Roger Silverwood Books in Order
Browse Roger Silverwood books in order, with quick summaries, Michael Angel and Cawthorn series guides, and simple advice on where to start.
Last updated: July 3, 2026
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Publication Order
35 books
Deadly Daffodils / Dead Ahead
by Roger Silverwood
1970
On holiday in a Cornish fishing village, toy-company boss Robert Mackie sees a body hurled from a cliff, then watches the evidence vanish. Unsure he can trust Superintendent Cawthorn, he starts investigating for himself.
Dying for a Drink
by Roger Silverwood
1971
Three deaths in a North Yorkshire village point to poisoning, but the motive is murky and the clues do not sit neatly together. Superintendent Cawthorn picks apart family grief, suspicion, and a telling wine cabinet.
The Illegitimate Spy
by Roger Silverwood
1972
Choker / The Missing Wife
by Roger Silverwood
2004
The wife of a local MP is found strangled in a reservoir, with her clothes and pearl collar gone. When another body turns up the same way, Angel has to hunt a methodical killer with almost no forensics.
In the Midst of Life / The Missing Nurse
by Roger Silverwood
2004
A missing nurse leads Angel back to a savage killing in a criminal asylum twenty years earlier. With odd clues piling up and official obstruction in his way, he has to solve a long-buried crime.
The Importance Of Being Honest / The Morals of a Murderer
by Roger Silverwood
2005
A seemingly respectable murder case forces Angel to weigh appearances against motive as lies spread faster than facts. The puzzle turns on character, deception, and the dangerous stories people tell themselves.
The Man in the Pink Suit
by Roger Silverwood
2005
A famous art critic is seen and filmed shooting an industrialist, yet he flatly denies he did it. Angel has to work out whether the man is guilty, manipulated, or hiding something even stranger.
Mantrap / The Auction Murders
by Roger Silverwood
2006
A stabbing at a country-house auction sparks a hunt for a serial killer tied to the late Lord Ogmore's circle. Angel's best witness is blind, and the rest of the clues are as strange as they are scant.
Salamander
by Roger Silverwood
2006
Sham / The Missing Killer
by Roger Silverwood
2006
A young woman's death at a prestigious country club should have clear witnesses, but nobody can agree on the killer's identity. Angel is pulled into scams, gang pressure, and a case that keeps slipping shape.
The Curious Mind of Inspector Angel / The Umbrella Murders / The Missing Thief
by Roger Silverwood
2007
The murder of a famous film director and a homeless man seems impossible to link, until a mysterious female thief enters the picture. Angel risks his life to connect two deaths and one vanishing suspect.
The Man Who Couldn't Lose
by Roger Silverwood
2007
When millionaire card player Joshua Gumme is murdered after an extraordinary winning streak, Angel is left with a puzzle built on luck, money, and resentment. He'll need to play this case very carefully.
The Umbrella Man / The Missing Millionaire
by Roger Silverwood
2007
An arsonist threatens a local MP while a magician's assistant is murdered, and a room full of umbrellas only deepens the mystery. Angel has suspects, but one is vanished and another is already locked up.
Find the Lady
by Roger Silverwood
2008
A blind woman is murdered, and three witnesses swear they saw a woman in blue fleeing the scene. When that same face turns up in an old painting, Angel knows this is no ordinary manhunt.
Murder in Bare Feet
by Roger Silverwood
2008
A playboy millionaire is shot dead, and the oddest clue is a bare footprint near the spent shells. Angel juggles the murder with bank scandal and robbery fallout as suspects hide behind strong alibis.
The Wig Maker / The Missing Model
by Roger Silverwood
2008
A wigmaker is found dead in his burned workshop, but the murder is only one of several mysteries landing on Angel's desk. A missing model, robberies, and another corpse keep the case moving in every direction.
Wild About Harry / Missing, Presumed.... / The Missing Husband
by Roger Silverwood
2009
A wealthy woman marries a man she barely knows, then vanishes, and Angel discovers her husband may never have existed at all. A hired fixer and a second violent thread make the mystery even knottier.
Shrine to Murder
by Roger Silverwood
2010
A serial killer is stalking Bromersley, leaving laurel leaves, blood messages, and sightings of a figure in Roman dress. Angel races to decode the pattern before the murderer strikes again.
The Cuckoo Clock Scam / Murders
by Roger Silverwood
2010
A reclusive film writer is found dead in a Pennine farmhouse, with a dead pig in his bed and cuckoo clocks turning up everywhere. Angel faces a case that grows stranger the deeper he digs.
The Snuffbox Murders
by Roger Silverwood
2010
Angel investigates an antiques thief and killer who silences potential witnesses in brutal fashion. Gold snuffboxes, shady collectors, and a tangle of greed give this case a dark antique-trade edge.
The Dog Collar Murders
by Roger Silverwood
2011
A railway ticket clerk is shot after arguing with someone in a dog collar. Angel has to decide whether he's chasing a priest, an imposter, or a killer using faith as the perfect disguise.
The Cheshire Cat Murders
by Roger Silverwood
2012
A killer seems to have weaponized a big cat, turning Bromersley into hunting ground. When a local cat lover becomes the chief suspect, Angel must decide whether the answer is animal, human, or both.
The Diamond Rosary Murders
by Roger Silverwood
2012
The death of a young woman drags Angel into a hunt for a stolen diamond and ruby rosary once fit for royalty. Gang ties and hidden motives make the case far messier than it first looks.
The Big Fiddle / Thirteen Steps to Murder
by Roger Silverwood
2013
An elderly man is found dead at the foot of the stairs beside his wheelchair, and his missing carer becomes the obvious suspect. Angel has to cut through family lies before another death follows.
