The Rise Of An English Lawbreaker Books in Order

This trilogy follows John Smith through the rougher side of eighteenth-century England, where smuggling, roadside robbery, private vengeance, and social climbing all sit close together. It is less a straight crime series than a roguish historical adventure about a man who keeps reinventing himself while danger keeps finding him.

John starts in the smuggling wars of Kent. In Dancing, he returns to his home village with vengeance in mind and carves out a place among the Free Traders while a relentless lawman closes in. That beginning matters because it sets the terms for the whole trilogy. John is not cleanly heroic or villainous. He is resourceful, violent when he has to be, and always aware that survival depends on moving before someone stronger pins him down.

The second book, Riding, shifts him onto the highways as the Yellowhammer, protecting inland trade while making enemies among the rich and powerful. By Reigning, he has risen again, now living as Lord Fitzwarren and trying to hold on to respectability, marriage, and business while old grudges and new rivals threaten to drag him back into open conflict.

That changing status is the fun of the series. John never becomes safe. Even when he gains money, position, or a more settled life, Archibald keeps surrounding him with killers, informers, resentments, and the law. Bess and other recurring figures help anchor the books emotionally, but the real engine is the constant question of whether John can ever outrun the kind of man he has been.

Expect lively historical fiction with smugglers, highwaymen, disguises, traps, and plenty of double-dealing. These books have a good sense of motion and a protagonist who is always one bad turn away from losing everything.