Robert McCammon Books in Order
Browse all Robert McCammon books in order, with series lists, story summaries, guides, and tips on where to start with his horror and historical fiction.
Last updated: January 12, 2026
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Publication Order
52 books
Leviathan
by Robert R McCammon
2024
In the final Matthew Corbett novel, Matthew, Hudson Greathouse, Professor Fell, and Cardinal Black resume their hunt for a legendary demon-summoning mirror across Sardinia and Venice, pursued by crime families and witch-hunters as Matthew tries to secure a future beyond Fell’s world.
Seven Shades of Evil
by Robert R McCammon
2023
This collection set in Matthew Corbett’s world gathers eight novellas and stories that follow Matthew and his friends through side cases involving haunted houses, deadly voyages, sinister forests, and moral choices that echo across the main series.
The King of Shadows
by Robert R McCammon
2022
En route to Italy in search of a sorcerer’s mirror, Matthew Corbett and his companions are shipwrecked on a secluded island whose hospitable residents hide disturbing secrets, as the place slowly erodes their memories and sense of self.
Cardinal Black
by Robert R McCammon
2019
Berry Grigsby’s mind is disintegrating under a poison devised by Professor Fell, and the only hope is a stolen book of potions, so Matthew Corbett partners with a charming killer to infiltrate London’s underworld and outbid a madman called Cardinal Black.
The Listener
by Robert R McCammon
2018
In 1934, New Orleans redcap Curtis Mayhew has a quiet gift for hearing unspoken thoughts, and when he catches the terrified mental cry of a kidnapped girl, he risks everything to challenge two ruthless con artists and save her.
Tales from Greystone Bay
by Robert McCammon
2017
Three linked stories set in the eerie town of Greystone Bay, including a boy’s unsettling encounter with the family in the red house across the street, a nearly deserted town stalked by a mysterious force, and a beauty pageant hiding a predatory secret.
Last Train from Perdition
by Robert R McCammon
2016
Trevor Lawson and sharpshooter Ann Kingsley head to Montana to retrieve a young man from an outlaw gang, only to find themselves besieged by vampires on a snowbound train, where every car may hold another hungry enemy.
Freedom of the Mask
by Robert R McCammon
2016
After a mission goes wrong, Matthew Corbett vanishes from New York and resurfaces in grim London, where he must survive Newgate Prison, a sadistic gaoler, and a masked conspirator whose plans reach from filthy alleys to the halls of power.
White
by Robert McCammon
2015
Against the backdrop of an unnamed, encroaching catastrophe that leaves the landscape blank and deadly, a small group of people hunker together and watch the whitening world outside their shelter, testing loyalty, courage, and the limits of denial.
The Border
by Robert R McCammon
2015
On an Earth ravaged by the war between two alien races, a teenage boy named Ethan awakens with no memory and strange abilities, and his struggle to protect a fragile human enclave may decide whether humanity survives at all.
Strange Candy
by Robert McCammon
2015
On a difficult Halloween after a family tragedy, a grieving couple finds a bizarre unwrapped candy shaped like a tiny hand in their daughter’s treat bag, and what follows offers an unexpected, bittersweet message from someone they lost.
I Scream Man
by Robert McCammon
2015
In a bleak urban neighborhood, a man’s fragile grip on reality frays as everyday frustrations and domestic pressures twist into hallucinatory horror, turning a simple ice cream truck’s jingle into the soundtrack for violence and madness.
He’ll Come Knocking at Your Door
by Robert McCammon
2015
Dan Burgess arrives in prosperous Essex, Alabama, and suddenly his fortunes soar, but he soon learns the town’s comfort depends on a horrific Halloween bargain, and that someone always comes knocking when it is time to pay.
Children of the Bedtime Machine
by Robert McCammon
2015
In a postwar, post-technological wasteland, a hardened, lonely woman takes home a strange "bedtime machine" and finds that it conjures children who come to hear her read, slowly giving her back family, purpose, and a reason to love the broken world again.
The Wolf and the Eagle
by Robert R McCammon
2014
In the North African desert, werewolf Michael Gallatin and a German fighter pilot are forced into an uneasy partnership to survive a deadly march, testing whether shared hardship can bridge the gulf between enemies bred to kill each other.
The Room at the Bottom of the Stairs
by Robert R McCammon
2014
In war-torn Berlin, Michael Gallatin falls into a dangerous, intimate entanglement that leads to a hidden chamber and a terrible secret, forcing him to weigh personal feeling against the brutal demands of his clandestine war.
The River of Souls
by Robert R McCammon
2014
In 1703 Carolina, a murdered girl, three escaped slaves, and a haunted plantation send Matthew Corbett upriver into treacherous swamp country, where human hunters, exiled warriors, and something strange born of the marsh all converge along the Solstice River.
