Reading order
| # | Title | Published | Author | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The Lonely Voyage | 1951 | Mark Hebden | Buy |
| 2 | Hallelujah Corner | 1952 | Mark Hebden | Buy |
| 3 | The Claws of Mercy | 1955 | Mark Hebden | Buy |
| 4 | Getaway: Close to the Wind | 1956 | Mark Hebden | Buy |
| 5 | The Sleeping Mountain | 1958 | Mark Hebden | Buy |
| 6 | Road To The Coast: Adventure’s End | 1959 | Mark Hebden | Buy |
| 7 | Sunset At Sheba | 1960 | Mark Hebden | Buy |
| 8 | Covenant with Death | 1961 | Mark Hebden | Buy |
| 9 | The Spring Of Malice | 1962 | Mark Hebden | Buy |
| 10 | The Unforgiving Wind | 1963 | Mark Hebden | Buy |
| 11 | The Cross Of Lazzaro | 1965 | Mark Hebden | Buy |
| 12 | Eyewitness | 1966 | Mark Hebden | Buy |
| 13 | Right Of Reply | 1968 | Mark Hebden | Buy |
| 14 | The Mercenaries | 1969 | Mark Hebden | Buy |
| 15 | Portrait in a Dusty Frame | 1969 | Mark Hebden | Buy |
| 16 | The Courtney Entry | 1970 | Mark Hebden | Buy |
| 17 | A Killer for the Chairman | 1972 | Mark Hebden | Buy |
| 18 | A Kind Of Courage | 1972 | Mark Hebden | Buy |
| 19 | The Mustering of the Hawks | 1972 | Mark Hebden | Buy |
| 20 | The Gallant Six Hundred; A Tragedy Of Obsessions | 1973 | Mark Hebden | Buy |
| 21 | The Dark Side of the Island | 1973 | Mark Hebden | Buy |
| 22 | A Pride of Dolphins | 1974 | Mark Hebden | Buy |
| 23 | Smiling Willie And The Tiger | 1974 | Mark Hebden | Buy |
| 24 | The League of 89 | 1977 | Mark Hebden | Buy |
| 25 | Vardy | 1979 | Mark Hebden | Buy |
| 26 | Cotton’s War | 1979 | Mark Hebden | Buy |
| 27 | Dunkirk: The Storms of War | 1980 | Mark Hebden | Buy |
| 28 | North Strike | 1981 | Mark Hebden | Buy |
| 29 | Without Trace | 1981 | Mark Hebden | Buy |
| 30 | Harkaway’s Sixth Column | 1983 | Mark Hebden | Buy |
| 31 | Live Free or Die! | 1983 | Mark Hebden | Buy |
| 32 | The Crimson Wind | 1985 | Mark Hebden | Buy |
| 33 | Up for Grabs | 1986 | Mark Hebden | Buy |
| 34 | So Far From God | 1989 | Mark Hebden | Buy |
| 35 | China Seas | 1989 | Mark Hebden | Buy |
| 36 | The Quick Boat Men | 1992 | Mark Hebden | Buy |
Mark Hebden’s standalone novels cover a huge range of settings and subjects. Many of them deal with war, from the evacuation at Dunkirk to fictional conflicts in Africa and the Mediterranean. Others are straight adventure or espionage stories. Hebden (writing as John Harris) drew on his own military experience and a deep interest in history to build convincing, fast-paced narratives.
These books were written over four decades, beginning with The Lonely Voyage in 1951 and ending with The Quick Boat Men in 1992. Readers who know Hebden only for Inspector Pel may be surprised by the range here. Titles like Covenant with Death and Cotton’s War are well-regarded war novels, while books like The Mercenaries and A Killer for the Chairman lean into thriller territory. None of them require reading in sequence, so you can jump in wherever a title catches your eye.