J Jackson Bentley Books in Order
This page lists J Jackson Bentley books in order, with short summaries, series guides, and quick help on where to start with his thrillers and mysteries.
Last updated: July 10, 2026
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Publication Order
26 books
48 Hours
by J Jackson Bentley
2010
Josh Hammond receives a brutal message, pay £250,000 in forty-eight hours or die. As attacks close in and bodyguard Dee Conrad tries to keep him alive, he has to learn who is hunting him and why.
Final Whistle
by J Jackson Bentley
2010
England captain Alex Carter sees his mentor murdered and gets pulled into the ugly world of live betting corruption. Injured, grieving, and under pressure, he has to fight for his career, his family, and the game he loves.
Chameleon
by J Jackson Bentley
2011
Vastrick Security has seventy-two hours to keep an African stateswoman alive long enough to deliver a world-shaking speech. With assassins, rogue security, and international intrigue closing in, every hour matters.
Fogarty
by J Jackson Bentley
2012
After seeing a familiar face in footage of the London riots, former rugby captain Ben Fogarty heads from New Zealand to London for revenge. What he finds is a violent city, gang trouble, and a family secret that changes everything.
Shadow of the Burj
by J Jackson Bentley
2012
Journalist Max Richmond lands in Dubai expecting a holiday and gets drafted into a covert task force instead. With infiltrated security and terror funding in play, the team must stop a plot to cripple the city.
Lure of the Falcon
by J Jackson Bentley
2014
Recovering from a shooting, ex-DCI Mick Rutter takes a security job at Dubai's World Cup racing event. Then a death, a kidnapping, and a stolen artefact turn the assignment into a race to stop a terror plot.
Ring Ring
by J Jackson Bentley
2015
A man is killed on Park Lane, and what looks like a hit and run quickly turns into a political minefield. DCI Rosalie Barry and Dee Conrad uncover stolen identities, kidnapping, and a conspiracy that reaches into government.
Remnants of Deceit
by J Jackson Bentley
2019
A fire at Windsor Castle is no accident, it is cover for a huge art robbery. As the country faces political chaos and fresh terror fears, the fallout reaches far beyond the flames.
American Shorts
by J Jackson Bentley
2021
This anthology gathers short fiction set in the United States, or built around American lead characters, from several writers including Bentley. The mix ranges from thrillers and detective stories to western and teen detective tales.
Follow The Leader
by J Jackson Bentley
2021
When a prominent visitor lands in London with symptoms that suggest a deadly toxin, panic reaches the top of government. Max Richmond and Gillian Miles chase the people behind the attack before the city pays the price.
Don't Go Alone!
by J Jackson Bentley
2022
Rick and Nikki accept a special Halloween preview and walk straight into trouble. Cut off from safety and pushed into a new deadly challenge, they have to outthink another killer to get home.
Murder at the Raven's Claw
by J Jackson Bentley
2022
Invited to a vlogger awards weekend near Orlando, Rick and Nikki expect chaos, not murder. Trapped in an old hotel by a tropical storm, the guests must find the killer before morning.
The Hoogflpaff Enigma
by J Jackson Bentley
2022
An apparently impossible robbery at Universal Studios leaves police stuck and Rick and Nikki on the case. With a stolen artefact, odd suspects, and time running out, the mystery gets weirder by the minute.
The Hufflepuff Heist
by J Jackson Bentley
2022
Rick and Nikki get pulled into another fast-moving Orlando mystery when a theft turns fan fun into real danger. It keeps the RixFlix mix of jokes, pop culture energy, and sudden suspense moving at a sprint.
The Platinum Stiletto
by J Jackson Bentley
2022
Dee Hammond is meant to escort a troublesome prince home safely, not find a body waiting for him. When the trail points toward a plot against the royal family, protection duty turns into a national emergency.
Zero Days Without Incident
by J Jackson Bentley
2022
Rick and Nikki are theme park vloggers until a move into true crime puts them in a serial killer's sights. In Orlando, the people doing the chasing suddenly become the hunted.
Root & Branch
by J Jackson Bentley
2023
The brand new Wessex Constabulary gets its first murder almost as soon as it opens its doors. DS Root, DS Branch, and DCI Briar need answers fast, before public confidence and the case both collapse.
The Confessor
by J Jackson Bentley
2023
When an aristocrat's sister is killed, the local police come under brutal pressure to deliver a quick arrest. Detectives Root and Branch must solve the murder before the force itself starts to come apart.
The Coronation Conundrum
by J Jackson Bentley
2023
The King's regnal ring disappears less than a month before the coronation, and panic stays behind palace doors. A keeper of royal possessions, his friend Roderick, and the historian Reggie race to recover it in time.
