Inspector Pel Reading Order
| Title | Published | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|
| Pel and the Parked Car / Death Set to Music | 1979 | Buy |
| Pel and the Faceless Corpse | 1979 | Buy |
| Pel Under Pressure | 1980 | Buy |
| Pel Is Puzzled | 1981 | Buy |
| Pel And The Staghound | 1982 | Buy |
| Pel and the Bombers | 1982 | Buy |
| Pel And The Predators | 1984 | Buy |
| Pel and the Pirates | 1984 | Buy |
| Pel and the Prowler | 1985 | Buy |
| Pel And The Paris Mob | 1986 | Buy |
| Pel Among the Pueblos | 1987 | Buy |
| Pel And The Touch Of Pitch | 1987 | Buy |
| Pel And The Picture Of Innocence | 1988 | Buy |
| Pel and the Party Spirit | 1989 | Buy |
| Pel and the Missing Persons | 1990 | Buy |
| Pel And The Promised Land | 1991 | Buy |
| Pel And The Sepulchre Job | 1992 | Buy |
| Pel Picks Up The Pieces | 1993 | Buy |
| Pel and the Perfect Partner | 1994 | Buy |
| Pel and The Patriarch | 1996 | Buy |
| Pel and the Precious Parcel | 1997 | Buy |
| Pel Is Provoked | 1999 | Buy |
| Pel and the Death of the Detective | 2000 | Buy |
| Pel and the Butcher’s Blades | 2001 | Buy |
| Pel and the Nickname Game | 2002 | Buy |
Standalone Novels
| Title | Published | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|
| The Lonely Voyage | 1951 | Buy |
| Hallelujah Corner | 1952 | Buy |
| The Claws of Mercy | 1955 | Buy |
| Getaway: Close to the Wind | 1956 | Buy |
| The Sleeping Mountain | 1958 | Buy |
| Road To The Coast: Adventure’s End | 1959 | Buy |
| Sunset At Sheba | 1960 | Buy |
| Covenant with Death | 1961 | Buy |
| The Spring Of Malice | 1962 | Buy |
| The Unforgiving Wind | 1963 | Buy |
| The Cross Of Lazzaro | 1965 | Buy |
| Eyewitness | 1966 | Buy |
| Right Of Reply | 1968 | Buy |
| The Mercenaries | 1969 | Buy |
| Portrait in a Dusty Frame | 1969 | Buy |
| The Courtney Entry | 1970 | Buy |
| A Killer for the Chairman | 1972 | Buy |
| A Kind Of Courage | 1972 | Buy |
| The Mustering of the Hawks | 1972 | Buy |
| The Gallant Six Hundred; A Tragedy Of Obsessions | 1973 | Buy |
| The Dark Side of the Island | 1973 | Buy |
| A Pride of Dolphins | 1974 | Buy |
| Smiling Willie And The Tiger | 1974 | Buy |
| The League of 89 | 1977 | Buy |
| Vardy | 1979 | Buy |
| Cotton’s War | 1979 | Buy |
| Dunkirk: The Storms of War | 1980 | Buy |
| North Strike | 1981 | Buy |
| Without Trace | 1981 | Buy |
| Harkaway’s Sixth Column | 1983 | Buy |
| Live Free or Die! | 1983 | Buy |
| The Crimson Wind | 1985 | Buy |
| Up for Grabs | 1986 | Buy |
| So Far From God | 1989 | Buy |
| China Seas | 1989 | Buy |
| The Quick Boat Men | 1992 | Buy |
Mark Hebden was one of several pen names used by British author John Harris (1916-1991). Harris also wrote adventure novels under his own name and military fiction as Max Hennessy. But it was the Inspector Pel mysteries, written as Mark Hebden, that earned him his most loyal readership. The series began in 1979 with Death Set to Music and ran through seventeen novels before Harris died in 1991.
The Inspector Pel books are set in the French countryside around Burgundy and follow the cantankerous, chain-smoking detective Evariste Clovis Desire Pel. The tone is wry and often funny, mixing traditional police work with French provincial life. After Harris’s death, his daughter Juliet Harris continued the series under the name Juliet Hebden, adding several more novels. Beyond the Pel books, Harris wrote dozens of standalone novels covering war, adventure, and espionage under his various pen names over a career that spanned more than four decades.