Rob Leininger Books in Order
Explore Rob Leininger books in order, with Mortimer Angel and Gabrielle Johns series lists, short summaries, and clear tips on where to start.
Last updated: July 12, 2026
As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases (at no extra cost to you).
Rob Leininger books in publication order
21 books
Black Sun
by Rob Leininger
1991
Physicist Maurice Tyler tries to warn the world that the sun may be heading toward a catastrophic blink. As temperatures plunge and panic spreads, he and reporter Gail fight to stay alive in a collapsing America.
Killing Suki Flood
by Rob Leininger
1991
Frank Limosin stops in the New Mexico desert to help eighteen-year-old Suki Flood with a flat tire and instantly knows trouble has arrived. He keeps trying to walk away, but Suki's problems keep pulling him deeper.
Middlegame Strategy
by Rob Leininger
1997
Leininger breaks down the Carlsbad pawn structure and shows how it shapes plans in the chess middlegame. It is a focused, practical guide for players who want clearer ideas, not just more opening moves.
The Willow Creek War
by Rob Leininger
2010
Andy Stillman returns to Wyoming with a civil engineering degree and finds his father murdered and the family ranch under attack. Outnumbered by a rival cattle outfit, he has to use brains, nerve, and grit to survive.
Gumshoe
by Rob Leininger
2014
On his first day as a Reno PI-in-training, former IRS agent Mortimer Angel stumbles into the city's biggest case: a missing mayor, a missing district attorney, and a severed head in his ex-wife's Mercedes. Funny, grubby, and dangerous.
January Cold Kill
by Rob Leininger
2014
Gabrielle Johns, a Reno poker player with private-eye training, is asked to help a judge's wife who is being stalked by a man with compromising photos she cannot explain. What starts as quiet damage control turns ugly fast.
Liar-in-Chief
by Rob Leininger
2014
This political satire follows a grandiose, lawless president at the height of his power as ego, spin, and bad judgment pile up around him. The danger comes from what happens when people who should know better keep saying yes.
Olongapo Liberty
by Rob Leininger
2014
In 1969, sailor Charlie Baggs reaches the wild liberty town outside Subic Bay while trying to decide whether to stay in the Navy or get out. The result is part coming-of-age story, part portrait of war-era restlessness.
Richter Ten
by Rob Leininger
2014
Geophysicist Steven Bell thinks a roaring Oregon fumarole is the warning sign of a disaster on a monstrous scale. Greed, government pressure, and a rare-earth bonanza close in as the ground keeps shifting beneath everyone.
Sunspot
by Rob Leininger
2014
A giant sunspot begins dimming the sun, and physicist Dr. Tyler knows the world is in terrible trouble. As cold and panic spread, he is pushed from theory into a fight for survival.
The Tenderfoot
by Rob Leininger
2014
Back from college in 1875, Andy Stillman finds his father murdered and his Wyoming ranch targeted by a ruthless rival. Branded a tenderfoot by the locals, he has to prove that book learning can fight just as hard as guns.
A Confederacy of Snakes
by Rob Leininger
2015
In this satirical political thriller, a self-important president sits at the center of a nest of fear, loyalty, and bad decisions. The story plays out like a dark joke about power, image, and the cost of letting snakes run the room.
Maxwell's Demon
by Rob Leininger
2015
After two impossible deaths, thirteen-year-old genius Josh Anders and a catatonic girl named Angel end up on the run from U.S. agencies and Russian commandos. Josh's strange power could change physics, and maybe start a war.
Nicholas Phree and the Emerald of Bool
by Rob Leininger
2015
Nicholas Phree discovers a narcoleptic genie and a fast, opinionated flying carpet in his attic, then tumbles into a globe-hopping adventure. It's whimsical, silly, and written with one eye on kids and the other on grown-up readers.
No Shortage of Weasels
by Rob Leininger
2015
A sharp political satire about a reckless president, the people protecting him, and the chaos that follows when power outruns judgment. Leininger leans into dark humor, ugly motives, and the machinery of government gone sideways.
Gumshoe for Two
by Rob Leininger
2017
Mort is hired by Sarah Dellario, a college engineering student posing as a hooker, to find her missing sister. The search leads from Reno to Gerlach and into the disappearance of a presidential candidate.
Gumshoe on the Loose
by Rob Leininger
2018
Relaxing in a Reno casino bar, Mort agrees to help a young woman who received a million-dollar demand. He soon finds the body of missing rapper Jo-X and gets dragged into a messy, dangerous case that runs all the way to Las Vegas.
Gumshoe Rock
by Rob Leininger
2019
Mort and his assistant Lucy are working an embezzlement case when the stripped skull of Mort's old IRS boss turns up in Lucy's car. What looks grotesque and random becomes a deeply personal Reno investigation.
Gumshoe Gone
by Rob Leininger
2021
After a beautiful stranger from a casino bar spirits Mort away, he vanishes for days and reappears on a strange new case. The trail sends him across the West and into one surprise after another.
Gumshoe in the Dark
by Rob Leininger
2021
On a stormy Nevada road, Mort stops for a half-dressed young woman and ends up pulled into his deadliest case yet. With Harper Leeman beside him and a killer behind them, every mile gets worse.
Gumshoe Outlaw
by Rob Leininger
2022
When the U.S. attorney general disappears after leaving the Justice Department, Mort is quietly asked to help find her. The case pulls Reno's most reluctant celebrity gumshoe into Washington intrigue and fresh danger.
Where to start with Rob Leininger
For the main PI series: Gumshoe → Gumshoe for Two → Gumshoe on the Loose → Gumshoe Rock
For a sharp Reno mystery with a woman lead: January Cold Kill
For science-driven disaster suspense: Sunspot → Richter Ten → Maxwell's Demon
For western, military, or offbeat standalones: The Tenderfoot → Olongapo Liberty → Nicholas Phree and the Emerald of Bool
Rob Leininger sub-series and character series
Gabrielle Johns books in order
Explore this seriesMortimer Angel books in order
Explore this series
Gumshoe
by Rob Leininger
2014Mortimer Angel, Book 1
Gumshoe for Two
by Rob Leininger
2017Mortimer Angel, Book 2
Gumshoe on the Loose
by Rob Leininger
2018Mortimer Angel, Book 3
Gumshoe Rock
by Rob Leininger
2019Mortimer Angel, Book 4
Gumshoe Gone
by Rob Leininger
2021Mortimer Angel, Book 6
Gumshoe in the Dark
by Rob Leininger
2021Mortimer Angel, Book 5
Gumshoe Outlaw
by Rob Leininger
2022Mortimer Angel, Book 7
Mortimer Angel books in chronological order

