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Isaac Bell books in order: the complete series
Looking for Clive Cussler’s Isaac Bell books in order? Look no further!
It’s early twentieth century America and Isaac Bell is a no-nonsense detective working for the Van Dorn Detective Agency. With his strong sense of justice and cunning mind, he’ll stop at nothing in pursuit of cold-blooded criminals.
Dubbed techno-thrillers despite their historical setting, the books feature advanced technologies of the time such as private express trains, dreadnought battleships and early aircrafts.
Regularly making the New York Times bestseller list with titles in this series, this is Cussler storytelling at its finest. Here are the Isaac Bell books in order.
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Clive Cussler’s Isaac Bell books in order:
The Chase by Clive Cussler
1. The Chase (2007)
1950: the rusting hulk of a steam locomotive is raised from the depths of a Montana lake. Inside are three bodies, bloody clue to a fortune lost for over forty years…
1906: For two years banks across the western United States have been living in terror of the ‘Butcher Bandit’. This cold-blooded bank robber empties safes and murders all witnesses, vanishing without trace. In desperation, the US Government calls in Isaac Bell, the best detective in the country. From Arizona to Colorado to the streets of San Francisco during the great quake, Bell uses all his guile and ingenuity to catch up with the murderous Bandit.
But when Bell has him almost cornered – the Bandit turns really nasty. And suddenly the stakes have changed. Bell isn’t just battling to get his man. He’s fighting for his very survival…
The Wrecker by Clive Cussler
2. The Wrecker (2009)
1907: train wrecks, fires, and explosions sabotage the Southern Pacific Railroad’s new express line…
The desperate railroad hires the fabled Van Dorn Detective Agency, who send their best man, Isaac Bell. He quickly discovers that a saboteur calling himself the Wrecker is attacking the Southern Pacific with accomplices recruited from down-and-outs – who are killed afterward. The Wrecker strikes wherever he pleases, causing untold damage and loss of human life. Who is he? What does he want? Is he an anarchist? A revolutionary? A criminal mastermind?
Whoever he is, whatever his motives, the Wrecker knows how to create havoc. And Bell is convinced he is building up to a grand act unlike anything he has committed before.
If the Wrecker isn’t stopped in time, more than a railroad is at risk – the future of the entire country is on the line…
The Spy by Clive Cussler
3. The Spy (2010)
1908: American engineering geniuses are being killed off one by one…
When a brilliant battleship gun engineer commits suicide, his disbelieving family turn to legendary Van Dorn Detective Agency. Quickly on the case, Isaac Bell establishes that the clues point not to suicide, but murder.
So when further deaths connected to a top-secret project follow, Bell realizes that this is sabotage. With the world plunging towards war, it’s clearly a spy at large. But which of the many foreign agents he has encountered is responsible? Or is there a more sinister explanation?
The Race by Clive Cussler
4. The Race (2011)
1910, and America’s first ever cross-country flying race has been sabotaged…
Newspaper magnate Preston Whiteway is offering a big prize for the first aviator to cross America in under fifty days. He wants Josephine Frost – the country’s leading as well as most glamorous pilot – to win. Which is why he’s hired Isaac Bell of the Van Dorn Detective Agency.
Josephine saw her husband Harry Frost kill a man. Now he wants her dead. And with underworld contacts ready to help in every city en route, he’ll do anything, go after anyone who gets in his way – including Whiteway and Bell.
The Thief by Clive Cussler
5. The Thief (2012)
Leaving England aboard the liner Mauretania, Isaac Bell, chief investigator at the legendary Van Dorn Detective Agency, stumbles on and thwarts a kidnapping. The two victims, who have fled Europe carrying a secret invention, fear that a foreign power wishes to steal it before they can bring it to America.
Bell and the Van Dorn Agency offer to protect them.
And it isn’t long before Bell is fighting skullduggery in the middle of the Atlantic. In New York City, as well as across the country as he and the inventors head for California, the deadly chase is on. On their trail is the murderous agent known only as the ‘Acrobat’, instructed to steal this world-changing invention – and kill anyone in his way…
The Striker by Clive Cussler
6. The Striker (2013)
1902: Isaac Bell is investigating sabotage in a West Virginia coal mine. But when he stops a runaway train, saving countless lives, Bell discovers that it is part of a conspiracy to frame striking miners.
From West Virginia to Pittsburgh, New York City and Cincinnati, Bell is now on the hunt for clues to discover who is behind this murderous scheme. It puts him up against a ruthless agent provocateur allied to a cabal of staggering ambition and cold-bloodedness. Bell must prevent them starting a war which could bring the nation to its knees.
The Bootlegger by Clive Cussler
7. The Bootlegger (2014)
1920: prohibition and bootlegging are in full swing.
When Joseph Van Dorn is shot and nearly killed while in pursuit of a rum-running vessel, his friend and employee, Isaac Bell, swears to him that he will hunt down the lawbreakers. But Bell doesn’t know what he is getting into. When a witness to the shooting is executed in a manner peculiar to the Russian secret police, it becomes clear that these were no ordinary bootleggers.
Bell is facing a team of Bolshevik assassins and saboteurs – and they are intent on overthrowing the government of the United States.
The Assassin by Clive Cussler
8. The Assassin (2015)
Kansas, 1905: On a new well out on the plains an assassin’s bullet kills oilman Spike Hopewell. Minutes later an explosion rips apart his refinery. Death and destruction – just another bad day at the well?
