Reading order
| # | Title | Published | Author | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The White Room Runs Red | 2025 | Matt Shaw | Buy |
| 2 | The White Room Runs Cold | 2026 | Matt Shaw | Buy |
The White Room is one of Matt Shaw’s more recent series, with the first book published in 2025 and the second arriving in 2026. The setting is economical and effective: a single enclosed white space that Shaw uses to strip away any environmental comfort and focus the reader’s attention entirely on what is happening inside. The clinical, blank quality of a white room runs directly counter to what Matt Shaw puts inside it, and that contrast is central to how the series generates unease.
The White Room Runs Red (2025) is the natural starting point and introduces the setting and its logic. The color in the title is, as readers of Shaw’s work will expect, literal. The follow-up, The White Room Runs Cold (2026), shifts the register suggested by its own title, trading heat and immediacy for something more drawn-out and perhaps more disturbing for the change in pace.
The two-book format gives the series a focused, paired quality that suits the subject matter. Unlike some of Shaw’s longer series, there is no bloat here: each book makes its statement and stops. Readers looking for a recent example of Shaw’s work in compact, punchy form will find The White Room a good choice.