Christopher Hyde Books in Order
Browse Christopher Hyde books in order, including Finn Ryan, John Holliday, Jane Todd, and more, with brief summaries and tips on where to start.
Last updated: July 3, 2026
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Publication Order
34 books
The Wave
by Christopher Hyde
1979
A threat to the Columbia River dam system sparks a frantic effort to stop catastrophe. Hyde's debut turns flood, sabotage, and nuclear fear into a large-scale disaster thriller with real bite.
Styx
by Christopher Hyde
1982
An earthquake traps an international archaeological team deep in a cave system in Yugoslavia. Their only way out is along a black underground river, where panic and the darkness become as deadly as the creatures around them.
The Icarus Seal
by Christopher Hyde
1982
When a friend's flight vanishes, journalist and pilot Peter Coffin starts asking questions. The search pulls him across Europe and Canada and toward a chilling scheme involving radioactive cargo on commercial planes.
The Tenth Crusade
by Christopher Hyde
1983
Photographer Philip Kirkland and Sarah Logan are all that stand between the country and a violent extremist movement. Hyde mixes cult politics, fanaticism, and conspiracy into a tense political thriller.
Maxwell's Train
by Christopher Hyde
1985
Harry Maxwell, an Amtrak maintenance man with a criminal past, plans one last robbery on a train carrying millions in fresh cash. Then terrorists move in, and the heist becomes something far more dangerous.
Jericho Falls
by Christopher Hyde
1986
A crash releases a top-secret biological weapon near a small New Hampshire town. As the military seals the area and the town starts to die, a handful of survivors fight to escape the quarantine.
Whisperland
by Christopher Hyde
1986
After his uncle's death, David Brock is summoned back into the orbit of his powerful family empire. The trail leads to Bermuda's Whisperland Hotel, where old money, murder, and long-buried secrets wait.
Crestwood Heights
by Christopher Hyde
1988
Kelly Rhine inherits property in a beautiful planned town in North Carolina and starts over. The place seems perfectly ordered, until she discovers a hidden system of surveillance, manipulation, and deadly research.
Egypt Green
by Christopher Hyde
1989
In a pristine underground city called Egypt Green, elites consider a horrifying answer to overpopulation. Hyde turns population control, plague research, and genetic planning into a cold, unsettling techno-thriller.
White Lies
by Christopher Hyde
1990
A buried assassination blueprint, first conceived for Roosevelt, is revived against a modern president and his independent vice president. Hyde builds the story into a sharp political thriller about power, secrecy, and who gets protected.
Hard Target
by Christopher Hyde
1991
A secret assassination plan from the Roosevelt years resurfaces when a young president shows signs of mental collapse. With the president, the vice president, and the state itself at risk, every agency is suddenly too late.
Black Dragon
by Christopher Hyde
1992
A killing marked with Chinese characters points toward Black Dragon, a vast international crime syndicate. As the body count rises, the hunt leads into a ruthless struggle for control inside the organization itself.
The Paranoid's Handbook
by Christopher Hyde
1994
Hyde steps away from straight thriller fiction for a darkly funny look at modern fears. It's a satirical guide to the things people worry about, from looming disasters to the strange logic of everyday paranoia.
A Gathering of Saints
by Christopher Hyde
1996
During the Blitz, Detective Inspector Morris Black tracks a serial killer whose victims appear where Luftwaffe bombs are about to fall. Spycraft, treason, and wartime panic make the case even more dangerous.
Watch Me
by Christopher Hyde
1996
FBI agent Jay Fletcher creates an illegal computer system that can spot likely serial killers. When she stumbles onto an online network built by murderers, her hunt for them becomes personal and dangerously lawless.
Unforgiven
by Christopher Hyde
1997
Twenty years after a small town helped bury the truth about her daughter's murder, a grieving mother comes back for justice. Hyde turns that setup into a bitter revenge thriller about memory, blame, and local corruption.