The Man from London
by Robert R McCammon
2014
A brief adventure from Michael Gallatin’s later life, this story pairs him with an unexpected ally from London as old debts and wartime ghosts surface, reminding both men that the past’s unfinished business can still bite hard.
The Great White Way
by Robert R McCammon
2014
In this Michael Gallatin story, the werewolf spy navigates urban shadows and theatrical glamour, where a mission tied to the stage pulls him into deadly games behind the bright lights of a city that never suspects what stalks its alleys.
Sea Chase
by Robert R McCammon
2014
Assigned to spirit a defecting German scientist to safety across hostile waters, Michael Gallatin must keep his human cargo alive aboard a vulnerable ship, fending off threats from U-boats, traitors, and the beast inside him that hungers for release.
Night Crawlers
by Robert McCammon
2014
A traumatized Vietnam veteran stops at a roadside diner during a storm, but the nightmares he carries are no longer confined to his head, and the patrons soon find that his memories can manifest with lethal, uncontrollable force.
Night Calls the Green Falcon
by Robert McCammon
2014
An aging actor who once played the costumed hero the Green Falcon decides to don his old mask and cape again to hunt a real serial killer, proving that the world might still have room for pulp-era courage.
Makeup
by Robert McCammon
2014
A small-time crook steals the makeup kit of legendary horror actor Orlon Kronsteen and discovers that each application turns him into a different monster, a dangerous gift he cannot resist using even as it destroys the life he knows.
Death of a Hunter
by Robert R McCammon
2014
Set in Michael Gallatin’s world, this shorter tale finds an older, weary hunter reflecting on past missions and choices, as one last confrontation forces him to decide how much of his life he is willing to spend in service to the hunt.
I Travel by Night
by Robert R McCammon
2013
Gunslinger Trevor Lawson, turned into a vampire on a Civil War battlefield, works as a nocturnal troubleshooter while hunting the queen who made him, and a ransom job to rescue a kidnapped woman draws him into a deadly trap laid by other undead.
The Providence Rider
by Robert R McCammon
2012
Summoned to the remote stronghold of criminal mastermind Professor Fell, Matthew Corbett is ordered to uncover a traitor within Fell’s inner circle, forcing him to navigate a web of assassins, pirates, and plots where every ally may be bought.
The Hunter from the Woods
by Robert R McCammon
2011
This collection of linked novellas follows werewolf agent Michael Gallatin through key missions before, during, and after *The Wolf’s Hour*, from tense sea voyages and desert marches to a doomed love affair in Berlin and a bittersweet twilight glimpse of an aging predator.
The Five
by Robert R McCammon
2011
Indie rock band The Five slog through a last-chance tour in the American Southwest, only to be targeted by a damaged war veteran and drawn into a strange, possibly supernatural struggle that turns their music into both weapon and lifeline.
Mister Slaughter
by Robert R McCammon
2010
Tasked with escorting notorious killer Tyranthus Slaughter from an asylum to a waiting ship, Matthew Corbett and Hudson Greathouse make one terrible choice that lets their prisoner loose, sending Matthew on a brutal chase through the winter wilderness.
The Queen of Bedlam
by Robert R McCammon
2007
Now a clerk in 1703 New York, Matthew Corbett is drawn into the hunt for a masked serial killer and into the orbit of the mysterious Herrald Agency, as clues point toward a nameless woman in an asylum who may hold the key to the murders.
Speaks the Nightbird
by Robert R McCammon
2002
Magistrate Isaac Woodward and his young clerk Matthew Corbett arrive in the Carolina settlement of Fount Royal to judge an accused witch, but Matthew’s doubts about the case lead him into a dangerous investigation that exposes greed, zealotry, and murder.
Gone South
by Robert R McCammon
1992
Dying from a cancer he blames on Vietnam, down-on-his-luck carpenter Dan Lambert panics during a bank meeting, kills a man, and flees into the Louisiana bayou, pursued by bizarre bounty hunters and traveling with a scarred woman searching for a miracle healer.
Under the Fang
by Robert McCammon
1991
Edited by Robert McCammon, this shared-world anthology imagines a future where vampires have conquered humanity, collecting stories of resistance and horror from multiple writers as scattered survivors fight back against their cruel overlords in very different corners of the world.
Boy's Life
by Robert R McCammon
1991
Twelve-year-old Cory Mackenson grows up in Zephyr, Alabama, after he and his father witness a murdered man sink into a deep lake, and a year of wonders, horrors, and small-town secrets slowly teaches him what courage and loss really mean.
Mine
by Robert R McCammon
1990
Radical fugitive Mary Terror kidnaps a newborn from an Atlanta hospital, believing the child will reunite her with her old revolutionary lover, but the baby’s mother, Laura Clayborne, launches her own relentless cross-country pursuit that forces her into terrifying moral territory.
