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Robert Harris Books in Order

This page lists Robert Harris books in order, with quick summaries, series overviews and guidance on where to start his historical thrillers and political novels.

Our take

Robert Harris is the master of the intelligent historical thriller: meticulously researched novels that drop you into a real moment, from a papal election to the last days of Pompeii, and make you forget you know how it ends. Start with Fatherland (1992), his alternate-history debut set in a Nazi-ruled 1964 Berlin, or with Conclave (2016), whose 2024 film won the Oscar for best adapted screenplay.

Almost all of his novels stand alone. The exception is the Cicero trilogy, Imperium, Lustrum (Conspirata in the US) and Dictator, which is best read in order and pairs well with Pompeii. An Officer and a Spy, about the Dreyfus affair, won the Walter Scott Prize, and The Ghost became Roman Polanski's The Ghost Writer. Before the novels, Harris was a journalist; his five non-fiction books include Selling Hitler, on the forged Hitler diaries, which Christopher Hitchens recommended.

His newest, Agrippa (August 2026), returns to ancient Rome and went to No. 1 on the Sunday Times list.

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Robert Harris books in publication order

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22 books

A Higher Form of Killing

by Robert Harris

1982

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!

by Robert Harris

1983

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.

The Making of Neil Kinnock

by Robert Harris

1984

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.

Selling Hitler

by Robert Harris

1986

This nonfiction account reconstructs the Hitler diaries scandal, beginning with a purported cache of wartime journals and its lucrative sale to a German magazine. Harris follows the deception’s spread through the press and the unraveling that exposed the documents as forgeries.

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Good and Faithful Servant

by Robert Harris

1990

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.

Fatherland

by Robert Harris

1992

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.

Enigma

by Robert Harris

1995

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.

Archangel

by Robert Harris

1998

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.

Pompeii

by Robert Harris

2003

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

by Robert Harris

2006

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.

The Ghost

by Robert Harris

2007

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.

Lustrum

by Robert Harris

2009

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.

The Fear Index

by Robert Harris

2011

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

by Robert Harris

2013

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.

Dictator

by Robert Harris

2015

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.

Conclave

by Robert Harris

2016

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.

Munich

by Robert Harris

2017

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.

The Second Sleep

by Robert Harris

2019

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

by Robert Harris

2020

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

by Robert Harris

2022

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

by Robert Harris

2024

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.

New

Agrippa

by Robert Harris

2026

In this forthcoming historical novel, Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa rises from a plebeian childhood to become the indispensable ally of Octavius, the future Augustus. Through warfare, political upheaval, and personal sacrifice, Agrippa's loyalty helps shape Rome's transformation from republic to dictatorship.

Where to start with Robert Harris

If you’re new to his work: Fatherland → Enigma → Munich
If you love ancient Rome and politics: Imperium → Conspirata → Dictator
If you want courtroom and scandal dramas: An Officer and a Spy → Act of Oblivion → Precipice
If you prefer contemporary political thrillers: The Ghost → The Fear Index → Conclave
If you like speculative or dystopian twists: The Second Sleep → V2

Robert Harris sub-series and character series

Cicero books in order

Explore this series
  1. Book cover for "Imperium"

    Imperium

    by Robert Harris

    2006Cicero, Book 1
  2. Book cover for "Lustrum"

    Lustrum

    by Robert Harris

    2009Cicero, Book 2 (US title: Conspirata)
  3. Book cover for "Dictator"

    Dictator

    by Robert Harris

    2015Cicero, Book 3

Cicero books in chronological order

  1. Book cover for "Imperium"

    Imperium

    by Robert Harris

    2006Cicero, Book 1
  2. Book cover for "Lustrum"

    Lustrum

    by Robert Harris

    2009Cicero, Book 2 (US title: Conspirata)
  3. Book cover for "Dictator"

    Dictator

    by Robert Harris

    2015Cicero, Book 3

Robert Harris collections, short stories, and related book types

Robert Harris Non-Fiction

  1. Book cover for "A Higher Form of Killing"

    A Higher Form of Killing

    by Robert Harris

    1982The Secret History of Chemical and Biological Warfare
  2. Book cover for "Gotcha!: The Government, the Media and the Falklands Crisis"

    Gotcha!: The Government, the Media and the Falklands Crisis

    by Robert Harris

    1983The Government, the Media and the Falklands Crisis
  3. Book cover for "The Making of Neil Kinnock"

    The Making of Neil Kinnock

    by Robert Harris

    1984
  4. Book cover for "Good and Faithful Servant: The Unauthorized Biography of Bernard Ingham"