Catch Me
by Christopher Hyde
1999
Jay Fletcher is hiding in witness protection when Billy Bones, the killer who ruined her career, breaks free. His taunting message pulls her back into a brutal cat-and-mouse hunt she may not survive.
The Second Assassin
by Christopher Hyde
2002
In 1939, powerful isolationists plot to murder the King and Queen of England on American soil. Jane Todd is caught in a high-stakes conspiracy meant to break the bond between Britain and the United States.
Wisdom of the Bones
by Christopher Hyde
2003
Dallas detective Ray Duval has months to live and one last chance to save a kidnapped girl. Set against the chaos after President Kennedy's assassination, this is a grim race between illness, fear, and murder.
The House of Special Purpose
by Christopher Hyde
2004
In 1941, Jane Todd and Inspector Morris Black are sent to trace a missing relic from the Russian Revolution. Their mission could shift the balance of the war, if spies and double-dealers don't kill them first.
An American Spy
by Christopher Hyde
2005
War correspondent Jane Todd arrives in London to look into the murder of an American GI. With Major Lucas Dundee, she follows the case into treason, royal scandal, and a pro-Hitler plot in the Scottish Highlands.
Michelangelo's Notebook
by Christopher Hyde
2005
Art history student Finn Ryan discovers a drawing that may come from Michelangelo's lost notebook. Hours later her boyfriend is dead, and she is running through New York and Vatican history to stay alive.
The Lucifer Gospel
by Christopher Hyde
2006
In the Sahara, Finn Ryan and Virgil Hilts uncover signs of an old murder and a Roman medallion tied to a fallen angel. Their search for the truth becomes a globe-spanning chase through ruins, archives, and sunken wrecks.
Rembrandt's Ghost
by Christopher Hyde
2007
Finn Ryan inherits an Amsterdam house, a cargo ship, and what looks like a fake Rembrandt. Hidden inside the painting is a clue that sends Finn and Billy Pilgrim chasing a fortune across the South Pacific.
The Aztec Heresy
by Christopher Hyde
2008
Looking for a sunken Spanish galleon, Finn Ryan and Billy Pilgrim find clues to a lost Aztec codex and the City of Gold. Rival treasure hunters and religious fanatics make every step of the hunt deadly.
The Sword of the Templars
by Christopher Hyde
2009
Retired Ranger and West Point historian John Holliday inherits a medieval sword wrapped in Hitler's battle standard. When violence follows, he realizes the blade is tied to a centuries-old war the Templars never finished.
The Templar Cross
by Christopher Hyde
2009
Holliday's niece Peggy is kidnapped, and he joins Israeli archaeologist Rafi Wanounou to find her. Their search opens onto Egyptian legend, global intrigue, and one more deadly layer of Templar history.
The Templar Throne
by Christopher Hyde
2010
A mysterious Jacob's Staff links John Holliday to a medieval knight and a much older Egyptian secret. His search for answers turns into a race against enemies who would rather bury the truth with him.
The Templar Conspiracy
by Christopher Hyde
2011
The Pope is assassinated on Christmas Day, and the killing points toward Rex Deus, a modern Templar cabal. Holliday must untangle the plot before its backers seize even greater power.
The Templar Legion
by Christopher Hyde
2011
When an archaeologist friend makes a strange discovery in Ethiopia, Holliday is drawn into a lethal search across the Horn of Africa. The prize is ancient, priceless, and protected by a riddle from the distant past.
Lost City of the Templars
by Christopher Hyde
2012
A missing explorer's journal sends John Holliday into the Amazon. Tomb raiders, hostile terrain, and a hidden society guard a relic that Templar legends say was lost with Jerusalem.
Red Templar
by Christopher Hyde
2012
John Holliday's homecoming is cut short when a Russian stranger offers news of a lost companion to Holliday's Templar sword. The search pulls him from Turkey into Russia and a hidden network of Templar power.
Valley of the Templars
by Christopher Hyde
2012
Holliday and his friend Eddie head to Cuba to find Eddie's missing brother. Instead they uncover a long-brewing Templar plot tied to the island's crumbling regime and a secret buried in the Valley of Death.
