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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

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Rob Leininger books in publication order

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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: GumshoeGumshoe for TwoGumshoe on the LooseGumshoe Rock
For a sharp Reno mystery with a woman lead: January Cold Kill
For science-driven disaster suspense: SunspotRichter TenMaxwell's Demon
For western, military, or offbeat standalones: The TenderfootOlongapo LibertyNicholas Phree and the Emerald of Bool

Rob Leininger sub-series and character series

Gabrielle Johns books in order

Explore this series
  1. Book cover for "January Cold Kill"

    January Cold Kill

    by Rob Leininger

    2014Gabrielle Johns, Book 1

Gabrielle Johns books in chronological order

  1. Book cover for "January Cold Kill"

    January Cold Kill

    by Rob Leininger

    2014Gabrielle Johns, Book 1

Mortimer Angel books in order

Explore this series
  1. Book cover for "Gumshoe"

    Gumshoe

    by Rob Leininger

    2014Mortimer Angel, Book 1
  2. Book cover for "Gumshoe for Two"

    Gumshoe for Two

    by Rob Leininger

    2017Mortimer Angel, Book 2
  3. Book cover for "Gumshoe on the Loose"

    Gumshoe on the Loose

    by Rob Leininger

    2018Mortimer Angel, Book 3
  4. Book cover for "Gumshoe Rock"

    Gumshoe Rock

    by Rob Leininger

    2019Mortimer Angel, Book 4
  5. Book cover for "Gumshoe Gone"

    Gumshoe Gone

    by Rob Leininger

    2021Mortimer Angel, Book 6
  6. Book cover for "Gumshoe in the Dark"

    Gumshoe in the Dark

    by Rob Leininger

    2021Mortimer Angel, Book 5
  7. Book cover for "Gumshoe Outlaw"

    Gumshoe Outlaw

    by Rob Leininger

    2022Mortimer Angel, Book 7

Mortimer Angel books in chronological order

  1. Book cover for "Gumshoe"

    Gumshoe

    by Rob Leininger

    2014Mortimer Angel, Book 1
  2. Book cover for "Gumshoe for Two"

    Gumshoe for Two

    by Rob Leininger

    2017Mortimer Angel, Book 2
  3. Book cover for "Gumshoe on the Loose"

    Gumshoe on the Loose

    by Rob Leininger

    2018Mortimer Angel, Book 3
  4. Book cover for "Gumshoe Rock"

    Gumshoe Rock

    by Rob Leininger

    2019Mortimer Angel, Book 4
  5. Book cover for "Gumshoe in the Dark"

    Gumshoe in the Dark

    by Rob Leininger

    2021Mortimer Angel, Book 5
  6. Book cover for "Gumshoe Gone"

    Gumshoe Gone

    by Rob Leininger

    2021Mortimer Angel, Book 6
  7. Book cover for "Gumshoe Outlaw"

    Gumshoe Outlaw

    by Rob Leininger

    2022Mortimer Angel, Book 7

Rob Leininger collections, short stories, and related book types

Non-Fiction

  1. Book cover for "Middlegame Strategy"

    Middlegame Strategy

    by Rob Leininger

    1997With the Carlsbad Pawn Structure

Standalone Rob Leininger books

  1. Book cover for "Black Sun"

    Black Sun

    by Rob Leininger

    1991
  2. Book cover for "Killing Suki Flood"

    Killing Suki Flood

    by Rob Leininger

    1991
  3. Book cover for "The Willow Creek War"

    The Willow Creek War

    by Rob Leininger

    2010
  4. Book cover for "Liar-in-Chief"

    Liar-in-Chief

    by Rob Leininger

    2014
  5. Book cover for "Olongapo Liberty"

    Olongapo Liberty

    by Rob Leininger

    2014
  6. Book cover for "Richter Ten"

    Richter Ten

    by Rob Leininger

    2014
  7. Book cover for "Sunspot"

    Sunspot

    by Rob Leininger

    2014
  8. Book cover for "The Tenderfoot"

    The Tenderfoot

    by Rob Leininger

    2014
  9. Book cover for "A Confederacy of Snakes"

    A Confederacy of Snakes

    by Rob Leininger

    2015
  10. Book cover for "Maxwell's Demon"

    Maxwell's Demon

    by Rob Leininger

    2015
  11. Book cover for "Nicholas Phree and the Emerald of Bool"

    Nicholas Phree and the Emerald of Bool

    by Rob Leininger

    2015
  12. Book cover for "No Shortage of Weasels"

    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

Richard Reis

Software engineer whose passion for tracking book recommendations from podcasts inspired the creation of MRB.

Anurag Ramdasan

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

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