Homeland Books in Order

Andrew Kaplan's Homeland books are official prequel novels set before the television series opens. They focus on Carrie Mathison and Saul Berenson when their working relationship is already close but still under strain, and they use espionage story lines to show how Carrie's instincts, secrecy, and recklessness were already shaping her career.

These books begin before viewers ever meet her in Baghdad.

In Carrie's Run, the setting is Beirut in 2006, with Langley never far away in the background. Carrie is already a talented CIA operations officer, sharp at reading people and patterns, and just as sharp at making enemies inside her own chain of command. After a clandestine meeting goes bad, she becomes convinced that security has been compromised and that a larger terrorist plot is moving into place. Her pursuit of that suspicion pulls her toward Abu Nazir and shows how her greatest strengths, obsession, nerve, and intuition, can also wreck her peace of mind. The book also leans into something central to the character: Carrie is managing bipolar disorder in secret while trying to stay effective in a job that leaves little room for vulnerability.

Saul's Game picks up later, in 2009, and widens the frame. Carrie is now leading a mission in Damascus aimed at Abu Nazir, but when the target slips away she becomes convinced there is a leak inside the CIA. Saul Berenson responds the way Saul usually does, by thinking several moves ahead and setting a careful trap. That gives the series one of its best ongoing tensions: Carrie wants to charge at the truth, while Saul is willing to wait, maneuver, and use misdirection if that is what the situation demands. The second book also opens the door wider on other key figures from the larger Homeland world, including Brody and Dar Adal, without losing focus on the bond between mentor and protégé.

Unlike gadget-heavy thrillers, these books are more about tradecraft, nerves, and personal cost. Carrie is brilliant and intense, but also isolated. Saul is mentor, handler, and sometimes the only person who can slow her down. The Middle East settings matter because the series keeps one foot in field operations and the other in Washington politics, where reputation, secrecy, and bureaucratic self-protection can be just as dangerous as the enemy.

Trust is always the most unstable asset in the room.

Read in order, Carrie's Run then Saul's Game, if you want the clearest build into season one. Together they work as character pieces and spy novels at the same time, giving fans more time with Carrie and Saul while also standing up as tense stories of false starts, leaks, and long games.