David Gilman Books in Order
See David Gilman books in order, with reading guides, plot summaries, series background and where to start for Master of War, The Englishman and Danger Zone.
Last updated: January 14, 2026
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Publication Order
19 books
Rage of Swords
by David Gilman
2025
Set in 1368, Rage of Swords sends Master of War Thomas Blackstone ahead of the Duke of Clarence on a perilous journey to Milan. With assassins hunting his every step and his hot headed son attracting trouble, Blackstone must secure vital gold and a crucial alliance or lose everything.
To Kill a King
by David Gilman
2024
In Bordeaux in 1367, Sir Thomas Blackstone is exhausted by service to the ruthless Don Pedro of Castile yet bound by oath to see the mission through. As unrest sweeps Aquitaine, Blackstone and his son Henry are drawn into a web of plots that could topple princes and kill them both.
Resurrection
by David Gilman
2023
On the border of Sudan and Chad, a long buried fighter plane rises from the Sahara, holding a skeleton chained to a briefcase and a document worth killing for. As rival services close in, Dan Raglan races across continents to uncover the truth before the secret destroys a legendary British agent.
Betrayal
by David Gilman
2022
When an old comrade from the French Foreign Legion disappears from his Pentagon post, leaving only instructions to contact him, Dan Raglan answers the call. Chasing the trail from Marseille to Washington and deep into the Honduran jungle, he uncovers a conspiracy powerful enough to spark a new war.
Shadow of the Hawk
by David Gilman
2021
Torn between oaths and survival, Thomas Blackstone is sent to secure England's grip on Brittany, then pushed south into the chaos of Castile. Escaping one battlefield after another, he must shepherd a doomed king and a frightened boy whose secret could ignite a new war.
The Englishman
by David Gilman
2020
When a British banker with dangerous secrets is snatched off a London street, the shockwaves reach Dan Raglan, an ex soldier from the French Foreign Legion. Following the trail from Africa to Russia's remotest penal colony, Raglan plans a prison break where getting in may be easier than getting out.
Cross of Fire
by David Gilman
2020
By 1362 Thomas Blackstone has become Edward III's feared Master of War, but victories have cost him nearly everyone he loves. Charged with cracking an unassailable fortress and untangling a vicious feud between French nobles, he must pay an unthinkable price to protect what the king values most.
Night Flight to Paris
by David Gilman
2019
In 1943, mathematician and former Parisian Harry Mitchell leaves the safety of Bletchley Park to return to Nazi occupied Paris. Tasked with rescuing a lost intelligence cell and his imprisoned family, he navigates a city riddled with collaborators, gangsters, Resistance fighters and rival German agencies.
Scourge of Wolves
by David Gilman
2018
After a fragile treaty hands huge swathes of France to England, mercenary companies and local lords refuse to surrender their plundered lands. Thomas Blackstone is sent to enforce the king's claim, facing slander, hunted kin and a French army he must confront almost entirely alone.
Viper's Blood
by David Gilman
2017
Peace with France comes at a deadly price. Ordered to escort the French king's daughter to Milan, Thomas Blackstone must ride straight into the lair of the powerful brothers who murdered his family, knowing they plan to make sure he never leaves Italy alive.
The Last Horseman
by David Gilman
2016
In Dublin at the end of the nineteenth century, widowed lawyer and former cavalryman Joseph Radcliffe is haunted by loss and failure. When his estranged son runs off to fight in the Boer War, Radcliffe and his friend Benjamin Pierce ride into South Africa's brutal conflict to bring him home.
Gate of the Dead
by David Gilman
2015
Exiled to Italy as a mercenary captain, Thomas Blackstone has rebuilt his life when a summons from the English crown drags him back across the Alps. To obey means duels, rebellion and an implacable assassin, yet refusing might doom his honour and his soul.
Defiant Unto Death
by David Gilman
2015
Ten years after Crécy, Thomas Blackstone commands his own war band and a hard won corner of France. When a traitor gives the French king a way to destroy his family, Blackstone must face brutal campaigns and single combat to hold everything he loves.
Monkey and Me
by David Gilman
2014
Nine year old Beanie is coping with leukemia and a bossy older brother when he discovers a hungry chimpanzee hiding in a deserted house. Determined to protect Malcolm from the men hunting him, Beanie finds courage, friendship and a reason to fight back.
Master of War
by David Gilman
2013
England, 1346. Village stonemason Thomas Blackstone can hang for a crime he did not commit or fight for King Edward in France. On the road to Crécy he learns the brutal reality of medieval war and begins the journey toward becoming a legend.
Blood Sun
by David Gilman
2009
Back at Dartmoor High, Max Gordon is drawn into his most personal mission when a schoolmate dies in the London Underground carrying a clue to Max's mother's death. The trail leads from England to the rainforests of Central America, where killers, cartels and the jungle itself are waiting.
