Al Macy Books in Order
Explore Al Macy books in order, with quick summaries, series guides, and where to start across his legal thrillers, sci-fi adventures, and paranormal mysteries.
Last updated: July 4, 2026
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Publication Order
19 books
Drive, Ride, Repeat
by Al Macy
2014
Part road-trip journal and part comic memoir, this follows Macy and his wife on a car, bike, and camping trip from California to St. Louis and back. Frugal detours and odd life stories come included.
Contact Us
by Al Macy
2015
An alien craft appears, the whole world sneezes at once, and humanity starts dying fast. Reclusive ex-FBI troubleshooter Jake Corby is dragged back to figure out the visitor's real plan.
The Antiterrorist
by Al Macy
2015
Satellites begin vanishing without a trace, then the International Space Station is hit. Jake Corby has to identify the force behind the attacks and help pull off a risky rescue before disaster spreads.
Sanity's Thief
by Al Macy
2016
To find a missing woman, Eric gets himself admitted to a suspicious psychiatric hospital. Getting in is easy. Getting out, with his mind intact, is the real problem.
The Universe Next Door
by Al Macy
2016
Jake Corby is hurled into a parallel Earth ruled by spacefaring dinobirds, with only his dog and elderly grandmother-in-law beside him. To get home, he may have to save far more than his own world.
Yesterday's Thief
by Al Macy
2016
Mind-reading PI Eric Beckman is captivated by a woman who materializes during a televised baseball game. Finding out where, or when, she came from could prevent a global energy disaster.
A Mind Reader's Christmas
by Al Macy
2017
Eric Beckman wants a quiet Christmas in snowy Vermont, but a nativity prank pulls him into a village mystery. Soon old secrets, mind reading, and the supernatural threaten his family's holiday.
Democracy's Thief
by Al Macy
2017
Eric Beckman investigates a politically driven break-in and finds a presidential candidate with a terrifying power over crowds. To stop him, Eric has to step into the political world he cannot stand.
The Abducted Heiress
by Al Macy
2018
Alex Booker may look sixteen, but his older mind makes him perfect to go undercover when teen heiress Misty Langwell disappears. The case leads him into the Amazon and far beyond a simple kidnapping.
The Christmas Planet and Other Stories
by Al Macy
2018
This short story collection samples Macy's range, from Jake Corby adventures and a space pirate tale to an Eric Beckman story with mind control and winter trouble. It is a quick tour through his stranger ideas.
The Day Before Yesterday's Thief
by Al Macy
2018
Jewel thief Viviana Petki hides a stolen diamond in a stranger's suitcase to slip past customs. Getting it back drags her toward mob danger, family risk, and the strange past behind the Eric Beckman books.
The Protected Witness
by Al Macy
2018
In 2029, accountant Alex Booker uncovers presidential money laundering and enters an experimental witness protection program. It de-ages him into a teenager, which makes staying hidden almost as hard as fighting back.
Conclusive Evidence
by Al Macy
2019
Garrett Goodlove is pushed back into criminal defense when his estranged deaf twin sister is accused of murder. Her secrets, and his own fragile state, make the case far harder than it looks.
Sufficient Evidence
by Al Macy
2019
Garrett distrusts his cheerful elderly client long before a gun in her trunk is tied to an assassination. To defend her, he has to decide whether she is lying, innocent, or far more dangerous.
The Mind Reader's Journey
by Al Macy
2019
Eric Beckman's daughter Cosmina is chosen for a perilous mission to recover a mystical gold coin in Antarctica. Eric goes with her, but ice, demons, and his own doubts may doom the quest.
Damaging Evidence
by Al Macy
2020
Garrett Goodlove takes on a medical malpractice case after a woman leaves the ER in a wheelchair. With powerful lawyers closing ranks, stopping one reckless surgeon may cost his firm everything.
Damaging Quarantine
by Al Macy
2020
Locked down together during the pandemic, Garrett, his family, and his twin sister are already fraying at the edges. Then a violent former client reenters the picture and makes quarantine much more dangerous.
Forgotten Evidence
by Al Macy
2020
A depressed Garrett Goodlove ignores a troubled client's warning until the man vanishes and returns with no memory, then faces a murder charge. Solving the case means dragging himself back into the fight.
Missing Evidence
by Al Macy
2021
Garrett Goodlove's newest client is fifteen and worried his missing sister has gone vigilante. To save her from becoming a murder suspect, Garrett first has to find her.
Where should I start?
If you want legal thrillers: Conclusive Evidence → Sufficient Evidence → Damaging Evidence
If you want paranormal mysteries: Yesterday's Thief → Sanity's Thief → A Mind Reader's Christmas
If you want big sci-fi stakes: Contact Us → The Antiterrorist → The Universe Next Door
If you like high-concept suspense: The Protected Witness → The Abducted Heiress
Author bio
Al Macy writes the kind of books that feel built by someone who enjoys puzzles, odd turns, and people with very real problems. Before fiction took over, he worked in several different worlds, including science, software, music, and technical writing. You can feel all of that in his books. Even when a story gets wild, there is usually a practical mind underneath it, testing the idea from every angle.
In his own telling, storytelling started early. He was the kid who jumped at show and tell and liked getting a laugh. Then adult life got busy, careers piled up, and the fiction part of his brain sat quietly in the background for a long time.
It came back after retirement.
Macy has said that the turn happened when he started a blog about trying to improve his piano sight-reading. That project pulled him back into regular writing, and regular writing pulled him back toward making up stories. From there, the books started coming.
His early nonfiction book, Drive, Ride, Repeat, gives a good sense of his voice. It follows a cross-country car, bicycle, and camping trip with his wife, but it also wanders into memory, frugality, jokes, and the strange collection of jobs he had over the years. He has described himself at different times as a neuroscientist, computer game programmer, jazz trombonist, piano player, chef, CEO, technical writer, and even a clam digger. That wide path helps explain why his fiction moves so easily between legal suspense, science fiction, mystery, and comedy.
He is a genre hopper.
Readers who start with Yesterday's Thief meet Eric Beckman, a private investigator who can read minds and still manages to stay gloriously vulnerable to trouble. Those books mix detective work with science fiction, paranormal turns, and family complications. A Mind Reader's Christmas shows the warmer and weirder side of that world, while The Mind Reader's Journey pushes the series toward full quest territory without losing the human center.
Elsewhere, Macy keeps changing gears. Contact Us and The Antiterrorist go big with aliens, disappearing satellites, and end-of-the-world stakes. The Alex Booker books, beginning with The Protected Witness, use a playful high-concept setup, an older man trapped in the body of a teenager, and turn it into a fast thriller. Then Conclusive Evidence and the rest of the Goodlove and Shek books shift into more grounded legal drama, where courtroom pressure, depression, and family strain matter just as much as plot twists.
That range is part of the appeal.
Across the different series, a few habits stay the same. Macy likes smart protagonists who are capable but not polished. He likes unusual abilities and science ideas, but he also likes awkward conversations, domestic details, and the way family loyalties complicate everything. Even in the darker books, there is usually some dry humor nearby.
He has said that he lives in far Northern California with his wife. Music still seems to matter a lot in his life, and so does curiosity. That may be the simplest way to describe his work too. These are books from a writer who likes asking what strange thing could happen next, then following an ordinary, slightly offbeat person as they try to deal with it.
Edited by
Software engineer whose passion for tracking book recommendations from podcasts inspired the creation of MRB.
Lead investor at 3one4 Capital whose startup expertise and love for books helped shaped MRB and its growth.



































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