Yellachile’s Cage
by Robert McCammon
1989
Told with a gentle, eerie touch, this story uses the figure of Yellachile and his cage as a frame for people in hard circumstances to share stories, showing how simple acts of storytelling can become a kind of hope.
The Wolf's Hour
by Robert McCammon
1989
In 1943, British spy Michael Gallatin is sent behind Nazi lines to sabotage a secret weapon that could cripple the Allied invasion, drawing on a hidden advantage his handlers barely understand, the ability to become a powerful, deadly wolf.
Something Passed By
by Robert McCammon
1989
After an unexplained cosmic event shatters the laws of nature, a neighborhood struggles to live with combustible water, warped gravity, and grotesque transformations, while one man on his porch quietly realizes the true cost of what has drifted over the world.
Pin
by Robert McCammon
1989
One of McCammon’s most disturbing tales, this story follows a deeply damaged man whose violent obsession and a simple metal pin lead to an act of cruelty that can’t be undone and a chilling glimpse into ordinary evil.
Chico
by Robert McCammon
1989
Locked in a grim prison, a young man finds fragile hope in a small yellow bird that visits his cell window, and the simple act of protecting it becomes his quiet rebellion against the brutality surrounding him.
Blue World
by Robert McCammon
1989
This collection gathers McCammon’s short fiction, from a Vietnam veteran whose nightmares stalk a roadside diner to Halloween streets with deadly traditions and a troubled priest whose obsession with a porn star leads them both toward a different kind of salvation.
Swan Song
by Robert R McCammon
1987
After nuclear war shatters the world, a handful of survivors, including a girl with a gift for healing growing things, a haunted wrestler, and a former bag lady with a strange glass ring, must confront a demonic wanderer who thrives on ruin.
Stinger
by Robert R McCammon
1987
In a dying Texas border town already torn by poverty and gang tension, two alien rivals crash to Earth, one a desperate fugitive and the other a ruthless hunter named Stinger, trapping the inhabitants under a deadly dome for one catastrophic night.
Doom City (short story)
by Robert McCammon
1987
In the ruined coastal town of Greystone Bay, most residents have been reduced to ash and bone, and a handful of survivors struggle to understand the supernatural force that emptied their streets and may not be finished with them.
Yellowjacket Summer
by Robert McCammon
1986
A mother and her two children stop at a lonely Georgia gas station, only to discover the town around it is ruled by a disturbed boy who can command swarms of yellowjackets, turning an ordinary summer day into a nightmare.
The Red House
by Robert McCammon
1985
In a drab company town where every home is the same dull color, a family in a vivid red house draws fascination and hostility, and a child’s-eye view of prejudice builds toward a fiery, unsettling coming-of-age reckoning.
Usher's Passing
by Robert R McCammon
1984
Rix Usher returns to his family’s North Carolina estate to watch his dying father choose an heir to a vast weapons empire, only to uncover generations of madness, murder, and a secret beneath Usherland that echoes Edgar Allan Poe’s most infamous house.
Mystery Walk
by Robert McCammon
1983
Billy Creekmore can see the restless dead and help them move on, while evangelist’s son Wayne Falconer seems to heal the living, and their paths converge in a long, dangerous struggle against a shape-changing evil that feeds on fear and lies.
They Thirst
by Robert McCammon
1981
Vampires sweep through Los Angeles, turning the city into a walled necropolis under the rule of a sadistic prince, while a haunted homicide detective, a comedian, a street kid, and a dying priest scramble to stop the darkness from spreading.
The Night Boat
by Robert McCammon
1980
Salvage diver David Moore uncovers a perfectly preserved Nazi U-boat buried in a Caribbean lagoon, only to unleash its crew of waterlogged dead, turning a sleepy island into a battleground against relentless, rotting soldiers from another war.
Bethany's Sin
by Robert R McCammon
1980
Evan and Kay Reid think they’ve found a bargain in the quiet village of Bethany’s Sin, but the town’s eerie silence, mutilated men, and midnight riders reveal a violent secret that soon threatens their marriage, their daughter, and their lives.
Baal
by Robert McCammon
1978
From a brutal assault in New York to cults in the Middle East and a frozen outpost in Greenland, Baal follows the life of a boy who may be the human incarnation of an ancient power bent on pushing the world toward apocalypse.
Where should I start?
If you want one big post-apocalyptic epic: Swan Song.
If you like Southern coming-of-age stories with a touch of magic: Boy's Life → Mystery Walk → Gone South.
If you prefer long historical mysteries: Speaks the Nightbird → The Queen of Bedlam → Mister Slaughter.
If you want World War II werewolf espionage: The Wolf's Hour → The Hunter from the Woods.
If you enjoy dark Western-style vampire tales: I Travel by Night → Last Train from Perdition.
