John Holliday (Christopher Hyde) Books in Order

These are the John Holliday adventures associated with Christopher Hyde, though the books were published under his Paul Christopher byline. The setup is a good one. Holliday is a retired Army Ranger lieutenant colonel, a military man with deep historical knowledge, and that combination lets the series move easily between scholarship and action.

The first novel, The Sword of the Templars, sets the pattern. Holliday inherits a medieval sword wrapped in Hitler's battle standard, and what looks like an odd family mystery quickly turns into something much larger. The series keeps returning to the same big question: what if Templar history did not end in the fourteenth century, but kept echoing through war, religion, intelligence work, and organized power right into the present day?

That premise gives the books a lot of room to roam. One story may lean into Vatican secrecy, another into Egyptian legend, another into African archaeology, Cold War shadows, Cuban politics, or Amazonian exploration. Hyde likes to keep the geography wide and the stakes personal. Holliday may be chasing artifacts, scrolls, and coded histories, but the pressure is usually immediate. People are kidnapped, murdered, hunted, or betrayed, and Holliday has to solve the historical side of the puzzle while staying alive.

History never stays in the background here.

Supporting characters help give the series shape as it goes on. Rafi Wanounou, Eddie, and Peter Lazarus all bring different skills and points of view, but Holliday remains the steady core. He is not a flamboyant hero. He is practical, stubborn, highly trained, and willing to follow a mystery further than most sensible people would. That makes him a good guide through stories that can get large and strange without losing their footing.

If you are wondering what kind of reading experience to expect, think high-stakes adventure with a strong military edge. These novels like relics and conspiracies, but they also like chase scenes, hidden enemies, and the feeling that modern institutions are still haunted by very old secrets. The best way in is straight through publication order, beginning with The Sword of the Templars. That lets the ongoing conflict build the way Hyde intended.

So even if this page files the books under Christopher Hyde, the appeal is the same. John Holliday is there for readers who want lost histories, dangerous journeys, and a hero who can handle both a manuscript and a gun.