Robert Harris Books in Order

A Higher Form of Killing traces the history of chemical and biological weapons, from the first gas clouds on First World War battlefields to Cold War stockpiles and modern terrorism. It examines how governments justified these weapons and the moral questions they leave behind.

Gotcha! explores how the British government and news media handled the 1982 Falklands War, from censorship and military briefings to tabloid headlines. Harris dissects a fraught relationship in which patriotic reporting, spin and secrecy shaped what the public believed about the conflict.

This political biography follows Neil Kinnock from his Welsh roots through his rise to lead the Labour Party in the 1980s. Harris looks at Kinnock’s convictions, inner circle and battles inside the party as it struggles to become electable again.

Good and Faithful Servant is an unauthorised portrait of Bernard Ingham, press secretary to Margaret Thatcher. Harris traces Ingham’s journey from northern local politics to the heart of Downing Street, showing how he managed news, shaped the prime minister’s image and handled crises.

Set in a victorious Nazi Germany in 1964, Fatherland follows detective Xavier March as a routine murder inquiry draws him toward a buried secret about the regime’s past. As Hitler’s 75th birthday and a US state visit loom, the investigation turns him from hunter into hunted.

In wartime Britain, brilliant but fragile codebreaker Tom Jericho is summoned back to Bletchley Park when the German U‑boats change their Enigma settings. As he races to crack the new cipher, Jericho also searches for a missing former lover who may be a traitor.

Selling Hitler recounts the notorious Hitler diaries hoax, in which forged journals fooled major publishers and newspapers. Harris follows the forger, the obsessed journalist and the executives who wanted a scoop so badly they ignored warning signs until the scandal exploded.

Archangel follows historian Fluke Kelso to contemporary Russia, where a dying former guard claims to know the fate of Stalin’s secret notebook. Kelso’s search for the document and its legacy draws him into violent rivalries and a chilling story about Stalin’s possible heir.

Set in the last days before Vesuvius erupts, Pompeii centers on young engineer Marcus Attilius, tasked with fixing the great Aqua Augusta aqueduct. Investigating a mysterious breakdown, he uncovers corruption, seismic omens and a looming disaster that threatens the towns depending on his water.

Imperium opens the Cicero trilogy, with his secretary Tiro narrating the rise of an ambitious young lawyer from provincial outsider to Roman power-broker. Courtroom showdowns, backroom deals and dangerous enemies build toward Cicero’s first bid for real power in the brutal politics of the Republic.

In The Ghost, a nameless writer is hired to finish the memoirs of a former British prime minister hiding on a wintry American island. As he rewrites the book and probes his predecessor’s death, he uncovers uneasy links between his subject, the CIA and past wars.

Conspirata (published elsewhere as Lustrum) continues Tiro’s account of Cicero, now at the peak of his career as consul of Rome. Facing the Catiline conspiracy, scheming rivals and restless mobs, Cicero struggles to defend the Republic while every decision makes him new, implacable enemies.

In Geneva, physicist-turned-financier Alex Hoffmann has built a hedge fund around VIXAL‑4, an algorithm that trades on human fear. Over one chaotic day, a break‑in, strange trades and a market plunge suggest the system is acting on its own—and that Hoffmann himself is being targeted.

An Officer and a Spy retells the Dreyfus affair through Colonel Georges Picquart, newly promoted to French military intelligence. When he realises the evidence against Alfred Dreyfus was faked and the real spy is still active, his determination to speak out puts him in danger.

Conclave is set in the tense days after a pope’s death, as cardinals are sealed inside the Vatican to choose his successor. Dean Jacopo Lomeli must manage rival factions, buried scandals and a late‑arriving outsider as each ballot reshapes the race for the papacy.

Dictator concludes the Cicero trilogy, following his final fifteen years through exile, uneasy return and the rise of Caesar and then Octavian. Tiro’s narrative shows a gifted orator trying to save a collapsing Republic, even as shifting alliances bring Cicero closer to his own destruction.

Imperium: The Cicero Plays presents Mike Poulton’s dramatic adaptation of Harris’s Cicero novels. Through Tiro’s eye, the scripts bring Cicero’s trials, senate battles and shifting fortunes to the stage, offering a vivid, behind‑the‑scenes view of Roman power struggles for actors and readers alike.

Munich unfolds over four days in September 1938, when Europe teeters on the edge of war. British official Hugh Legat and German diplomat Paul Hartmann—once friends at Oxford, now on opposite sides—reunite at the Munich conference, carrying documents that could expose Hitler and change events.

In a future England that has slid back into a medieval way of life, young priest Christopher Fairfax travels to a remote village for a funeral. There he discovers forbidden relics from the lost technological age and clues that the Church’s story about the past is incomplete.

V2 follows two intertwined lives in November 1944: Rudi Graf, a German engineer helping fire V‑2 rockets at London, and Kay Caton‑Walsh, a British WAAF officer using radar and math to locate the launch sites. Each is racing against time and the next strike.

Act of Oblivion begins after the restoration of Charles II, when parliament declares the king’s killers traitors. Regicides Edward Whalley and William Goffe flee to Puritan New England, only to be hunted across oceans and forests by relentless royalist official Richard Nayler.

Precipice is set in the summer of 1914, as Britain edges toward war and Prime Minister H. H. Asquith pours his private anxieties into letters to young socialite Venetia Stanley. When secret documents start leaking, a Scotland Yard detective’s inquiry turns their affair into a security crisis.