The Carpetbaggers Books in Order

Under the name The Carpetbaggers, you are really looking at a two‑book saga: The Carpetbaggers and its later sequel The Raiders. Together they trace the rise of Jonas Cord, a furious young heir who muscles his way into aviation and Hollywood, and then the fallout when his empire has to pass to a new generation.

In The Carpetbaggers, Jonas inherits his fathers explosives company and uses it as a launchpad for bigger dreams. He wants everything his father had and more, including his fathers much younger widow, Rina Marlowe, who becomes a screen goddess. The story swings from New York boardrooms to Nevada airfields and California backlots as Jonas breaks records in the air, bankrolls movies, and bulldozes anyone who gets in his way.

The novel is packed with figures who feel half‑familiar: starlets with dangerous charm, a western gunslinger turned movie hero, studio bosses who care more about control than art. Much of the fun lies in watching how business deals, sexual entanglements, and old grudges feed each other. Jonas is brilliant and relentless, but the damage he does to lovers, partners, and himself runs just under the glamorous surface.

The Raiders picks up decades later, when Jonas Cord is no longer the angry young man but the Jonas Cord, a legend worried about legacy. Into his life walks Bart, the gifted son he never acknowledged, raised in another country and another culture. Jonas wants an heir who can carry the business forward; Bart has his own ideas about power, loyalty, and the price of being a Cord.

Across both books, the series keeps circling the same questions: what it takes to build a fortune from nothing, and what happens to the people who grow up in its shadow. Expect fast movement through aviation milestones, studio wars, political intrigues, and family blow‑ups. The tone is big, brash, and unashamedly pulpy, and the story works best if you read the novels in order so you can feel the full weight of Jonas Cords choices over time.