Glenn Cooper Books in Order
Browse all Glenn Cooper books in order, including Cal Donovan, Down, and Will Piper novels, with summaries, series background, and suggestions on where to start.
Last updated: June 7, 2026
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Publication Order
22 books
Secret of the Seventh Son / Library of the Dead
by Glenn Cooper
2009
In New York City, victims of the “Doomsday Killer” receive postcards predicting the exact date of their deaths before they’re murdered. Burned-out FBI profiler Will Piper’s hunt for the killer uncovers an eighth-century monastery, a buried library of death dates, and a government secret hidden in the Nevada desert.
Book of Souls
by Glenn Cooper
2010
A single lost volume from the Library that records every person’s death date resurfaces at a London auction, drawing retired FBI agent Will Piper back into danger. Chasing the *Book of Souls* leads him through centuries of secret history, from medieval scribes to Nostradamus and Shakespeare—and back to the Library’s ruthless guardians.
The Tenth Chamber
by Glenn Cooper
2010
After a fire in a secluded French abbey reveals a damaged medieval manuscript, scholar Hugo Pineau and archaeologist Luc Simard follow its map to a vast prehistoric cave complex. Their discovery of a mysterious “tenth chamber” sparks accidents and murders that suggest someone will kill to keep its secret buried.
The Devil Will Come
by Glenn Cooper
2011
As a young archaeologist in the Roman catacombs, Elisabetta Celestino discovers skeletons with tails and cryptic astrological symbols, only to see her dig abruptly shut down. A decade later, now a nun, she’s dragged back into a brutal conspiracy that links an ancient prophecy, shadowy “devils,” and the fate of the modern Vatican.
Near Death
by Glenn Cooper
2012
FBI agent Cyrus O’Malley hunts a strangler who drills a pinhole in each victim’s skull, unaware the case is tied to Alex Weller, a scientist obsessed with reliving his own near-death vision. As a radical brain experiment spreads worldwide, their collision could change humanity’s relationship with death.
The Keepers of the Library
by Glenn Cooper
2012
Years after exposing the secret Library that predicts every person’s death date, retired FBI agent Will Piper is hiding in Florida as the world counts down toward a prophesied end date. When a new killer emerges and his son vanishes, Will must confront the Library’s last, terrifying secrets.
The Resurrection Maker
by Glenn Cooper
2013
Modern-day grail hunter Arthur Malory sees his closest friends murdered after a breakthrough discovery tied to his ancestor, Sir Thomas Malory. Following cryptic clues across Jerusalem, Cornwall, Spain, and a French physics lab, he chases a relic that could rewrite faith and science.
Pinhole
by Glenn Cooper
2014
When a record-breaking run at a giant London particle collider goes wrong, physicist Emily Loughty vanishes and a brutal stranger appears in her place. Security chief John Camp volunteers to follow her through a tiny “pinhole” into a hellish mirror world called Down.
Floodgate
by Glenn Cooper
2015
The connection between Earth and Down has blown wide open, unleashing murderous armies from the afterlife into the streets of London. As martial law takes hold, John Camp and Emily Loughty lead a final, desperate mission below to sever the expanding floodgate.
Portal
by Glenn Cooper
2015
After a particle-collider experiment near London turns a pinpoint rift into a gaping portal, dozens of innocent people are swept into the deadly realm known as Down. Security chief John Camp and physicist Emily Loughty must return to rescue them—and seal the breach.
Sign of the Cross
by Glenn Cooper
2018
When a young Italian priest develops bleeding wounds like Christ’s, the pope asks Harvard professor Cal Donovan to investigate. As Cal probes the mystery of the stigmata, a neo-Nazi cult hunts a legendary holy relic and prepares a catastrophic attack.
Three Marys
by Glenn Cooper
2018
Three teenage girls on different continents are inexplicably pregnant, all named Mary and all confirmed virgins. Summoned by Pope Celestine, Cal Donovan races to meet them, only to face disappearances, media frenzy, and a mystery that could shake Catholicism itself.
The Debt
by Glenn Cooper
2019
While researching in the Vatican archives, Harvard scholar Cal Donovan uncovers evidence of a massive unpaid loan Pope Pius VIII took from a Jewish banking dynasty. As interest compounds into billions, church insiders will do anything to erase the debt—and Cal.
The Showstone
by Glenn Cooper
2019
Decades after Cal Donovan’s archaeologist father is murdered in Iraq, his mother dies in a staged break-in and a strange obsidian stone surfaces among her things. Cal’s hunt for the so-called showstone draws him into a deadly struggle over its visionary power.
The Cure
by Glenn Cooper
2020
Neurologist and single father Jamie Abbott helps design a breakthrough Alzheimer’s treatment, only to see a lab shortcut unleash a contagious virus that erases memories. As society unravels and his young daughter forgets him, Jamie races cross-country to join the one colleague who may hold the cure.
The Taken Girls
by Glenn Cooper
2021
On holiday in Italy, a family vanishes without a trace, only for their two young daughters to reappear four years later, unchanged. Retired CIA officer Marcus Handler investigates, uncovering a disturbing explanation that ties the impossible case to his own past.
