Bernard Knight Books in Order

A rich woman is found dead after a party and everyone assumes drugs, until a nearly invisible knife wound says otherwise. As suspects and motives pile up, the case starts to look less like vice than mistaken identity.

Ex-Army linguist Simon Smith takes what looks like easy work in the Soviet Union and finds himself trapped in a Cold War snarl. Murders, double-dealing, and pressure from both British and Russian investigators quickly raise the stakes.

Jackie Stott, a boxer turned nightclub owner and career chancer, keeps slipping between the police and Newcastle's underworld. When murder enters the picture, enemies on both sides start closing in.

In Cardiff's docklands, small-time schemer Iago Price decides to try life as a private detective and immediately lands in trouble. Blackmail, drug dealing, and murder make Tiger Bay a dangerous place to learn the job.

Drawing on his forensic work, Knight explains how a pathologist reconstructs suspicious deaths and separates accident from violence. It is an accessible look at crime scenes, autopsies, and the medical evidence behind them.

Set in twelfth-century Wales, this novel follows Nest, later called the Welsh Helen of Troy, through love, abduction, and political turmoil. It is a broad historical adventure full of rivalry, warfare, and shifting loyalties.

Pathologist John Hardy is ready to walk away after his wife's death, until a series of murdered women drags him back into the lab. The case blends forensic detail with the mood of a hard-edged 1970s investigation.

After personal loss and bitter struggles in North Wales, Prince Madoc sails west with a small band of companions. Knight turns the old legend into an adventurous historical tale of exile, ambition, and discovery.

Exeter is shaken by rape, murder, and a silversmith who seems tied to both crimes. Crowner John must protect his prime suspect long enough to find proof, even as the case tears through powerful families.

Freshly appointed coroner of Devon, Sir John de Wolfe rides to Widecombe to examine an unidentified corpse. The dead man proves to be a crusader, and the investigation quickly pits John against the sheriff, his own brother-in-law.

On Christmas Eve, a canon found hanging looks like a suicide until Sir John notices too many loose ends. A second killing and his sheriff brother-in-law's interference point to a deeper conspiracy.

An old comrade from the Crusades begs Sir John for help after uncovering a secret that could shake the Church. Pursued by the Knights Templar, John is pulled into a dangerous chase that reaches even the pirate haven of Lundy.

A murdered tin miner on Dartmoor draws Crowner John into the fiercely guarded world of the tinners. Missing men, local loyalties, and Gwyn's own arrest make this one of his most difficult Devon cases.

Exeter is stalked by a killer who chooses victims by their sins and leaves biblical texts at the scene. Because the murders show learning and scripture, Crowner John suspects a priest, in a city full of them.

In a broken near-future Britain, former soldier Brennan leads Welsh survivors fighting for food, fuel, and a chance to endure. Knight recasts Arthurian themes as a survival story about leadership, loyalty, and a country coming apart.

A royal forest officer rides into a Devon village already dead, pierced by an arrow that hints at murder, not robbery. As Crowner John digs deeper, he finds corruption, fear, and a conspiracy hiding inside the king's harsh forest laws.

A wealthy Exeter merchant collapses dead, and what looks like natural causes soon sparks a frenzy over witchcraft. The stakes become personal for Crowner John when the victim's widow helps turn the city against so-called cunning women, including Nesta.

A hated local lord is found stabbed after a public quarrel, but nearly everyone around him had reason to want him dead. Faced with feuding brothers, a wronged wife, and old grievances, Crowner John must pick through a crowded field of suspects.

A fragment of the True Cross, supposedly stained with the blood of Christ, carries a deadly curse. This collaborative novel traces the relic's bloody path from Jerusalem in 1100 through centuries of English history, as different sleuths encounter the cursed object and the violence that follows it.

A Saxon sword forged before the Norman Conquest brings betrayal and death to all who wield it. From the battlefields of the 14th century to political scandals in Venice, this collection of linked mysteries follows the cursed blade's journey through the hands of knights, rebels, and murderers.