Author bio
Robert McCammon was born in Birmingham, Alabama, on July 17, 1952, and grew up in the East Lake neighborhood as the only child of musician Jack McCammon and Barbara Bundy McCammon.�cite��� He spent much of his childhood reading, watching late-night horror movies, and writing stories about cowboys, aliens, and monsters, a private universe that helped make sense of a sometimes chaotic home life.�cite���
He graduated from Banks High School and went on to study journalism at the University of Alabama, earning his degree in 1974.�cite��� After college he stayed close to Birmingham, taking whatever work he could find: shifts in department stores, advertising jobs for local businesses, and eventually a position as a copy editor at the Birmingham Post-Herald. One evening at the paper, in the middle of trimming headlines, he got the phone call telling him his first novel had been accepted.�cite��
That debut was Baal, published in 1978, a furious, globe-trotting horror novel about a child born to embody a very old evil.�cite��� McCammon has called it his "angry young man" book, written when he felt powerless and wanted to imagine forces big enough to shake the world. He followed it quickly with Bethany's Sin and The Night Boat, early paperbacks steeped in demons, ghostly U-boats, and small-town dread.�cite���
Across the 1980s he became one of the key figures in the boom in American horror fiction. Novels like They Thirst, Mystery Walk, Usher's Passing, Swan Song, and Stinger mixed large-scale menace with very human fears, from vampiric takeovers of Los Angeles to post-nuclear wastelands and haunted Southern landscapes.�cite������ By 1991 he had three New York Times bestsellers ��The Wolf's Hour�, �Stinger�, and �Swan Song� and millions of copies of his books in print.�cite��
McCammon was also instrumental in building a professional home for horror writers. In the mid-1980s he helped propose and organize what became the Horror Writers Association, working with Joe and Karen Lansdale and Dean Koontz to move the group from an informal idea called HOWL into a formal nonprofit that would sponsor the Bram Stoker Awards and advocate for the genre.�cite��� In 1991 he edited the association's first anthology, Under the Fang, bringing together writers he admired and giving newer voices a place to be seen.
Awards followed, but they were usually mentioned after the stories rather than before. Swan Song tied with Stephen King's Misery for a Bram Stoker Award and later earned a major Japanese adventure-fiction prize.�cite�� Mine and the coming-of-age novel Boy's Life each won Stoker Awards as well, and Boy's Life went on to receive the 1992 World Fantasy Award for Best Novel.�cite��� In 2012 McCammon received the Horror Writers Association's Lifetime Achievement Award, a quiet acknowledgment of how much his work and his organizing had shaped the field.�cite���
Through books like Boy's Life and Gone South, McCammon leaned further into his Southern roots. He wrote about small Alabama towns, civil rights tensions, and people on the run along Gulf Coast back roads, blending crime, memory, and just enough of the uncanny to make the familiar feel strange again.�cite��� These stories showed that he was as interested in fathers and sons, old grievances, and second chances as he was in monsters.
After the 1992 novel Gone South, frustration with being labeled only a horror writer, changes in publishing, and a desire to be present for his family led him to step away from the field for several years.�cite��� He continued to write, but without the usual rush to market. Out of that period came Speaks the Nightbird, an ambitious historical novel about a young clerk named Matthew Corbett investigating a supposed witch in a fragile Carolina settlement in 1699.�cite��� When it finally appeared in print in 2002, it marked both his return to publishing and the start of a long-running series.
The Matthew Corbett books follow Matthew from a witchcraft trial to colonial New York, Carolina swamps, Caribbean islands, and eventually Europe, as he grows from magistrate's assistant into a resourceful "problem solver" navigating crime, politics, and occasional brushes with the supernatural.�cite����� Readers who meet him in Speaks the Nightbird can stay with him through sprawling sequels like The Queen of Bedlam, Mister Slaughter, The Providence Rider, The River of Souls, Freedom of the Mask, Cardinal Black, The King of Shadows, Seven Shades of Evil, and the 2024 finale Leviathan.�cite����������
Alongside that historical series, McCammon has kept experimenting. The Five follows an indie rock band on a final, haunted tour of the American Southwest. The Border returns to apocalyptic territory with a teenage survivor caught between warring alien species. The Listener is a Depression-era kidnapping story touched by a rare psychic link between two children.�cite���� He has also revisited horror in fresh ways, from the World War II werewolf spy thriller The Wolf's Hour and its companion collection The Hunter from the Woods to the vampire-gunslinger novellas beginning with I Travel by Night.�cite����
McCammon still lives in Alabama and continues to write across genres, often returning to familiar places and characters to see what else they have to say.�cite��� His work is grounded in precise detail and everyday speech, even when the canvas is the end of the world or a duel with a demon. Whether the story is about a boy on a bicycle, a colonial detective, or a spy who turns into a wolf, it nearly always comes back to the same questions: how people choose to act when they are afraid, and what kind of hope they can make for themselves in the dark.
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