Reading order
| # | Title | Published | Author | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The Flesh of the Orchid | 1940 | James Hadley Chase | Buy |
| 2 | Lady – Here’s Your Wreath | 1940 | James Hadley Chase | Buy |
| 3 | The Dead Stay Dumb / Kiss My Fist! | 1941 | James Hadley Chase | Buy |
| 4 | Miss Callaghan Comes to Grief | 1941 | James Hadley Chase | Buy |
| 5 | Get a Load of This | 1942 | James Hadley Chase | Buy |
| 6 | You Never Know with Women | 1942 | James Hadley Chase | Buy |
| 7 | Eve | 1942 | James Hadley Chase | Buy |
| 8 | Just the Way It Is | 1944 | James Hadley Chase | Buy |
| 9 | Miss Shumway Waves a Wand | 1944 | James Hadley Chase | Buy |
| 10 | Make the Corpse Walk | 1946 | James Hadley Chase | Buy |
| 11 | I’ll Get You for This | 1946 | James Hadley Chase | Buy |
| 12 | Blonde’s Requiem | 1946 | James Hadley Chase | N/A |
| 13 | More Deadly Than the Male | 1946 | James Hadley Chase | Buy |
| 14 | Trusted Like the Fox | 1948 | James Hadley Chase | Buy |
| 15 | The Paw in the Bottle | 1949 | James Hadley Chase | Buy |
| 16 | Why Pick On Me? | 1950 | James Hadley Chase | Buy |
| 17 | In a Vain Shadow | 1951 | James Hadley Chase | Buy |
| 18 | But a Short Time to Live | 1951 | James Hadley Chase | Buy |
| 19 | Strictly for Cash | 1951 | James Hadley Chase | Buy |
| 20 | The Fast Buck | 1952 | James Hadley Chase | Buy |
| 21 | The Wary Transgressor | 1952 | James Hadley Chase | Buy |
| 22 | I’ll Bury My Dead | 1953 | James Hadley Chase | Buy |
| 23 | The Things Men Do | 1953 | James Hadley Chase | Buy |
| 24 | Safer Dead / Dead Ringer | 1954 | James Hadley Chase | Buy |
| 25 | Mission to Venice | 1954 | James Hadley Chase | Buy |
| 26 | Tiger by the Tail | 1954 | James Hadley Chase | Buy |
| 27 | The Sucker Punch | 1954 | James Hadley Chase | Buy |
| 28 | This Way for a Shroud | 1954 | James Hadley Chase | Buy |
| 29 | You’ve Got It Coming | 1955 | James Hadley Chase | Buy |
| 30 | The Pickup | 1955 | James Hadley Chase | N/A |
| 31 | Ruthless | 1955 | James Hadley Chase | N/A |
| 32 | You Find Him, I’ll Fix Him | 1956 | James Hadley Chase | Buy |
| 33 | The Guilty Are Afraid | 1957 | James Hadley Chase | Buy |
| 34 | Never Trust a Woman | 1957 | James Hadley Chase | N/A |
| 35 | Hit and Run | 1958 | James Hadley Chase | Buy |
| 36 | The Case of the Strangled Starlet / Not So Safe to Be Free | 1958 | James Hadley Chase | Buy |
| 37 | The World in My Pocket | 1959 | James Hadley Chase | Buy |
| 38 | Just Another Sucker | 1960 | James Hadley Chase | Buy |
| 39 | Come Easy, Go Easy | 1960 | James Hadley Chase | Buy |
| 40 | What’s Better Than Money? | 1960 | James Hadley Chase | Buy |
| 41 | A Lotus for Miss Quon | 1961 | James Hadley Chase | Buy |
| 42 | I Would Rather Stay Poor | 1962 | James Hadley Chase | Buy |
| 43 | A Coffin from Hong Kong | 1962 | James Hadley Chase | Buy |
| 44 | One Bright Summer Morning | 1963 | James Hadley Chase | Buy |
| 45 | Cade | 1966 | James Hadley Chase | Buy |
| 46 | The Vulture is a Patient Bird | 1969 | James Hadley Chase | Buy |
| 47 | Mallory | 1969 | James Hadley Chase | Buy |
| 48 | He Won’t Need It Now | 1972 | James Hadley Chase | Buy |
| 49 | Just a Matter of Time | 1972 | James Hadley Chase | Buy |
| 50 | Want to Stay Alive? | 1972 | James Hadley Chase | Buy |
| 51 | You’re Dead Without Money | 1972 | James Hadley Chase | Buy |
| 52 | Knock, Knock! Who’s There? | 1973 | James Hadley Chase | Buy |
| 53 | So What Happens to Me? | 1973 | James Hadley Chase | Buy |
| 54 | Three of Spades | 1974 | James Hadley Chase | Buy |
| 55 | Believe This… You’ll Believe Anything | 1975 | James Hadley Chase | Buy |
| 56 | Goldfish Have No Hiding Place | 1975 | James Hadley Chase | Buy |
| 57 | So Soon to Die | 1975 | James Hadley Chase | N/A |
| 58 | Do Me a Favour - Drop Dead | 1976 | James Hadley Chase | Buy |
| 59 | My Laugh Comes Last | 1976 | James Hadley Chase | Buy |
| 60 | Meet Mark Girland | 1977 | James Hadley Chase | Buy |
| 61 | You Must Be Kidding | 1978 | James Hadley Chase | Buy |
| 62 | A Can of Worms | 1979 | James Hadley Chase | Buy |
| 63 | You Can Say That Again | 1979 | James Hadley Chase | Buy |
| 64 | Have a Nice Night | 1981 | James Hadley Chase | Buy |
| 65 | Hand Me a Fig Leaf | 1981 | James Hadley Chase | Buy |
| 66 | We’ll Share a Double Funeral | 1982 | James Hadley Chase | Buy |
| 67 | Not My Thing | 1983 | James Hadley Chase | Buy |
James Hadley Chase’s standalone novels form the largest part of his bibliography, with over sixty titles published between 1940 and 1983. These books cover the full range of crime fiction: heists, blackmail, murder for hire, con games, and desperate people making bad decisions.
The standalone novels span Chase’s entire career, from early works like The Flesh of the Orchid (1940) and More Deadly Than the Male (1946) to later entries like Not My Thing (1983). Titles like Come Easy, Go Easy, The World in My Pocket, and A Coffin from Hong Kong show him working at his best: lean prose, surprising twists, and characters who are rarely what they seem.