Reading order
Adam Dalgliesh reading order
- Cover Her Face1962
- Unnatural Causes1962
- A Mind to Murder1963
- Shroud for a Nightingale1971
- The Black Tower1975
- Death of an Expert Witness1977
- A Taste for Death1986
- Devices and Desires1989
- Original Sin1994
- A Certain Justice1997
- Death in Holy Orders2001
- The Murder Room2003
- Every volume in order (14) ↓
- 7.57.5 / 1080 ratings
- Score
- 14 volumes
- Volumes
- 1962–2008
- Published
- about 100 h
- Reading time
- Completed
- Status
- Crime & mystery
- Genre
Quick answer

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Publication order
14 volumes1962–2008Completed
- Each book is a closed case — you can start anywhere.
- Publication order matters only for Dalgliesh's private life, which moves in the background across forty years.
- From the beginning: Cover Her Face (1962).
A plan for the whole series
14 volumes, 5,586 pages, about 100 hours. At 45 min a day that is about 4 months.
Stages
6 stages, with 5 short books from outside the series between them. You finish around April 8, 2027, about 4 weeks later than in one go.
- Stage 120 habout 4 weeksby November 25, 2026
- BreakMaus · Art Spiegelman · 295 pp. · score 9.0
- Stage 212 h16 daysby December 21, 2026
- Short breakThe Fire Next Time · James Baldwin · 120 pp. · score 8.8
- Stage 319 habout 4 weeksby January 19, 2027
- Short breakThe Emperor's Soul · Brandon Sanderson · 96 pp. · score 8.8
- Stage 419 habout 4 weeksby February 16, 2027
- Short breakOn Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century · Timothy Snyder · 128 pp. · score 8.4
- Stage 516 habout 3 weeksby March 13, 2027
- Short breakAnimal Farm · George Orwell · 128 pp. · score 8.3
- Stage 617 habout 3 weeksby April 8, 2027
- The end of the series
We count 1.1 min per page, the pace of an average novel reader. Faster? Move the slider.
How this plan is calculated
The plan comes from the pages and ratings of each volume: we split the series into stages of about three weeks’ reading, size each break to the stage before it, and read the chance of finishing from how many readers rate the last volume compared with the first. How we work out the plan →
Every volume in order
Order checked by hand · Order and years: Wikidata (CC0). Spotted an error? Tell us. · Data updated October 29, 2026
Frequently asked questions
Which Adam Dalgliesh book is the longest?
“Original Sin” is the longest at 544 pages; the shortest is “Cover Her Face” with 254 pages.