Except Isaac Bell of the Van Dorn Detective Agency witnessed everything. He’s trailing a murderer who has been targeting anyone brave enough to stand against the powerful interests of Standard Oil. It’s a cat and mouse chase which leads Bell to Texas and New York in pursuit of the sharpest shooter in the land. Yet there’s more to this assassin than meets the eye. And they’re creeping closer to Bell with each passing day…
The Gangster - Clive Cussler by The Gangster - Clive Cussler
9. The Gangster (2016)
New York City, 1906: Italian gangsters calling themselves the Black Hand terrorize citizens in a menacing spree of kidnapping, extortion and arson. Detective Isaac Bell of the Van Dorn Agency is hired to form a special ‘Black Hand Squad’ – but with each gangster caught a new one appears on the street. Are these new recruits or other criminals imitating the Black Hand? Where are these men coming from?
Then the killings start. Each victim is a man more powerful than the last. Bell is convinced that he’s facing a murderous organization hell bent on bringing the city to its knees. But that’s before he discovers their ultimate target – the most powerful man in the country: the President of the United States…
The Cutthroat by Clive Cussler
10. The Cutthroat (2017)
1911: Chief Investigator Isaac Bell of the Van Dorn Detective Agency has had many extraordinary cases before. But none quite like this.
Hired to find a young woman named Anna Pape who ran away from home to become an actress, Bell gets a shock when her murdered body turns up instead. Vowing to bring the killer to justice, he begins a manhunt which leads him into increasingly more alarming territory. Anna Pape was not alone in her fate – petite young blonde women like Anna are being murdered in cities across America.
And the pattern goes beyond the physical resemblance of the victims – there are disturbing familiarities about the killings themselves that send a chill through even a man as experienced with evil as Bell. If he is right about his fears, then he is on the trail of one of the greatest monsters of his time.
The Titanic Secret by Clive Cussler
11. The Titanic Secret (2019)
When Dirk Pitt raised the Titanic in search of a rare and valuable element, he never learned the disturbing true story of its origins. But upon receiving secret testimony from private detective Isaac Bell, he’s taken back to the year 1911 and a tragedy at Colorado’s Little Angel Mine.
There, Isaac Bell is tasked with explaining the deaths of nine miners. But all is not as it seems and soon Bell finds himself on his way to Europe hunting for clues concerning a rare element of incalculable value. All while being pursued by dangerous men. Men who will do anything to get their hands on it. Bell must decide how far he’ll go to stop them, it’s a journey that can only end with the fateful first and final voyage of the Titanic itself.
The Saboteurs by Clive Cussler
12. The Saboteurs (2021)
Detective Isaac Bell’s wife has said that he is always in the wrong place at the right time. This is certainly the case when Bell thwarts the attempted assassination of a United States Senator shortly after meeting the man.
This heroic rescue is just the start of the mystery for Bell, who suspects that the would-be assassins have a much larger and more dangerous agenda – one involving the nearly constructed Panama Canal.
While the Senator supports the building of the canal, there are many, including a local Panamanian insurgency known as the Red Vipers, who never want to see its completion.
With millions of dollars and the fates of two nations at stake, Bell heads to Panama to find answers. After a deadly bombing at the canal’s construction site, he is determined to stop the insurgents – or whoever is funding them – before they can attack again.
The Sea Wolves by Clive Cussler
13. The Sea Wolves (2022)
A sweltering New England in 1914. Detective Isaac Bell is asked to investigate a cache of missing rifles — only to discover something much more sinister. Whoever broke into this Winchester Factory wasn’t looking to take weapons. They left a radio transmitter, set to summon a fleet of German U-boats. A traitor is trying to keep American supplies from reaching British shores.
With the outcome of the war at stake, and with orders from President Roosevelt himself, Bell must hunt down the new piece of technology that’s allowing the Germans to rule the seas from New York to England. If he doesn’t crack the conspiracy in time, the Atlantic Ocean will run red with blood.
The Heist by Jack du Brul
13. The Heist (2024)
Isaac Bell returns for another thrilling mission in a new book from the Grand Master of Adventure, Clive Cussler – pre-order your copy now!
Charismatic, handsome, and fiercely loyal, Isaac Bell is a no-nonsense private detective at the Van Dorn Detective Agency. Travelling all over early 20th century America in pursuit of justice for his clients, chasing down a steam train in a sports automobile is all in a day’s work for Bell. And while he’s on the trail of thieves, killers, and sometimes much worse, he’ll have to use his every last wit to stay ahead of those he seeks, and to stay alive…
There you have it – all Clive Cussler’s Isaac Bell books in order! How many have you read? Let us know in the comments below…
Books Like Clive Cussler’s Isaac Bell:
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All of the Issac Bell novels. Of all his other books, I think I’ve only missed two
Excellent stories! Once I start reading, I can’t put it down!
I have read all but the last one Sea Wolf I really injoy the by play between Marion and Isak.
Would like to see them made into movies.. like the Jessie stone stories
I have read three of them in that series and I am reading them in order. I hope the authors Brucell, Du Brul, Brown, Scott and Morrison continue writing. I love all the series in the Clive Cussler books and read most of them. I recommend them to anyone I visit with and please continue writing!! Thery are just fabulous!!
I have read all of them except for The Saboteurs which I ordered today. I really can’t put them down, so I have to start reading early in the day. I guess I can say the same for all of the Clive Cussler series. I just love them. Special thanks to Burcell, Du Brul, Brown, Scott and Morrison.