Billy Harney (David Ellis) Books in Order

The Billy Harney novels by James Patterson and David Ellis take the classic police thriller and drop it into modern Chicago, where every case bumps up against politics, money, and the city’s uneasy relationship with its own police force. Billy grows up in a family of cops and carries both their expectations and their mistakes on his shoulders.

The Black Book introduces him at his lowest moment, waking up in a hospital after a raid gone wrong. Two people are dead, he is accused of murder, and he can’t remember what happened inside the brownstone that night. At the center of the mystery is a discreet brothel and the missing notebook that holds the names and secrets of the city’s most powerful people.

Everyone wants that ledger, and almost no one cares who gets hurt finding it.

In The Red Book, Billy returns to duty as the public face of reform inside a department he helped expose. Assigned to an elite special-operations squad, he’s thrown into the investigation of a drive-by that kills a child on the West Side. The city demands fast justice, but as Billy and his new partner dig deeper, the case begins to intersect with an old trauma in his own family history.

Escape pushes the stakes even higher. A carefully staged jailbreak leaves officers dead and dangerous inmates on the run, including a billionaire crime boss Billy has been pursuing. Clues left at the scene make it clear that the escapees are playing a game with him, and the hunt drags him through luxury high-rises, back alleys, and a race to save a kidnapped girl.

Throughout the series, Ellis’s feel for legal and political detail shapes the cases, while Patterson’s trademark pacing keeps the chapters flying. Billy’s complicated bond with his twin sister Patti, his battle-scarred body, and his shaky reputation as either hero or rogue cop give the books emotional weight beneath the action. Readers who like big twists and moral gray areas will find plenty to dig into here.