Gary McAvoy Books in Order
Explore Gary McAvoy books in order, with series guides, short summaries, reading order help, and clear advice on where to start with each series.
Last updated: June 8, 2026
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Publication Order
20 books
Harvest for Hope
by Gary McAvoy
2005
Coauthored with Jane Goodall and Gail Hudson, this guide looks at how food choices affect animals, people, and the planet. It turns big environmental questions into practical everyday decisions about eating more mindfully.
And Every Word Is True
by Gary McAvoy
2019
Drawing on Harold Nye's journals and case files, this true crime book reexamines the 1959 Clutter family murders. Gary McAvoy argues that the story behind *In Cold Blood* may be more complicated than readers were told.
The Magdalene Deception
by Gary McAvoy
2020
In the Vatican Secret Archives, Father Michael Dominic discovers a papyrus attributed to Mary Magdalene that could shake Christian belief. He and reporter Hana Sinclair become targets as they chase the truth through Church secrets and wartime shadows.
The Magdalene Reliquary
by Gary McAvoy
2020
Father Michael Dominic and Hana Sinclair decode a medieval puzzle that leads to a sacred reliquary hidden in southern France. Ruthless collectors, old enemies, and black market interests turn the hunt into a race for survival.
The Magdalene Veil
by Gary McAvoy
2021
An old Nazi diary points Father Michael Dominic and Hana Sinclair toward the legendary Veil of Veronica. Their search crosses Jerusalem, Rome, France, and Buenos Aires as rival hunters close in on a relic with enormous symbolic power.
The Vivaldi Cipher
by Gary McAvoy
2021
A message hidden in Vivaldi's music leads Father Michael Dominic to Venice and a centuries-old art forgery ring tied to the Vatican. With Hana Sinclair and a music cryptologist beside him, he races the Camorra to crack the code first.
The Avignon Affair
by Gary McAvoy
2022
After a body and hidden parchments are found beneath Notre-Dame, Father Michael Dominic is drawn into a French political crisis and a hunt for secrets buried since the Avignon papacy. The case quickly becomes bigger than archaeology or Church history alone.
The Opus Dictum
by Gary McAvoy
2022
A lost briefcase tied to banker Roberto Calvi surfaces in the Vatican Archives, pulling Father Michael Dominic into a fight over blackmail files, secret societies, and a looming papal conclave. The deeper he digs, the more dangerous the conspiracy becomes.
The Petrus Prophecy
by Gary McAvoy
2022
After a Jesuit scholar dies, Father Michael Dominic helps investigate a missing manuscript about prophecy and the Third Secret of Fatima. As dire predictions seem to come true, the case widens into a race across Europe and the Middle East.
The Confessions of Pope Joan
by Gary McAvoy
2023
A cryptic diary and a lost gospel send Father Michael Dominic and Hana Sinclair into a murder case in England and a battle over the legend of Pope Joan. Their search forces buried Church history into the open.
The Galileo Gambit
by Gary McAvoy
2023
Father Michael Dominic escorts Galileo's original trial papers to Chicago for a modern mock trial, then priceless exhibits disappear. What starts as a scholarly event becomes a theft case tangled with Vatican politics and rival agendas.
The Jerusalem Scrolls
by Gary McAvoy
2023
Two boys find ancient scrolls near Qumran, including one that could upend Christian history. Father Michael Dominic races from Jerusalem to Cairo to keep the discovery away from sects, brokers, and opportunists who want it for themselves.
The Apostle Conspiracy
by Gary McAvoy
2024
Clues hidden around Saint Peter's bones lead Father Michael Dominic and archaeologist Marcus Russo toward a forgotten figure in early Church history. Their search draws the attention of a man who sees holy relics as a route to power.
The Celestial Guardian
by Gary McAvoy
2024
Father Michael Dominic uncovers a machine designed by Leonardo da Vinci that seems able to predict a catastrophic asteroid strike. Soon he is caught between scientific urgency, Vatican power struggles, and the fear that the device can do far more than predict.
Covenant of the Iron Cross
by Gary McAvoy
2025
Vatican archaeologist Marcus Russo finds more than treasure when he uncovers the Nazi Gold Train and a codex tied to Operation Eisenkreuz. The discovery opens a chase through Europe against a postwar extremist network.
The Devil's Symphony
by Gary McAvoy
2025
Marcus Russo, Father Michael Dominic, and Hana Sinclair investigate a sinister music box linked to an alchemical composer and a lost melody. As strange phenomena spread, the hunt becomes a race to stop a ritual disguised as music.