Ice Claw
by David Gilman
2008
High in the freezing Pyrenees, Max Gordon is racing in an extreme sports contest when a Basque monk plunges to his death, leaving a terrifying prophecy. Branded a murderer, Max must stay ahead of the police and a hidden enemy to stop an ecological catastrophe.
The Devil's Breath
by David Gilman
2007
Teenager Max Gordon thinks boarding school is his biggest challenge until an assassin comes for him and his explorer father vanishes. Following a cryptic clue to the deserts of Namibia, Max uncovers a ruthless industrialist's plan that could destroy both his family and the land.
Ghost in the Machine
by David Gilman
2000
A short stage play that begins with a missing fifty dollar bill and spirals into a puzzle of chance, coincidence and music. As the characters argue over what really happened, questions of probability and perception blur the line between illusion and reality.
Where should I start?
If you want epic medieval battles: Master of War → Defiant Unto Death → Gate of the Dead
If you prefer gritty modern spy thrillers: The Englishman → Betrayal → Resurrection
If you like World War and frontier war stories: The Last Horseman → Night Flight to Paris
If you're choosing for a teen or confident younger reader: The Devil's Breath → Ice Claw → Blood Sun
If you want a heartfelt standalone for younger readers: Monkey and Me
Author bio
David Gilman is an English screenwriter and novelist whose career has zigzagged through firefighting, soldiering and photography before it ever reached bookshelves. He has written for television and film, created stories for children and adults, and now lives in Devon with his wife, Suzy Chiazzari.
Gilman grew up in England and Wales, his family moving whenever his father's work demanded it. One year they were in a flat above a fish and chip shop, another in a house with horses in the fields, and he was forever the new boy at school. At fourteen he left the classroom for good so he could help his mother raise his brother and sister, a decision that shortly led the family to Africa.
Southern Africa gave him his first taste of adult risk.
Work for a teenager with no qualifications was scarce, so he started claiming to be twenty one and quietly padded out his history. He drove an old Ford saloon to ferry Zulu and Pondo construction workers, tried to start as a trainee journalist on a weekly paper only to watch the editor arrested on his first day, and even signed up with the fire and rescue service before his real age threatened to catch up with him. A photographer friend eventually steered him toward magazine photo work, where he learned to improvise and to look for stories in faces and streets.
From there his path looped back to Britain, on to Australia, and back again, with stretches of forestry work, JCB driving, window dressing and a stint as marketing manager for a publishing house in South Africa. He also served in the Parachute Regiment's Reconnaissance Platoon, taking part in operations during the struggle with IRA terrorism, an experience that left him with a clear sense of danger, discipline and camaraderie.
His first attempt at fiction came much earlier. As a small boy he wrote a story told from the point of view of a wandering coin, following its adventures until it ended up in a cow's stomach. A teacher pointed out that a dead narrator could not tell his own tale, and the comment stung badly enough that he did not seriously try writing stories again for many years.
When he finally returned to the page, he started small, teaching himself the craft at night after long days in whatever job paid the bills. Radio dramas and serials came first, across crime, horror, the supernatural and comedy, and the steady trickle of commissions convinced him he could make a living from words. By the mid 1980s he had become a full time writer, moving between mediums but always chasing strong characters and high stakes.
Television brought his work to a huge audience.
Gilman wrote for several long running dramas and spent almost a decade as principal writer on the crime series A Touch of Frost between 2000 and 2009, shaping many of its most memorable cases. Week after week of scripts taught him how to build tension scene by scene and how to sketch a character in a few precise details.
At the same time he turned to fiction for younger readers. His Danger Zone novels follow teenage eco adventurer Max Gordon from a windswept English boarding school to Namibia, the Pyrenees and the rainforests of Central America, mixing survival thrills with environmental threats. The Devil's Breath won a French award for young readers and was longlisted for the Carnegie Medal, while his standalone children's novel Monkey and Me, about a boy with leukemia who befriends a runaway chimpanzee, was also recognised by the same prize.
For adult readers, Gilman is best known for the medieval Master of War series, which follows longbowman turned commander Thomas Blackstone through the chaos of the Hundred Years War. He has also written standalones such as The Last Horseman, set during the Anglo Boer War, and the World War Two spy novel Night Flight to Paris, as well as a run of modern espionage thrillers beginning with The Englishman, starring former French Foreign Legion soldier Dan Raglan. The Last Horseman was shortlisted for the Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prize, and The Englishman was later longlisted for the same award.
These days Gilman writes full time in Devon, drawing on years of travel and service to give his fiction a lived in feel. Whether he is following a scared schoolboy into the Namibian desert or a weary archer onto a fourteenth century battlefield, his stories return again and again to courage, loyalty and the costs of violence.
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