almost Jacobean savagery and sexual betrayal with a tart comedy of contemporary manners." ―John Harvey, The Guardian.

    For years Colin Harpur's dubious boss, Assistant Chief Constable Desmond Iles, ran a questionab...



  • A large, carefully plotted "cash-in-transit" raid goes hopelessly awry when armed policemen intervene to seize the perpetrators. Relatives and friends of the incarcerated are convinced that information--the date, the time--was leaked by the only man ...






  • An anthology featuring previously unpublished Harpur and Iles stories.All is not well in the underworld . . . With three entirely new Harpur and Iles stories, three more never before published together, plus a spicy little interlude with some crooks ...



  • A fresh and original take on a mystery within a mystery - Fresh from the inner city, Vince and Kate are new to the suburbia of Tabbett Drive, delighted to have accessed this middle-class paradise. They've even found the neighbours remarkably friendly...



  • "[Bill James'] strangely compelling series offers its own ample rewards." -- Mystery Scene For years Panicking Ralph Ember and Mansel Shale have run profitable drugs empires in peaceful cooperation with each other, and ACC Iles will blind-eye their t...



  • A new mystery from this bestselling author - DC Sharon Mayfield is on routine surveillance when she spots a dead man in a car. The cars locks are sealed with superglue and Claude Huddart's face has been mutilated. As with most murders, there's a puzz...



  • Part social satire, part police procedural, Bill James returns with the stunning prequel to "Tip Top" In the drug-ridden Whitsun and Temperate housing estates a connection, once made, is only ever one thing: trouble.

    Trouble for the journalist ...



  • Assistant Chief Constable Desmond Iles's absence from a police undercover conference sets the stage for the moral and practical dilemmas faced by one of his colleagues, ACC Esther Davidson, as she works to bring down the largest gang operating in her...



  • Who gets hurt when the bad guys cross paths? For years drug baron Ralph Ember has run his crooked enterprises peacefully enough alongside those of his rival, Mansel Shale. Their empires have been tolerated by Assistant Chief Constable Desmond Iles a...




  • Set during an alternative version of 1938 with Bill James’ trademark satirical take on events - England,1938. War looms, but the Prime minister’s talks with Hitler in Munich seem to result in a pact of peace. Now Mount, a secret service officer,...



  • After the dreadful business when his son and wife were shot, Mansel Shale has turned to God--leaving DCS Colin Harpur with a potential problem. Instead of keeping a grip on his profitable drugs empire, Shale has abandoned that sphere of commerce, lea...






  • A woman and her stepson are gunned down while driving to school on a quiet residential street. An former bodyguard kills himself by firing two pistols simultaneously. Was the killer really after the woman’s husband, the notorious drug baron Mansel ...



  • When Harpur and Iles are called in to investigate an undercover investigation gone wrong, they can sense dark, hazardous times ahead... After a gang shooting involving an undercover police officer, Colin Harpur and his boss Assistant Chief Constab...



  • Harpur and Iles may have uncovered corruption, but there are still plenty of unanswered questions . . . An investigation into an incident in another Force led Colin Harpur and his boss, Assistant Chief Constable Desmond Iles, to uncover corruption...




  • The past is an inescapable noose around a young man’s neck, in this blackly comic, satirical novel from renowned crime writer Bill James Britain, 1956. A young actress seemingly tries to commit suicide over a tangled love affair, but is taken to...



  • Bill James is on top form in this sharply satirical black comedy set behind the scenes at a museum George Lepage, the new Director of the Hulliborn Regional Museum and Gallery, has great hopes that his tenure in the post will be short and profitab...



  • Panicking Ralph is a big-time villain -- but he’s a local villain -- and when his life is threatened, policemen Harpur and Iles are straight on the case Detective Chief Superintendent Colin Harpur and his boss, Assistant Chief Constable Desmond ...



  • Policemen Harpur and Iles get mixed up in the criminal world of fine art dealing Detective Chief Superintendent Colin Harpur feels a sort of warmth towards Jack Lamb, a brilliantly prosperous but profoundly dodgy fine arts dealer. Lamb is the grea...



  • When a major drugs dealer seeks vengeance for the death of his family, policemen Harpur and Iles must do all they can to prevent a bloodbath Following the murder of his wife and son, tycoon drugs dealer Mansel Shale is determined to get vengeance ...



  • This sharply satirical novel concerns a battle royal between two academic institutions and their principals. England, 1987. It’s all-out war. Two universities in the same city each aim to destroy the other and take over one another’s building...






  • Harpur & Iles to uncover a trail of illegal art trading and money laundering "I found I had a flair for tag-along, street level stealth. It thrilled me. It killed me. Do you mind if I tell you how?" Thomas Wells Hart drifted into a dodgy care...



  • Assistant Chief Constable Iles finds himself suspected of murder in the fast-paced 35th installment of the popular Harpur and Iles police procedural series. Tensions in the community are mounting following the gruesome deaths of two men, both of w...



  • Bill James is the alter ego of two South African authors who have drunk together, sold books together, and now finally written a book together. That does not make it a bromance. Despite their having collaborated on a steamy sex scene.Their first book...



  • A well-dressed corpse found shot in the sand and gravel wharf sparks trouble for Detective Chief Superintendent Colin Harpur and his unpredictable boss, Assistant Chief Constable Iles. "A must-read for devotees of British procedurals" - Boo...



    • / General Fiction
    • Buy Buy

    At the same time as she is ghostwriting the autobiography of film star David Gale, Louise Summers is writing a biography of Andrew Pax, a member of the Apostles, executed in 1941 for passing secrets to the Russians. When Gale plays Pax in a film and ...


Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Bill James has published 54 books.

Bill James does not have a new book coming out soon. The latest book, Low Pastures, was published in March 2022.

The first book by Bill James, You'd Better Believe It, was published in January 1985.

Yes. Bill James has 2 series.