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Michael Ledwidge Books in Order

This page gathers every Michael Ledwidge book in order, with series reading guides, short plot summaries, background on his work with James Patterson, and simple suggestions on where to start.

Last updated: January 17, 2026

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25 books

Closing Time

by Michael Ledwidge

2025

In Key West, Michael Gannon is focused on supporting his son’s minor league baseball dreams when a late night drink with a charming Australian goes wrong. After a convenience store shooting leaves Gannon framed, he chases the real culprit into a conspiracy involving a runaway banker and a dangerous piece of quantum tech.

No Safe Place

by Michael Ledwidge

2024

Trying to heal off the grid in rural New England, Mike Gannon just wants to fish a quiet trout stream. An encounter with an old girlfriend investigating a suspicious campus death pulls him into a scandal, a whistleblower’s desperate gambit and a blackout that ruthless killers plan to exploit.

The Girl in the Vault

by Michael Ledwidge

2023

Wall Street intern Faye Walker believes she is on the verge of a dream job and a new romance until a brutal betrayal shows the game is rigged. Refusing to go back to her small town life, she plans a flawless fake kidnapping to steal ten million in cash from her own firm.

Hard to Break

by Michael Ledwidge

2023

Mike Gannon finally takes a dream trip to Alaska to track grizzly bears, only to discover a second group of hunters on the mountain with a secret agenda. Kidnapped onto a corporate jet, he must outthink professionals who underestimate how hard he is to break.

Beach Wedding / Beach Murders

by Michael Ledwidge

2022

Philadelphia cop Terry Rourke returns to the Hamptons for his brother’s lavish beach wedding and finds old wounds ripped open. As memories of a notorious murder trial resurface, Terry’s search for the truth turns the celebration into a dangerous, very public reckoning.

Run for Cover

by Michael Ledwidge

2021

On the run after foiling a powerful cabal, former Navy SEAL Michael Gannon hides on a friend’s ranch in Utah. When a national park ranger is gunned down in Wyoming, Gannon joins the hunt for a sniper whose trail leads into a larger conspiracy.

Stop at Nothing

by Michael Ledwidge

2020

Diving instructor Michael Gannon witnesses a private jet crash into Bahamian waters and finds the wreck stuffed with cash, diamonds and bodies. Keeping the fortune looks like a victimless crime, until ruthless operators and government fixers arrive to erase every loose end.

Bullseye

by Michael Ledwidge

2016

During a winter summit at the United Nations, tensions between the United States and Russia are already high when a stylish husband and wife assassin team stalks Manhattan. Michael Bennett must track them before a carefully planned sniper attack ignites an international disaster.

Alert

by Michael Ledwidge

2015

New York City reels after a pair of bizarre, high tech attacks strike without warning. As fear spreads and a political assassination rocks the city, Michael Bennett and FBI agent Emily Parker race to expose the shadowy terrorists before their ultimate strike.

Burn

by Michael Ledwidge

2014

Back from witness protection, Michael Bennett takes command of a chaotic outreach squad in Harlem and shrugs off a tip about a strange party in a condemned building. When a burned corpse turns up there, the lead drags him into a depraved underground club.

Gone

by Michael Ledwidge

2013

Cartel boss Manuel Perrine has escaped justice and declared war on the United States, starting with the detective who put him away. While Michael Bennett and his family hide on a guarded California farm, Perrine’s nationwide assassination campaign forces Bennett back into the fight.

Zoo: The Graphic Novel

by Michael Ledwidge

2012

This graphic novel adaptation of Zoo turns Jackson Oz’s battle to understand a wave of intelligent animal attacks into a tense, cinematic comic. Panels follow his investigations from Africa to city streets, highlighting the global chaos and science gone wrong in vivid detail.

Zoo

by Michael Ledwidge

2012

All over the world, animals begin attacking humans with eerie coordination, from lion prides in Africa to packs of dogs in American suburbs. Biologist Jackson Oz, long dismissed as a crank, races with ecologist Chloe Tousignant to uncover the cause before civilization collapses.

I, Michael Bennett

by Michael Ledwidge

2012

Michael Bennett helps capture Manuel Perrine, the ruthless head of a violent drug cartel, in a bloody operation that costs him a close friend. From his cell, Perrine orders attacks on cops, judges and Bennett’s own family, turning New York into a war zone.

Now You See Her

by Michael Ledwidge

2011

New York lawyer Nina Bloom has built a perfect life for herself and her teenage daughter, hiding the identity she abandoned in Key West years earlier. When an innocent man faces execution for crimes tied to her past, she must return to Florida and confront a murderous ex husband.

Tick Tock

by Michael Ledwidge

2010

A sadistic killer terrorizes New York by staging crimes that echo some of the city’s most infamous murders. Pulled off a rare beach vacation with his family, Michael Bennett teams with FBI agent Emily Parker to decipher the pattern before the killer’s masterpiece unfolds.

Daniel X: The Manga, Vol. 1

by Michael Ledwidge

2010

This manga volume retells Daniel X’s origin as Earth’s new Alien Hunter, from the night his parents are killed to his first major case against the sadistic outlaw Ergent Seth. Dynamic art turns his reality bending powers and battles into fast, visual action.

Worst Case

by Michael Ledwidge

2009

Manhattan trusts and estates lawyer Francis Mooney is dying and furious at the selfish young heirs he has spent his career enriching. He begins kidnapping the teenagers of the ultra rich and grilling them about poverty and injustice, while Michael Bennett and FBI agent Emily Parker scramble to stop his fatal exams.

