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Stanley Morgan Books in Order

Explore Stanley Morgan books in order, from Russ Tobin comedies to later thrillers, with short summaries, series guides, and tips on where to start.

Last updated: July 7, 2026

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33 books

The Sewing Machine Man

by Stanley Morgan

1969

Bored with office life in Liverpool, young Russ Tobin becomes a door-to-door sewing machine salesman in search of money and adventure. What he finds instead is a string of lonely customers, comic temptation, and the first big test of his charm.

Octopus Hill

by Stanley Morgan

1970

British agent Michael Morgan heads into Africa with his partner Tarja for a mission built on danger, pursuit, and survival. This early adventure has a taut, Bond-era feel without losing Morgan's fast paperback pace.

The Debt Collector

by Stanley Morgan

1970

Russ trades sewing machines for debt collecting and discovers that the new job brings just as much romantic complication. After a bad fall costs him his position, a chance meeting sends him toward London, TV commercials, and a much bigger life.

The Courier

by Stanley Morgan

1971

Working in London and looking for his next break, Russ is drawn to the idea of becoming a holiday courier in Majorca. Sun, tourists, and a new partner in Patrick Holmes turn the job into a fast-moving mix of travel chaos and flirtation.

Come Again Courier

by Stanley Morgan

1972

Now established as a courier in Majorca, Russ spends the full holiday season juggling tourists, parties, and one misadventure after another. The island setting gives the book a sunny, hectic rhythm as new arrivals keep changing the game.

Up Tight

by Stanley Morgan

1972

Russ talks himself into yet another new phase of life, only to find that money trouble and romantic distraction make everything harder than it looks. It is one more restless, comic stop in his long run of near-disasters and lucky escapes.

Mission to Katuma

by Stanley Morgan

1973

When rebels kidnap a British diplomat's daughter to trade for a captive brother, Michael Morgan and Tarja race into Katuma to get her out. It is a brisk rescue thriller driven by politics, pressure, and action.

Tobin Takes Off

by Stanley Morgan

1973

As his Majorca stint winds down, Russ sets his sights on Africa and a new safari job. The trip itself becomes the story, with shipboard oddballs, comic mishaps, and the usual sense that Russ may be talking himself into more than he can handle.

Fly Boys

by Stanley Morgan

1974

A millionaire wins a fleet of aircraft in a poker game and launches Glamour Airlines, leaving Captain Al Rossiter and crew to keep the whole absurd venture airborne. It is broad travel farce with big promises and even bigger chaos.

Tobin In Paradise

by Stanley Morgan

1974

The Bahamas promise sunshine, ease, and a glamorous reset for Russ, but paradise rarely stays simple around him. Money, travel, and temptation quickly turn the escape into another lively tangle.

Tobin in Trouble

by Stanley Morgan

1974

Russ's charm meets rougher opposition when one of his glamorous adventures turns dangerous. With criminal trouble closing in, he has to rely on more than bluff if he wants to stay one step ahead.

Tobin on Safari

by Stanley Morgan

1974

Russ heads to East Africa for safari work and finds a setting that is far bigger and less forgiving than the holiday trade. Wild country, demanding clients, and real danger give this travel comedy a sharper edge.

Tobin For Hire

by Stanley Morgan

1975

A paid job that should be temporary and harmless becomes something much messier once Russ gets involved. Seasonal work, money worries, and romantic confusion keep him scrambling for control.

Tobin in Las Vegas

by Stanley Morgan

1975

Russ hits Las Vegas for bright lights, fast talk, and the hope of an easy break. The city suits his appetite for glamour, but every lucky moment comes with fresh risk attached.

Fly Boys in London

by Stanley Morgan

1976

Glamour Airlines heads for London, where bigger crowds and brighter lights only magnify the mess. Rossiter and his crew face fresh pressure, unruly passengers, and another round of comic disasters.

Russ Tobin's Bedside Guide To Smoother Seduction

by Stanley Morgan

1976

This playful spin-off turns Russ Tobin himself into the star of a comic mock-manual. It reads like an in-character performance, full of swagger, jokes, and very questionable romantic wisdom.

The Rise Of Randy Comfort

by Stanley Morgan

1976

Idle but good-looking Randy Comfort stumbles into a dream job as handyman to the rich and glamorous in a luxury London apartment block. The work sounds easy until class tension, temptation, and daily chaos start piling up.

Tobin Down Under

by Stanley Morgan

1976

In Australia, Russ stumbles into one of the strangest jobs of his life and learns that easy money rarely stays easy. The result is a brisk comic adventure built on nerve, pride, and improvisation.

Tobin In Tahiti

by Stanley Morgan

1976

Tahiti gives Russ another postcard-perfect setting and another chance to overestimate how easy life can be. Tropical beauty, desire, and bad timing combine into one more sun-soaked misadventure.

Blow for Gabriel Horn

by Stanley Morgan

1977

Spoiled heir Gabriel Horn is forced out into the world on a tiny budget and told to earn his place in the family business. Morgan turns privilege into comedy as hard lessons arrive one shabby step at a time.

Hard Up

by Stanley Morgan

1977

Back in London and suddenly broke, Russ returns to sales work with a dubious electrical company. When the job goes badly and then strangely well, he begins to glimpse a possible route to Hollywood.

Here Comes Tobin

by Stanley Morgan

1977

Russ takes on a new role in a country-house hotel, where guests, staff, and constant temptation make calm management impossible. The fixed setting lets Morgan turn everyday work into steady comic upheaval.

Inside Albert Shifty

by Stanley Morgan

1977

Albert Shifty is an odd-job man and loft-conversion specialist working a new housing estate full of small ambitions and nosy neighbors. Morgan turns everyday graft into sly, fast-moving comedy.