Secret of the Templars
by Christopher Hyde
2015
After his niece and her fiancé are murdered, John Holliday hunts a lost Dead Sea Scroll. The trail leads from Vatican vaults to Pakistan and into a Nazi-era conspiracy that could shake Christian history.
Where should I start?
For big historical adventure: The Sword of the Templars → The Templar Cross → The Templar Throne
For art and archaeology mysteries: Michelangelo's Notebook → The Lucifer Gospel → Rembrandt's Ghost → The Aztec Heresy
For World War II intrigue: The Second Assassin → The House of Special Purpose → An American Spy
For darker standalone suspense: Jericho Falls → Crestwood Heights → Wisdom of the Bones
For serial-killer cat and mouse: Watch Me → Catch Me
Author bio
Christopher Hyde was born on May 26, 1949, in Ottawa, Ontario, and he grew up in a family where art, ideas, and serious work all lived in the same house. His father, Laurence Hyde, was an artist, filmmaker, and author. His mother, Bettye Hyde, worked in child psychology and early childhood education. That mix of creativity and close observation shows up all through his fiction.
Before he was a novelist, Hyde spent years in broadcasting and media. He worked for CBC in Ottawa and Vancouver, and also did work connected with CTV, CJOH-TV, and educational television. Much of that work involved research, reporting, and interviewing, especially on technology, intelligence, and environmental subjects. It gave him a reporter's habit of chasing facts until the machinery behind a story finally made sense.
He turned to writing fiction full time in the late 1970s. His first major thriller, The Wave, arrived in 1979 and set the tone early. It is a large-scale disaster novel built around the Columbia River dam system, political choices, and the fear of a catastrophe that could keep spreading long after the first failure. Even in that debut, Hyde was already doing the thing many readers still like best about him, taking a frightening idea and grounding it in a lot of hard detail.
That research-heavy approach carried into books like The Icarus Seal, Maxwell's Train, Jericho Falls, and Crestwood Heights. Hyde liked systems, airports, rail lines, military plans, laboratories, intelligence networks, and the quiet ways institutions can go wrong. He also liked putting ordinary or half-ordinary people inside those systems and forcing them to improvise when everything starts breaking at once. His thrillers are often fast, but they are rarely careless.
He also had a sharp feel for paranoia.
Later, Hyde moved with real confidence into historical suspense. A Gathering of Saints, The Second Assassin, The House of Special Purpose, and An American Spy all draw on wartime politics, espionage, and the murky spaces between official history and private conspiracy. Readers who enjoy these books usually come for the mix of real events and invented danger. Hyde had a knack for making the past feel unsettled, as if one missing file or one dead courier might change everything.
He also wrote under other names. As Paul Christopher, he created the Finn Ryan novels, beginning with Michelangelo's Notebook, and the John Holliday adventures, beginning with The Sword of the Templars. Those books lean harder into archaeological mysteries, religious secrets, and globe-trotting action, but they still carry Hyde's usual interests: hidden power, old crimes with modern consequences, and smart protagonists forced to think on the run. As A.J. Holt, he wrote the Jay Fletcher thrillers Watch Me and Catch Me, which push into serial-killer territory and early cybercrime fears.
He even collaborated with his brother Anthony Hyde under the joint name Nicholas Chase. Across all these bylines, the recurring themes are easy to spot: secrecy, corruption, institutional failure, and people trying to stay morally intact while the pressure climbs. Hyde once described his books as being about paranoias, and that feels exactly right.
The surface excitement matters, but so does the unease underneath.
Hyde lived and worked in Canada and later in the Pacific Northwest, and he died in 2014. What remains is a body of thrillers that can move from dams to cathedrals, from the Blitz to the Vatican, without losing their grip. If you like suspense novels with brains, momentum, and a strong sense that the world is more fragile than it looks, Hyde has a lot to offer.
Edited by
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