Alan Hunter Books in Order

A timber merchant is found stabbed to death, and the local police are convinced his son is the killer. George Gently, interrupted on holiday, sees too many loose ends to accept the obvious answer.

A naked, stabbed man washes up on the sand at a crowded seaside resort, and Gently must identify him before he can solve the crime. The trail runs from beach gossip into a darker tangle of politics and local accomplices.

A pleasure cruiser returns burned almost beyond recognition, with a client's charred remains aboard. Gently has to cut through the lies, fear, and family strain surrounding the victim to find the truth.

Invited to spend Christmas in the country, Gently expects fishing, not murder. When a guest at Merely Hall is found dead at the foot of the staircase, an apparent accident quickly becomes something colder.

Petty crook Steinie Taylor is discovered in a flour hopper at a country mill, but he was strangled before he got there. Gently follows the trail through local quarrels, uneasy workers, and Taylor's London associates.

During a summer heatwave, the beautiful Rachel Campion is found dead on the beach. When an old skeleton is uncovered nearby, Gently has to decide how two deaths, separated by years, might belong to the same story.

Artist Shirley Johnson is murdered and dumped outside a provincial police headquarters. Gently has to sort through rival painters, a troubled husband, and the fury stirred up by Johnson's final work, Dark Destroyer.

Young Johnny Lister dies on a long straight road after what looks like a high-speed crash. Gently digs into rival bikers, youth culture, and a drug trail to find out who really forced him off course.

A mountaineer presumed dead on Everest returns twenty-two years later, only for his old climbing partner to fall to his death on Snowdon. Gently is left asking whether a dead man has come back for revenge.

When a trucker of Polish background is found murdered by the roadside, Gently follows the trail to a road house and a nearby RAF base. Missing supplies, missing arms, and too many evasions make this a wider case than it first seems.

Boat builder and charter-fleet owner Harry French had enemies in every direction, and then someone smashed his skull and dumped him in the river. Gently must sort through a crowd of suspects who all seem to have had their chance.

A tiger once terrorized a market town, then vanished from the story, until a year later a mauled body is found buried in a garden. Gently faces blackmail, buried grudges, and a murder far stranger than it first appears.

When John Fazakerly hands himself in over the death of his wife Clytie, the case seems almost too convenient. Gently has to sort through tangled affairs, dependency, and resentment to find out what really happened.

A guest at the Hotel Continental is found dead below the cliffs, bearing marks of torture. Gently strips away the hotel's Viennese charm and finds blackmail, wartime secrets, and international shadows underneath.

A supposed holiday in the Scottish Highlands turns into murder, armed nationalism, and a dangerous trek through the hills. Gently has Brenda at his side, but the mountains offer little shelter and even less certainty.

After a ship carrying illegal immigrants sinks, the man behind it seems to escape justice, until he is found stabbed to death. Gently steps into a tense case where murder and race relations are tightly knotted together.

An elderly man is found dead at the foot of his stairs, and Gently soon suspects robbery tied to ancient coins hidden in the house. When a leading suspect dies the same way, the puzzle grows colder and much stranger.

Gently enters the polished but cutthroat world of horses and country money, where rivalry runs hard and appearances matter. Behind the sporting surface, he finds jealousy, pressure, and a case moving faster than expected.

Vivienne appears to have simply lain down and died, with no sign of struggle and no obvious wound. Gently knows better, and the mystery lies in proving how murder can look so deceptively gentle.

Mimi Deslauriers is the most alluring murder suspect Gently has ever faced, and he is convinced she holds the key to the execution of an underworld boss. The challenge is proving it before charm and confusion cloud the case.

This edition of the story later published as Gently in Trees begins with the apparent suicide of Adrian Stoll. Gently sees at once that too many people wanted Stoll dead for the case to be that simple.

Gently heads to the north of Scotland to help clear an old friend accused of killing a romantic rival. With local feeling running high, he has to prove innocence before the Highlands close ranks against him.

All Gently receives is an anonymous photograph of a corpse in a woodland clearing. Before he can catch a killer, he first has to discover whether the murder, the body, and even the crime scene are real.

When clarinetist Terence Virtue is killed after a vicious quarrel at rehearsal, suspicion falls on composer Walter Hozeley. Gently soon sees that the entire musical circle had reasons to want Virtue gone.

One of the later George Gently cases, this novel shows Hunter at his most methodical and humane. A troubling death opens into a puzzle of hidden motives, and Gently works it patiently to the end.