The Folly of Youth
by J Jackson Bentley
2023
A teenage girl's death and a murdered seventeen-year-old boy leave investigators wondering if two tragedies are linked. With political pressure building, DS Root and her team have little time to be wrong.
When the Hammer Falls
by J Jackson Bentley
2023
Dee Hammond is told to leave crime boss Lucas Kovacic to the authorities. But when he targets her friends and family, the fight turns personal, and the battleground stretches from security work to the fine art world.
Dogged
by J Jackson Bentley
2024
A man is killed with a bow and arrow, and the new Wessex serious crimes team struggles to find a clean lead. DCI Briar, Root, and Branch face a messy case with public pressure rising around them.
In The Morning Light
by J Jackson Bentley
2024
A dog walker discovers the body of a young woman on a Lowestoft beach, with no clear suspect and few clues. Former DCI Aiden Foley, now a super recogniser, helps push the case forward.
The Girl Who Woke Up Speaking Mandarin
by J Jackson Bentley
2024
After a car crash, Grace Fox wakes speaking fluent Mandarin and barely understands English. When she overhears a murder-related conversation in her new language, she becomes a danger to the people behind a political plot.
The Quirkiest Detective
by J Jackson Bentley
2025
A ninety-six-year-old man's peaceful death looks natural until questions about his missing fortune start to grow. An elderly resident, the victim's granddaughter, and a very unusual detective begin digging.
The RV Detective
by J Jackson Bentley
2025
Retired policeman and true crime vlogger Bartholomew Gaines survives a London terror attack and gets drawn into the hunt for the people behind it. Working from his retrofitted RV, he follows the case into far murkier territory.
Where should I start?
For the core London thrillers: 48 Hours → Chameleon → Fogarty → Ring Ring
If football thrillers are your thing: Final Whistle
For international conspiracy: Shadow of the Burj → Lure of the Falcon
For short coastal mysteries: In The Morning Light → The Quirkiest Detective
If you want lighter Florida-set suspense: Zero Days Without Incident → The Hoogflpaff Enigma → Don't Go Alone!
Author bio
J Jackson Bentley came to fiction after a long working life in law, consulting, and international business. He is a British thriller writer, but the route to novels was not especially neat or direct. Before most readers met him through crime and suspense, he had already spent years writing, researching, and working in fields where detail matters and loose ends can cost you.
That background shows.
Bentley's publishing career reaches back to the 1990s and 2000s, when he was first published by Macmillan and Wiley. He also worked as a legal consultant across the UK, the US, the Middle East, and the Far East. Fiction seems to have grown naturally out of that world. His books care about process, authority, logistics, and the weak spots inside respectable institutions.
His move into thriller fiction became especially visible in 2010 with Final Whistle, a football thriller about elite sport, grief, and betting corruption. From there he built out the City of London novels, starting with 48 Hours, where a blackmail threat throws Josh Hammond into a deadly race against time. Chameleon pushed further into close protection and political danger, and Shadow of the Burj opened the door to Dubai, one of the settings that keeps returning in his work.
He likes pressure-cooker premises.
A woman wakes from a coma speaking Mandarin and overhears something she should not. A journalist arrives in Dubai for a holiday and ends up trying to stop a plot against the city. A bodyguard is asked to protect public figures, royal clients, or people who have already wandered into trouble. Even when the scale is large, Bentley usually keeps the action tied to jobs, timetables, police work, travel plans, or security detail. The machinery matters as much as the villain.
One thing he does particularly well is build series around people who understand risk. Dee Hammond, first seen as Dee Conrad in the City of London books, becomes one of the recurring figures across several stories. Alex Carter, Max Richmond, Gillian Miles, Aiden Foley, Root and Branch, and Bartholomew Gaines all come from different corners of the catalogue, but they share the same problem. Something is always closing in, politically, personally, or physically.
Over time his fiction has spread in a few directions. There are the harder-edged London and Dubai thrillers, the shorter police stories in the Wessex books, the more playful Orlando-set RixFlix tales, and recent coastal mysteries such as In The Morning Light. Readers who click with him usually seem to like the same things, quick starts, clear stakes, busy plots, and characters who have to keep functioning while the pressure keeps rising.
He writes about systems as much as people.
Bentley is a member of International Thriller Writers. Public author profiles also describe him as married, with four grown children, and as someone who has lived and worked in the UK, the US, and the UAE. Recent profiles place him in Florida, while his fiction keeps circling back to London, Dubai, Washington, and other places where power, money, security, and private lives tend to collide.
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