Counterstroke Books in Order

Counterstroke opens with a man who is supposed to be leaving the dangerous part of his life behind. In Exciting, Isn't It?, John Murray, former policeman, former MI6 officer, former management consultant, and newly widowed, sets off through France with no grand plan except to collect his yacht and decide what comes next. Then Gabrielle, a writer on the run from Paris, steps into the story carrying secret documents she does not fully understand.

That is when the quiet trip ends.

From there, the series becomes a mix of espionage, organized crime, and international conspiracy, but it never loses the grounded pleasure of watching experienced adults think their way through danger. John is not written as an untouchable action machine. He is older, damaged, observant, and practical. Gabrielle adds warmth, urgency, and a civilian perspective that keeps the opening book from turning into dry tradecraft.

The scale grows in Market Forces. Katherine Percival, a CIA assassin who suspects she has been sent on a false mission, refuses to kill Mark Parnell and joins forces with him instead. That move connects her to John Murray and Secure Inc, the network trying to push back against an international organization using money laundering, political influence, and corruption inside official institutions. By this point the series clearly shifts from one-off survival to coordinated counterattack.

When Needs Must.... broadens the team again. Major Teddy Robertson-Steel, Mark, Katt, Libby Carter, James Wallace, and other returning allies face multiple threats at once, terrorism, billionaire-backed manipulation, and the lingering power of organized crime. The series likes that kind of layered pressure. O'Neil keeps asking what happens when criminal power, government weakness, and private courage all collide in the same place.

The setting helps a lot. France and wider Europe are not just scenery here. Waterways, roads, cities, and political borders all matter because the plots depend on movement, jurisdiction, and influence. The books carry a strong sense that respectable surfaces can hide ugly systems underneath, and that the people fighting back often have to work outside tidy official channels.

If you want David O'Neil's more adult, conspiracy-heavy side, Counterstroke is a strong place to start. It keeps the action moving, but it is just as interested in networks, loyalties, and the slow unmasking of power.