When mutilated seamen turn up on the Devon coast, Crowner John follows a trail that leads from murder to alchemy and secretive monks. Strange sightings and dangerous beliefs turn an already brutal case into one of his most unsettling.

Bermondsey Priory is cursed after a young chaplain is punished for sins of the flesh in 1114. Over the next five centuries, the priory becomes a backdrop for murder, ghosts, and political intrigue, as recorded in this series of interlinked tales by the Medieval Murderers group.

A corpse found hidden in a school roof seems to point straight at a hunted Cornish knight living rough on Dartmoor. Sir John de Wolfe is not convinced, and a second violent death makes the case even murkier.

A mysterious book of prophecies written by a 6th-century Irish monk is said to predict everything from the Black Death to the Gunpowder Plot. As the manuscript passes through history, it leaves a trail of madness and death for anyone who tries to decipher its secrets.

An unidentified young man is found in the harbour town of Axmouth, and Crowner John quickly sees he was strangled, not drowned. Local sailors and townsfolk close ranks, hiding a truth dangerous enough to kill for.

Summoned to Westminster as Coroner of the Verge, Sir John de Wolfe steps into a court thick with greed and intrigue. A murdered clerk in the Thames points toward a conspiracy against King Richard.

In 1191, monks at Glastonbury Abbey claim to have found the bones of King Arthur. But are they real, or a political fabrication? This linked narrative follows the secret of the bones through the ages, as guardians protect them from those who would use the legend for power.

As yellow plague grips Exeter, Crowner John must juggle a sick brother, church politics, and a run of savage murders. Rumors of heresy turn the city ugly, and even John's loyalties are called into question.

A meteorite falls in Greenland and is fashioned into a stone with reputed healing powers. But greed and violence follow the artifact as it travels to medieval Exeter and beyond, bringing misfortune rather than miracles to those who possess it.

In 1955, Richard Pryor returns from Singapore and opens a private forensic practice in the Wye Valley with scientist Angela Bray. Their first cases, disputed bones and a suspicious drowning, prove how much the dead can still argue back.

Richard Pryor and Angela Bray investigate a farm death staged to look accidental, then enter a courtroom battle over a vet accused of killing his dying wife. Careful forensic detail, not instinct, may decide both cases.

Solsbury Hill has been a place of death and ritual since ancient times. This collection follows the hill's dark history through the ages, from pagan sacrifices to medieval crimes, as the spirits of the past continue to haunt the living.

Returning from the Third Crusade in 1192, Sir John de Wolfe finds England restless and a royal courier murdered on Devon's shore. The case pulls him into Prince John's plotting and marks the start of his life as a coroner.

Newly arrived in Malaya, young pathologist Tom Howden expects army medicine, not a murder buried in planter gossip and military scandal. When a man is found shot outside The Dog, Tom's autopsy shows the danger comes from within the expatriate circle.

Richard Pryor and Angela Bray are called into a grim Welsh case when a headless body is found in a bog near Borth. As the investigation deepens, their small forensic team faces a murder far stranger than it first appears.

A play depicting the biblical first murder of Abel by Cain carries a dark legacy. As the script surfaces in different eras—from a medieval mystery play to a Restoration drama—life begins to imitate art, and murder follows the actors who perform it.

An ancient statue of the Virgin Mary, carved from pagan stone, exercises a strange and malevolent power. The Medieval Murderers trace the icon's journey across centuries, where religious devotion twists into obsession, heresy, and bloodshed.

A tale of pride and punishment woven through history. From a boastful Norman lord to a 14th-century priory, the authors explore how the deadliest sin leads to downfall and death, linking separate historical mysteries with a common thread of human hubris.

A young model seems to have died in a drunken car crash, until the evidence shows she was killed first. The investigation winds through 1960s Soho, where vice, gangsters, and an old secret from Germany complicate everything.

When boys uncover a human bone in a Welsh cave, a woman's decades-old disappearance comes roaring back into local memory. Superintendent Pacey must sort rumor from truth as suspicion falls on the husband who has suddenly returned.