Gumshoe
by Rob Leininger
2014Mortimer Angel, Book 1
Gumshoe for Two
by Rob Leininger
2017Mortimer Angel, Book 2
Gumshoe on the Loose
by Rob Leininger
2018Mortimer Angel, Book 3
Gumshoe Rock
by Rob Leininger
2019Mortimer Angel, Book 4
Gumshoe in the Dark
by Rob Leininger
2021Mortimer Angel, Book 5
Gumshoe Gone
by Rob Leininger
2021Mortimer Angel, Book 6
Gumshoe Outlaw
by Rob Leininger
2022Mortimer Angel, Book 7
Rob Leininger collections, short stories, and related book types
Standalone Rob Leininger books

Black Sun
by Rob Leininger
1991
Killing Suki Flood
by Rob Leininger
1991
The Willow Creek War
by Rob Leininger
2010
Liar-in-Chief
by Rob Leininger
2014
Olongapo Liberty
by Rob Leininger
2014
Richter Ten
by Rob Leininger
2014
Sunspot
by Rob Leininger
2014
The Tenderfoot
by Rob Leininger
2014
A Confederacy of Snakes
by Rob Leininger
2015
Maxwell's Demon
by Rob Leininger
2015
Nicholas Phree and the Emerald of Bool
by Rob Leininger
2015
No Shortage of Weasels
by Rob Leininger
2015
Author bio
Rob Leininger grew up in Walnut Creek, California, and by his own account he was not exactly a high school legend for discipline or grades. What changed his life was what came next.
Right after Las Lomas High School, he joined the U.S. Navy and went to Electronics Technician A School on Treasure Island in San Francisco Bay. He finished at the top of his class, then served aboard the heavy cruiser USS Saint Paul off Vietnam, where daily life was noisy, hot, and unforgiving.
Then he volunteered for Operation Deep Freeze and spent a year at McMurdo in Antarctica. He stood at the geographic South Pole in 1967 and later remembered climbing onto a roof to work with an antenna in brutal cold. It is the sort of detail that tells you a lot about him. He tends to lean toward the hard thing if it looks interesting.
That habit shows up all through his fiction.
Leininger left the Navy in 1971 and went back to school, earning a mechanical engineering degree at the University of Nevada in Reno, with extra mathematics work along the way. He belonged to math and engineering honor societies, and for a time he worked on classified aerospace projects for Northrop in California. The engineering background mattered. It gave him a practical way of looking at systems, pressure, failure, and what happens when one small problem turns into a very big one.
He turned to fiction in a serious way around the start of the 1990s. His early novels, Black Sun and Killing Suki Flood, were published in 1991, and Killing Suki Flood was later optioned for film. He also sold a screenplay to New Line Cinema, which brought him into the Writers Guild.
Writing, however, did not immediately pay every bill.
He went on to teach high school math for about twelve years, a job he has described with real affection. He liked the classroom, liked the ideas, and liked showing students that numbers could be more fun than they looked from the outside. Eventually he retired from teaching so he could write full time, which helps explain the range in his work: hardboiled mystery, disaster thriller, western, military novel, fantasy, and even a chess book, Middlegame Strategy.
A lot of readers first meet him through Mortimer Angel, the ex-IRS agent turned Reno private eye at the center of Gumshoe. That novel hit the USA Today bestseller list and was nominated for a Shamus Award, and it led to more Mort books, including Gumshoe for Two, Gumshoe Rock, and Gumshoe in the Dark. Those novels show one side of Leininger especially well: the dry humor, the fondness for oddball trouble, and the ability to drop a likable, slightly battered person into a mess that keeps getting worse.
But he is not just a series writer. January Cold Kill introduces Gabrielle Johns, a Reno poker player with PI training. Richter Ten and Sunspot lean into large-scale scientific danger. Olongapo Liberty draws on Navy life, while The Tenderfoot heads west into ranch-country conflict. Across the books, certain things keep returning: Nevada and the American West, smart people under pressure, rough humor, and the sense that competence matters most when the world gets strange.
These days Leininger lives in northern Montana with his wife, and his home life sounds a lot quieter than his plots. Still, the same restless curiosity seems to be there. He has been an electronics technician, engineer, screenwriter, teacher, chess writer, and novelist. Read a few of his books and you can feel all of those lives in the background.
Edited by
Software engineer whose passion for tracking book recommendations from podcasts inspired the creation of MRB.
Lead investor at 3one4 Capital whose startup expertise and love for books helped shaped MRB and its growth.
















Comments
Did we miss something? Have feedback?
Help us improve this page by sharing your thoughts