The Fruit Gum Murders
by Roger Silverwood
2014
A fruit gum found beside a body looks trivial until another poisoning suggests a wider pattern. Angel's search pulls him into blackmail, family secrets, and a case where the smallest clue matters.
The Money Tree Murders
by Roger Silverwood
2014
A young woman dies in a car wreck that looks anything but accidental, and Angel soon uncovers a lucrative swindle behind it. A supposedly haunted house adds more oddness to an already dangerous case.
Angel and the Actress
by Roger Silverwood
2015
A veteran actress is killed during a private celebration when the lights go out and no obvious suspect seems able to reach her. A second baffling murder gives Angel two puzzles to untangle at once.
The Lipstick Murders / The Face of a Murderer
by Roger Silverwood
2016
A serial killer marks his victims with messages in hot-pink lipstick after a disastrous operation leaves him bent on revenge. Angel knows the man's name, but not the face he now wears.
The Murder List
by Roger Silverwood
2016
Women in Bromersley are turning up murdered in the same grotesque pose, each death linked to a chilling list of names. Angel faces a taunting killer and a trail of clues that leads nowhere.
Angel's Final Problem?
by Roger Silverwood
2021
Angel goes after a dangerous gang leader and ends up framed for crimes he did not commit. Suspended and under suspicion, he has to clear his name while hunting the people who want him finished.
Murder On Time
by Roger Silverwood
2021
Actress Lisa Persimmon says her husband has calmly told her exactly when he plans to kill her. Angel has little proof and very little time to stop a murderer who may have done this before.
The Guilty Daughter
by Roger Silverwood
2021
Marie Strawbridge has spent twenty years hiding the worst thing she ever did. When her elderly father needs help, she plans a risky theft, but love, guilt, and old secrets make every step more dangerous.
The Music Box Murders
by Roger Silverwood
2021
A killer stalks Bromersley by night, leaving music boxes and almost no trace. With snakes, impossible attacks, and rising panic, Angel has to crack one of the strangest and most unnerving cases of his career.
Angel and the Nun
by Roger Silverwood
2022
A priest is murdered inside a secluded convent, leaving Angel with five nuns and no sign of an intruder. When more bodies fall, the case turns into a tense closed-circle hunt.
Angel Takes Off
by Roger Silverwood
2025
A film star is murdered on set, a mysterious woman in a green hat is seen nearby, and Angel starts receiving threats of his own. The case mixes movie glamour, gunfire, and a hunt for someone who may not exist.
Where should I start?
If you want the first Michael Angel case: In the Midst of Life / The Missing Nurse → Choker / The Missing Wife → The Man in the Pink Suit
If you like quirky puzzle mysteries: Find the Lady → Murder in Bare Feet → The Cuckoo Clock Scam / Murders
If you want later Angel novels with higher stakes: The Murder List → The Lipstick Murders / The Face of a Murderer → Murder On Time
If you'd rather try his earlier crime fiction first: Deadly Daffodils / Dead Ahead → Dying for a Drink
Author bio
Roger Silverwood was born in Barnsley and has lived much of his life close to the Pennines, a landscape that later found its way into his fiction. At boarding school in Gloucestershire he launched a school magazine that became popular enough to irritate the headmaster, who eventually shut it down. That is a pretty good beginning for a crime writer.
Writing had to wait for a while. After National Service, much of it spent in Germany, Silverwood worked in sales and did well enough in the toy trade to sell more than a million Sooty xylophones. He later worked as a copywriter in advertising, and he and his wife also ran an antique jewellery business around the north of England.
Those jobs gave him useful material. His books are full of traders, bluffers, respectable people with secrets, and the little frictions of ordinary life. By the late 1980s he had retired to write full time, but the real turn toward fiction had come much earlier.
Then an accident changed everything.
In 1969 Silverwood was left unable to walk for around eighteen months, so he began writing in bed. What started as a way to fill long, miserable days became the thing that changed his working life. One of the books that came out of that period was Deadly Daffodils, published in 1971, the first of his Superintendent Cawthorn mysteries. Dying for a Drink followed soon after and showed the same liking for tight, clue-driven crime.
He kept going.
Over the years he wrote more than thirty full-length novels, along with plays and short pieces, but the character most readers know him for is Detective Inspector Michael Angel. Angel lives in the fictional South Yorkshire town of Bromersley with his wife Mary, dislikes office politics, stays short of money, and keeps colliding with his lazy, hypochondriac superior Horace Harker. It is a simple setup, and Silverwood gets a lot out of it.
Books like The Missing Nurse, The Man in the Pink Suit, The Lipstick Murders, Murder on Time, and Angel and the Nun show what readers tend to come for. The puzzles are twisty but readable. The settings feel lived in. The humor is dry. Even when the clues are odd, a fruit gum here, a music box there, the stories stay rooted in streets, shops, marriages, grudges, and small-town memory.
He also wrote radio drama, including The Tollington Ghost, which was broadcast in the United States and Canada in 2006. Whether he was writing a village poisoning, an antique-trade mystery, or one of Angel's Bromersley cases, he seemed most interested in what happens when everyday life suddenly has to show its cracks.
Silverwood has continued to live in Barnsley, and he kept returning to Angel well into later life. Angel Takes Off appeared in 2025, more than fifty years after his first novel. That long run says a lot about his fiction. It is steady, curious, and closely observed, written by someone who knows Yorkshire voices, Yorkshire weather, and the strange things that can happen behind respectable doors.
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