Reading order
| # | Title | Published | Author | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The Danger Within / Death in Captivity | 1952 | Michael Gilbert | Buy |
| 2 | Sky High / The Country-House Burglar | 1955 | Michael Gilbert | Buy |
| 3 | Be Shot For Six Pence | 1956 | Michael Gilbert | Buy |
| 4 | After The Fine Weather | 1963 | Michael Gilbert | Buy |
| 5 | The Crack In The Teacup | 1966 | Michael Gilbert | Buy |
| 6 | The Dust and the Heat / Overdrive | 1967 | Michael Gilbert | Buy |
| 7 | The Etruscan Net / The Family Tomb | 1969 | Michael Gilbert | Buy |
| 8 | The Ninety Second Tiger | 1973 | Michael Gilbert | Buy |
| 9 | Flashpoint | 1974 | Michael Gilbert | Buy |
| 10 | Night Of The Twelfth | 1976 | Michael Gilbert | Buy |
| 11 | The Empty House | 1978 | Michael Gilbert | Buy |
| 12 | The Final Throw / End-Game | 1982 | Michael Gilbert | Buy |
| 13 | The Black Seraphim | 1984 | Michael Gilbert | Buy |
| 14 | Inner Landscape | 1984 | Michael Gilbert | Buy |
| 15 | The Long Journey Home | 1985 | Michael Gilbert | Buy |
| 16 | Trouble | 1987 | Michael Gilbert | Buy |
| 17 | Paint Gold And Blood | 1989 | Michael Gilbert | Buy |
| 18 | The Queen Against Karl Mullen | 1991 | Michael Gilbert | Buy |
Michael Gilbert’s standalone novels show the full range of his interests as a crime writer. The Danger Within (1952) draws on his own wartime experience as a POW in Italy, telling the story of an escape plot complicated by a murder inside the camp. Other books move through English villages, Italian cities, London solicitors’ offices, and the corridors of local government. Each one is a self-contained story, though Gilbert’s trademark attention to legal and procedural detail runs through them all.
The novels vary in tone from the relatively light Sky High to the much darker Night Of The Twelfth, which deals with the murder of children and is considered one of Gilbert’s most powerful books. The Crack In The Teacup follows a young solicitor who stumbles into political corruption in a seaside town, while The Black Seraphim is set around an English cathedral. Whatever the setting, Gilbert consistently built his plots around ordinary people confronting situations that tested their courage and moral judgment.