The Fourth Prophecy
by Glenn Cooper
2022
Harvard professor Cal Donovan is summoned by the pope to verify whispers of a lost apocalyptic prophecy. His search from Lisbon to Rome and beyond pits him against ruthless rivals who will kill to unlock—or bury—its catastrophic message.
The Lost Pope
by Glenn Cooper
2023
Cal Donovan is drawn back into Vatican intrigue when his former student Samia uncovers a fragment of the Gospel of Mary Magdalene suggesting she was Peter’s wife and successor. As a new pope elevates Sister Elisabetta to a history-making role, powerful enemies will kill to seize—or silence—the explosive papyrus.
The Cosmos Keys
by Glenn Cooper
2025
In the underground city of Derinkuyu, archaeologist David Birch uncovers an impossibly advanced bronze mechanism etched with Greek inscriptions and a map of the world. With technologist Eleni Lillakis, he chases legends of a “Destiny Machine” while ruthless rivals close in on a device that may shape humanity’s future.
The Last Conclave
by Glenn Cooper
2025
When Pope John XXIV dies and the cardinals enter the Sistine Chapel to elect his successor, the world waits for white smoke that never appears. Covering the conclave for television, Cal Donovan is pulled into a frantic hunt for the vanished electors and a medieval order determined to purge the Church in blood.
The Physician of Nineveh
by Glenn Cooper
2025
In ancient Nineveh, royal physician Mannu-ki-Ashur breaks a taboo ritual to leap through time and save the woman he loves from a mysterious poison. Landing in modern London, he teams up with Assyriologist Kate Mayne to outrun assassins from his past and discover a cure that bridges empires and centuries.
The Silence of Flesh
by Glenn Cooper
2025
Cardinal Anthony Budd is a quiet reformer whose name unexpectedly emerges during a deadlocked papal conclave. As Pope Innocent XIV, he must steer a divided Church while guarding a deeply personal secret—one a shadowy enemy is ready to expose, whatever the spiritual and political cost.
Where should I start?
If you love Vatican and religious conspiracies: Sign of the Cross → The Debt → Three Marys → The Fourth Prophecy → The Lost Pope → The Last Conclave.
For the Library of the Dead thrillers: Secret of the Seventh Son / Library of the Dead → Book of Souls → The Keepers of the Library.
For a darker sci-fi afterlife saga: Pinhole → Portal → Floodgate.
If you prefer stand-alone high-concept suspense: The Tenth Chamber → Near Death → The Devil Will Come → The Resurrection Maker.
To sample his recent speculative thrillers: The Cure → The Taken Girls → The Cosmos Keys → The Physician of Nineveh.
Author bio
Glenn Cooper was born in New York City in 1953 and grew up just north of the city in White Plains. As a kid he split his time between the library and the outdoors, drawn early to stories about lost civilizations, strange relics, and the big “what if?” questions that still run through his novels.
That curiosity took him to Harvard, where he studied archaeology and graduated magna cum laude. Fieldwork and ancient history gave him a taste for digging through layers—literal and metaphorical—to find the story underneath. Instead of stopping there, he took a sharp turn into medicine and enrolled at Tufts University School of Medicine.
After earning his medical degree, he trained in internal medicine and infectious diseases at Boston hospitals, including busy stints on the wards at Beth Israel Deaconess and Massachusetts General. For a time he worked as an emergency physician, including service in a refugee camp in Thailand and at a hospital in Haiti, where medicine was as much improvisation as textbook.
Cooper eventually moved into research and the pharmaceutical world, first working on new antibiotics and then climbing the ranks at several biotech companies. He held senior roles at firms in North Carolina and Massachusetts and spent many years as chairman and chief executive of a drug company focused on urological and endocrine treatments. It was demanding, data‑driven work, but it also kept his science muscles in shape.
All the while, he was quietly teaching himself how to tell stories.
He started with screenplays, joining a Cambridge writers’ group and helping to reshape a thriller script that became the film Long Distance. Instead of finishing a graduate degree in film production, he left the program to produce the movie through his own company, later called Lascaux Media. The film premiered at a major festival and sold into dozens of countries, and Cooper went on to help produce other independent genre movies.
In 2006 he turned seriously to novels. His debut, Secret of the Seventh Son (published internationally as Library of the Dead), introduced FBI agent Will Piper and the eerie idea of a hidden library that records everyone’s date of death. The book and its sequels, Book of Souls and The Keepers of the Library, found readers all over the world and were translated into dozens of languages.
Since then he has written the Cal Donovan religious‑conspiracy thrillers, the darkly imaginative Down Trilogy, and stand‑alone novels such as The Tenth Chamber, The Devil Will Come, Near Death, The Resurrection Maker, The Cure, The Taken Girls, The Cosmos Keys, and The Physician of Nineveh. Across all of them he returns to a few favorite themes: the tension between faith and power, the weight of history on the present, and the thin line between scientific discovery and hubris.
The settings range from medieval monasteries to particle colliders and the modern Vatican, but the human stakes stay front and center.
Cooper’s books have sold millions of copies worldwide, and he remains a member and supporter of International Thriller Writers. He lives in Gilford, New Hampshire, where his background in archaeology, medicine, and film still feeds into the stories he tells—complex puzzles grounded by very human characters trying to make sense of extraordinary events.
Edited by
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