Randy Comfort Rise Again

by Stanley Morgan

1977

Randy gets another shot at comfort and status, but keeping his lucky break proves harder than landing it. More residents, more complications, and more romantic trouble keep the comedy moving.

Sky-jacked

by Stanley Morgan

1977

Captain Al "Cockup" Rossiter and the crew of the Glamour Puss face their wildest airborne crisis yet. Morgan pushes the airline farce into bigger danger, louder panic, and full-scale comic turbulence.

Russ Tobin In Hollywood

by Stanley Morgan

1978

Armed with big hopes and a possible break, Russ heads for Hollywood to test whether charm can carry him through the dream factory. Glamour, disappointment, and fresh temptation all arrive at once.

Tobin Among The Stars

by Stanley Morgan

1979

Still moving through the world of fame and make-believe, Russ gets closer to stars, agents, and showbusiness illusion. What looks like success keeps threatening to turn into another unstable performance.

Too Rich to Live

by Stanley Morgan

1979

Money, power, and old resentments drive this darker Stanley Morgan thriller. As wealth raises the stakes, revenge and self-interest pull dangerous people toward a violent reckoning.

Dark Side of Destiny

by Stanley Morgan

1982

Bobby Vincent wants wealth and power, but underneath the ambition sits an old wound that never healed. After childhood trauma shapes his life, revenge becomes the force driving this hard-edged thriller.

Laura Fitzgerald

by Stanley Morgan

1983

A woman stands at the center of a dangerous struggle involving ambition, betrayal, and emotional pressure. Morgan shifts into darker suspense mode here, where trust is fragile and every alliance has a price.

Raven

by Stanley Morgan

1989

Raven's intelligence, psychic gifts, and physical strength are stretched to the limit when he tries to protect a woman hunted by two killers. The pursuit grows deadlier as he digs into the secrets of his own past.

Tobin Goes Cuckoo

by Stanley Morgan

2005

In the nineteenth Russ Tobin adventure, he takes on the management of a retirement home and walks straight into genteel chaos. The nurses' home next door only makes the situation livelier and much harder to contain.

Trance

by Stanley Morgan

2006

Paul Drummond, a hypnotherapist who consults for the LAPD, realizes an amnesiac patient's buried memories reach back to Vietnam and into a US presidential race. The deeper he probes, the more dangerous the conspiracy becomes.

Where should I start?

If you want Russ Tobin from the beginning: The Sewing Machine ManThe Debt CollectorThe Courier
If you want the sunniest, travel-heavy Tobins: Come Again CourierTobin Takes OffTobin on Safari
If you want comic airline chaos: Fly BoysFly Boys in LondonSky-jacked
If you want the tougher adventure side of Morgan: Octopus HillMission to KatumaTrance

Author bio

Stanley Morgan was born in Liverpool on 10 November 1929, and that city stayed in his work for the rest of his life. He grew up there, attended the Liverpool Institute High School for Boys, and started out in the most ordinary way possible, as a bank clerk on Merseyside. The office life did not suit him for long.

He was restless early, and he acted on it.

In the 1950s he left Britain and spent time in Canada, where he worked at the Bank of Nova Scotia, and then in Southern Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe. Along the way he picked up the kinds of jobs that would later feed straight into his fiction: salesman, debt collector, book-keeper on a tobacco farm. He also found his way toward performance, joining amateur theatre, working in radio plays, and building the confidence that would shape his next career.

Acting came before publishing. After winning a Best Actor award in Southern Rhodesia, he was helped back to London to try his luck professionally. In the 1960s he became one of those busy, familiar working actors who turned up everywhere, in crime shorts, radio work, voice-overs, and small film parts. He appeared in Dr. No as the casino concierge who introduces James Bond, and he also turned up in films like Konga, The L-Shaped Room, and Séance on a Wet Afternoon. At the same time, he became a major voice-over artist for television commercials. A short documentary he narrated, Mullardability, was nominated for a BAFTA in 1970.

The writing started in the gaps between acting jobs. That feels right for Morgan. He wrote like a man who had seen a lot, done a lot, and knew that a bad job, a long trip, or a chance meeting could become a story. His first novel, The Sewing Machine Man, arrived in 1968 and introduced Russ Tobin, a charming drifter whose working life and wandering instincts had more than a little in common with Morgan's own. Readers followed. Fast.

The Russ Tobin books became his big breakthrough. Titles like The Debt Collector, The Courier, and Come Again Courier followed Tobin from Liverpool to London and then out into the wider world, mixing travel, comedy, hustle, and romance. By the close of the 1970s, the series had sold around ten million copies worldwide. Morgan also branched out with the Fly Boys books, the Michael Morgan adventures, the Randy Comfort comedies, and a run of later thrillers including Too Rich to Live, Dark Side of Destiny, and Trance.

What readers tend to like in Morgan is pretty easy to spot. His books move. His heroes are usually improvisers, men who talk first, bluff often, and keep going when plans fall apart. He liked fish-out-of-water jobs, sudden travel, glamorous settings just slightly past their best, and people trying to stay cheerful while chaos closed in. Even when the books are broad and funny, there is often a note of money trouble, loneliness, or plain old bad luck underneath.

He never really wrote from an ivory tower. He wrote from work, from travel, from scraps of the entertainment business, and from the peculiar comedy of getting by.

Later in life, after years of publishing wrangles, Morgan settled in Eastbourne with his wife Linda, whom he married in 1973. They managed a retirement home there, which eventually fed back into his fiction when renewed reader interest helped bring about one last Russ Tobin novel, Tobin Goes Cuckoo, in 2005. He died on 24 August 2018, but his books still carry that same breezy, lived-in sense of motion. You can feel the miles on them.

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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