The Hildegard Seeds
by Gary McAvoy
2025
When Hana Sinclair finds traces of a lost manuscript by Hildegard of Bingen, she and Father Michael Dominic uncover a biotech plot built on suppressing cures. The chase turns personal as history, medicine, and profit collide.
The Medici Heresy
by Gary McAvoy
2025
A sealed Renaissance letter sends Father Michael Dominic and Hana Sinclair into a Medici-era secret the Vatican once tried to erase. Their hunt uncovers forbidden manuscripts and dangerous questions about who gets remembered, and who gets silenced.
The Voynich Codex
by Gary McAvoy
2025
New fragments connected to the Voynich Manuscript pull Father Michael Dominic and Hana Sinclair into another European chase. What looks like a literary puzzle becomes a deadly fight over knowledge someone has spent centuries trying to bury.
The Pompeian Betrayal
by Gary McAvoy
2026
An impossible chamber in Pompeii suggests the roots of Rosicrucianism are not what history claims. Marcus Russo follows the trail from buried ruins to the Vatican and beyond, pursued by a group determined to protect the lie.
Where should I start?
If you want the full story from the beginning: The Magdalene Deception → The Magdalene Reliquary → The Magdalene Veil
If you want the core Vatican conspiracy run: The Vivaldi Cipher → The Opus Dictum → The Petrus Prophecy → The Avignon Affair
If you want archaeology and buried secrets: Covenant of the Iron Cross → The Devil's Symphony → The Pompeian Betrayal
If you want McAvoy's nonfiction side: And Every Word Is True → Harvest for Hope
Author bio
Gary McAvoy is a native Californian who grew up in a large Catholic family, and that background still shows up in the questions his fiction keeps asking. He has long been drawn to Church history, old documents, and the uneasy space where faith, power, and secrecy meet.
Writing came early. He has said he knew by age ten that he wanted to be an author, even if the job itself would arrive much later.
In his twenties, he wrote columns for a small-town weekly paper and articles for regional Southern California magazines. Those early assignments trained him to tell a story clearly and keep the reader moving. A U.S. Army tour in Germany added two other lifelong interests, cryptology and European history, both of which later found their way into his books.
After military service, McAvoy built a series of businesses in Southern California and then moved to the Pacific Northwest in the 1990s as the region's software industry was taking off. He worked with startups, served in leadership roles with the Washington Software Alliance, and edited Cracking the New E-conomy, a practical guide for entrepreneurs. In 1997 he also founded a memorabilia business centered on signed letters, manuscripts, rare books, and other pieces of handwritten history.
That fascination with primary sources led to one of his most interesting nonfiction books, And Every Word Is True. Built from the journals and files of Harold Nye, the book revisits the 1959 Clutter family murders and asks readers to look again at the case made famous by In Cold Blood. It grew out of archival material that came his way through a historical consignment, which feels fitting for a writer who so often begins with a lost file or a hidden paper trail.
The Vatican never really left him.
McAvoy spent a short time in a Jesuit seminary when he was young, but later chose life as what he has called an agnostic writer. That did not cool his interest in belief. If anything, it sharpened it. His breakthrough into fiction came with The Magdalene Deception in 2020, followed by The Magdalene Reliquary and The Magdalene Veil, books that introduced Father Michael Dominic and Hana Sinclair and opened the larger Vatican thriller universe.
From there he kept widening the map. The Vivaldi Cipher brings art forgery and encoded music into the mix. The Jerusalem Scrolls turns a desert discovery into a fight over faith and history. The Galileo Gambit and Covenant of the Iron Cross show another side of his appeal, historical research put under pressure by pace, travel, and modern conspiracies. Readers who like him usually like that combination of scholarship, motion, and big institutional secrets.
There is a gentler strand in his work too. From 1999 to 2005 he worked closely with Jane Goodall, helping support fundraising for the Jane Goodall Institute, and that collaboration led to Harvest for Hope, a practical book about food, ethics, and everyday choices. It is a useful reminder that McAvoy's interests go well beyond Vatican intrigue. He tends to be drawn to systems, motives, and the human stories hidden inside large institutions, whether the subject is the Church, a murder case, or the modern food chain.
He now lives in the Pacific Northwest and continues to write from there. The setting may have changed from California, but the pattern is familiar: follow the document, ask the awkward question, and keep going until the story gives up its secret.
Edited by
Software engineer whose passion for tracking book recommendations from podcasts inspired the creation of MRB.
Lead investor at 3one4 Capital whose startup expertise and love for books helped shaped MRB and its growth.






































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