Also published as Gently Under Fire, this novel begins with attacks on George Gently during what should have been a quiet French holiday. Soon he is acting as bait in a dangerous hunt around Honfleur and its antiques fair.

This edition of the story later published as Gently in the Past begins with Frederick Quennell dead in a gorse thicket near the Suffolk coast. Gently must unravel jealous loves, an earlier drowning, and the emotional wreckage left behind.

Also published as Gently Heartbroken, this story links a burned light aircraft in Scotland to the kidnapping of a French industrialist. With Gabrielle Orbec missing, Gently is pulled into a fast-moving case that turns painfully personal.

A light aircraft burns in a lonely Scottish field while, across the Channel, French industrialist Hugo Barentin is kidnapped. With Gabrielle Orbec at the center of the crisis, Gently faces a case that is both political and painfully personal.

A strangled woman drifts upstream in a dinghy, and everyone around the lonely Martello Tower where she lived seems to know only part of the truth. Gently and Gabrielle are drawn into a subtle, melancholy Suffolk mystery.

This edition of the story later published as Gently with Passion follows novelist Stella Rushton to the Norfolk Broads after a painful jilting. Her quiet retreat turns complicated when new romance and local tensions darken into mystery.

Gently investigates a case shadowed by judgement, reinvention, and a past that refuses to stay buried. Hunter keeps the focus on the people behind the labels, and on the danger of easy assumptions.

When a suspicious death refuses to fit the easy explanation, Gently starts tugging at the loose threads. What follows is a careful inquiry into appearances, alibis, and who benefits from a lie.

Rumour, memory, and a very real threat meet in this London-set Gently case. What first looks like talk and atmosphere soon turns into solid motive, and a dangerous search for the truth.

This later Gently mystery moves through performance, charm, and the masks people wear in public. Beneath the graceful surface, Gently finds bruised egos, old hurts, and a crime that won't stay hidden.

A violent death sends Gently into a tight knot of fear, lies, and private grievance. Hunter keeps the pressure on motive, as the case closes in on someone with a very personal reason to kill.

An ageing expatriate claims he has recognized a wartime Resistance traitor and fears for his life. When the supposed traitor is murdered, Gently has to decide who was hero, who was villain, and who killed for the past.

Big money sits at the heart of this Gently investigation, along with envy, entitlement, and the damage wealth can do. He has to work out who wanted a fortune, and who was willing to kill around it.

When private scandal threatens to become public ruin, Gently steps into a case shaped by reputation, secrecy, and fear. The more he learns, the clearer it becomes that gossip is hiding something lethal.

This case asks whether murder can be planned so carefully that it starts to look like fate. Gently follows the small inconsistencies and finds a killer relying on patience, nerve, and other people's assumptions.

A sad, deeply human case draws Gently into grief, blame, and the stories people tell to live with loss. As he peels back the surface, tragedy turns into something much darker.

A Scottish case takes Gently into the glens, where distance, silence, and local loyalties make every answer hard won. The landscape is beautiful, but the motives underneath it are anything but peaceful.

When a German pilot returns to England to revisit the family who sheltered him during the war, the reunion ends in murder. Gently has to sort through old loyalties, wartime memories, and resentments that never quite died.

George Gently is drawn into a case where sudden money brings out greed, panic, and old resentments. What looks like luck quickly hardens into suspicion, and then into violence.

After a lively artists' evening, poet Ambrose West is found bludgeoned to death in a garden. Gently must sort through rivalries, flirtations, and performance-night tensions to find the one guest who crossed the line.

A late George Gently mystery in which old loyalties and buried memories return with dangerous force. As past and present collide, Gently has to work out who is still protecting the truth, and why.

A woman is found strangled in a Putney flat, and the missing man who seems the obvious suspect soon turns up dead as well. Gently's final case becomes a hunt through betrayal, money, and a trail that keeps shifting.

After a ship carrying illegal immigrants sinks, the man behind it seems to escape justice, until he is found stabbed to death. Gently steps into a tense case where murder and race relations are tightly knotted together.

Even on holiday in Honfleur, George Gently can't stay out of trouble. After attempts on his life, he becomes a decoy in a dangerous hunt involving an antiques fair, French police, and the enigmatic Gabrielle Orbec.

Near the Suffolk coast, printer and yachtsman Frederick Quennell is found dead in a gorse thicket. George Gently must untangle old drownings, jealous loves, and a family history full of guilt and rivalry.

Jilted novelist Stella Rushton retreats to the Norfolk Broads, hoping quiet water and summer light will steady her. Instead, new attraction and old tensions begin to edge her holiday toward mystery and danger.