Run for Your Life

by Michael Ledwidge

2009

A serial killer calling himself the Teacher prowls Manhattan, executing rude and privileged New Yorkers to send a twisted message about manners. With his ten children down with the flu and the city in panic, Michael Bennett races to decode the killer’s lesson plan.

The Quickie

by Michael Ledwidge

2007

NYPD officer Lauren Stillwell sees her husband leaving a hotel with another woman and decides to have a one night revenge affair. When she witnesses a shocking crime tied to her fling, Lauren is trapped between loyalty, career and a deadly secret that could destroy her life.

The Dangerous Days of Daniel X

by Michael Ledwidge

2007

A fifteen year old alien living on Earth, Daniel X hunts the intergalactic outlaws who murdered his parents using a mysterious List and the power to create anything he imagines. His first big target, Ergent Seth, pushes his abilities and courage to the limit.

Step on a Crack

by Michael Ledwidge

2007

During the funeral of a beloved former First Lady at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, heavily armed men seize the church and its famous mourners, demanding enormous ransoms. As lead negotiator, Michael Bennett faces a deadly standoff in the city while his wife is dying in a hospital bed.

Before the Devil Knows You're Dead

by Michael Ledwidge

2002

Straight arrow NYPD officer John Coglin is awaiting a verdict on a controversial shooting when his ex IRA uncle proposes one last score. Drawn into a diamond heist that spirals out of control, Coglin finds himself hunted by federal agents, terrorists and political fixers alike.

Bad Connection

by Michael Ledwidge

2001

Manhattan telephone repairman Sean Macklin accidentally overhears a call about a huge corporate merger and uses the tip for insider trading, hoping to rescue his sick wife from poverty. The more he taps the lines, the deeper he and his cop brother sink into a deadly web of corruption and cover ups.

The Narrowback

by Michael Ledwidge

1999

Tom Farrell, an ex con from a tight knit Bronx Irish community, masterminds a robbery at a luxury Manhattan hotel, dreaming of finally escaping his past. When an accomplice with IRA ties ends up dead, Farrell is suddenly hunted by terrorists, mobsters, the FBI and his own bad decisions.

Where should I start?

If you want to follow the Michael Bennett cases: Step on a CrackRun for Your LifeWorst CaseTick TockI, Michael Bennett
If you prefer off the grid action thrillers: Stop at NothingRun for CoverHard to BreakNo Safe PlaceClosing Time
If you like tense standalone suspense: The QuickieNow You See HerBeach WeddingThe Girl in the Vault
If you want near future sci fi disasters: ZooZoo: The Graphic Novel
If you’re reading with teens: The Dangerous Days of Daniel XDaniel X: The Manga, Vol. 1

Author bio

Michael Ledwidge grew up in a Bronx neighborhood where Irish accents were as common as subway rumbles. His parents had emigrated from Ireland, and the family life that surrounded him was loud, funny, and full of stories.

Books were everywhere, and before long he was sneaking crime novels between school assignments and wondering if he could write one of his own.

After attending local Catholic schools, he went on to Manhattan College, where he studied literature and kept reading anything that looked gritty or propulsive. To pay the bills afterward he worked as a Park Avenue doorman, watching the private dramas of New York’s wealthy families play out in the lobby.

Later he took a job as a Manhattan telephone technician, climbing manholes and rooftops instead of holding elevator doors. He kept writing on the side, sometimes scribbling pages between service calls, and drew heavily on his blue collar New York for his first novel, The Narrowback.

Sold when he was twenty six, The Narrowback introduced readers to a crew of hard luck Bronx Irish thieves and announced a new crime voice rooted in the boroughs rather than in boardrooms. He followed it with Bad Connection, about a telephone repairman who overhears the wrong call, and Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead, a diamond heist book that pushes a straight arrow cop into very dark territory.

A turning point came when fellow Manhattan College alumnus James Patterson read his work and invited him to collaborate. Together they created the Michael Bennett series, beginning with Step on a Crack and moving through books like Run for Your Life, Worst Case, Tick Tock, I, Michael Bennett, Gone, Burn, Alert, and Bullseye, in which an Irish American NYPD detective juggles terrifying citywide cases with raising ten adopted kids.

The partnership also produced standalones and genre swings, from the animal attack thriller Zoo and the teen science fiction adventure The Dangerous Days of Daniel X to high tension domestic suspense novels such as The Quickie and Now You See Her. The Michael Bennett books have sold many millions of copies and became the best selling New York City detective series, while Zoo was adapted into a three season network television drama.

Alongside the collaborations, Ledwidge has steadily built a solo catalog of fast moving thrillers. His Michael Gannon novels, starting with Stop at Nothing and continuing through Run for Cover, Hard to Break, No Safe Place, and Closing Time, follow a former Navy SEAL and ex cop who keeps trying to live quietly and keeps getting pulled into dangerous conspiracies. Standalone books like Beach Wedding and The Girl in the Vault mix crime, money, and family trouble in settings that range from the Hamptons to Wall Street.

What ties his work together is a love of pace and a soft spot for working people who find themselves in way over their heads.

He has talked often about how his years as a doorman and telephone technician, including his time helping with the recovery effort at Ground Zero after the September 11 attacks, shaped the way he writes about New York and its people. Now based in Connecticut with his wife and three children, he still commutes back in his imagination, building stories where ordinary days tilt suddenly into crisis and the question is not whether a hero will appear, but what that hero is willing to risk.

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Richard Reis

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Anurag Ramdasan

Lead investor at 3one4 Capital whose startup expertise and love for books helped shaped MRB and its growth.

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All 25 Michael Ledwidge Books in Order (Complete List 2026)