    Good and Faithful Servant: The Unauthorized Biography of Bernard Ingham

    by Robert Harris

    1990The Unauthorized Biography of Bernard Ingham
  5. Book cover for "Selling Hitler"

    Selling Hitler

    by Robert Harris

    1986The Extraordinary Story of the Con Job of the Century

Standalone Robert Harris books

  1. Book cover for "Gotcha!"

    Gotcha!

    by Robert Harris

    1983The Government, the Media and the Falklands Crisis
  2. Book cover for "Good and Faithful Servant"

    Good and Faithful Servant

    by Robert Harris

    1990The Unauthorized Biography of Bernard Ingham
  3. Book cover for "Fatherland"

    Fatherland

    by Robert Harris

    1992A Novel
  4. Book cover for "Enigma"

    Enigma

    by Robert Harris

    1995A Novel
  5. Book cover for "Archangel"

    Archangel

    by Robert Harris

    1998A Novel
  6. Book cover for "Pompeii"

    Pompeii

    by Robert Harris

    2003A Novel
  7. Book cover for "The Ghost"

    The Ghost

    by Robert Harris

    2007A Novel
  8. Book cover for "The Fear Index"

    The Fear Index

    by Robert Harris

    2011
  9. Book cover for "An Officer and a Spy"

    An Officer and a Spy

    by Robert Harris

    2013A Novel
  10. Book cover for "Conclave"

    Conclave

    by Robert Harris

    2016A Novel
  11. Book cover for "Munich"

    Munich

    by Robert Harris

    2017A Novel
  12. Book cover for "The Second Sleep"

    The Second Sleep

    by Robert Harris

    2019A Novel
  13. Book cover for "V2"

    V2

    by Robert Harris

    2020A Novel of World War II
  14. Book cover for "Act of Oblivion"

    Act of Oblivion

    by Robert Harris

    2022A Novel
  15. Book cover for "Precipice"

    Precipice

    by Robert Harris

    2024
  16. Book cover for "Agrippa"

    Agrippa

    by Robert Harris

    2026

Author bio

Robert Harris was born in Nottingham in 1957 and grew up in a small rented house on a council estate, the son of a printer and a factory worker. Early visits to his father’s printing plant, with its noise and smell of ink, fixed in his mind that books were made by real people.

At school he wrote plays and edited the student magazine, then went on to read English literature at Selwyn College, Cambridge. There he became president of the Cambridge Union and editor of Varsity, learning how arguments are built and how stories can be shaped for an audience.

After university Harris joined the BBC as a trainee and spent much of the 1980s working on current‑affairs programmes such as Panorama and Newsnight. In his early thirties he moved into newspapers, becoming political editor of a national Sunday paper and later a columnist, watching politics from the inside corridor rather than the public gallery.

Alongside that day job he began writing non‑fiction. A Higher Form of Killing examined the history of chemical and biological warfare. Gotcha! looked at the way government and journalists handled the Falklands War. Other books profiled Labour leader Neil Kinnock, unravelled the Hitler diaries hoax, and explored the power of Margaret Thatcher’s press secretary Bernard Ingham.

In the early 1990s Harris turned to fiction. Fatherland, an alternative‑history thriller set in a Nazi Germany that won the war, became an international bestseller and allowed him to write full‑time. He followed it with Enigma, about wartime codebreakers, and Archangel, which imagines the discovery of Stalin’s secret papers in post‑Soviet Russia.

History stayed at the heart of what he wrote next. Pompeii uses the looming eruption of Vesuvius as the engine of a disaster story about engineering, greed and water. The Cicero trilogy—Imperium, Conspirata and Dictator—recreates the collapse of the Roman Republic through the eyes of Cicero’s secretary, turning speeches, trials and elections into high political drama.

Later novels move across time but return to similar questions about power, secrecy and conscience. The Ghost shadows a former British prime minister and his ghostwriter on a windswept island. The Fear Index follows an algorithm that seems to outgrow its creator. An Officer and a Spy revisits the Dreyfus affair, while Conclave, Munich, The Second Sleep, V2, Act of Oblivion and Precipice each step into different moments when history could have tipped another way.

Again and again, his stories ask what private compromises sit behind public events.

Harris has also worked on screen adaptations of his books and has seen several turned into films or television dramas. He lives in West Berkshire, in the village of Kintbury, with his wife, the novelist Gill Hornby, and their four children. His novels have been translated widely, but he still tends to describe himself, with some understatement, as a former reporter who never quite left politics behind.

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