Edward Cline

Author Information
Edward Cline's Latest Book

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  • Bibliography:
    59 Books (3 Series)
  • First Book:
    March 1988
  • Latest Book:
    November 2018
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Full Series List in Order

Cyrus Skeen

1 - China Basin (Mar-2011)
2 - The Head of Athena (Dec-2012)
3 - The Daedalus Conspiracy (Nov-2011)
4 - The Chameleon (Dec-2012)
5 - A Crimson Overture (Aug-2013)
6 - The Black Stone (Jan-2014)
7 - The Pickwick Affair (Jun-2014)
8 - The Circles of Odin (Mar-2015)
9 - Silver Screens (Mar-2015)
10 - Sleight of Hand (Apr-2015)
11 - Stolen Words (Jun-2015)
12 - An August Interlude (Aug-2015)
13 - Wintery Discontent (Sep-2015)
14 - Manhattan Blues (Jan-2016)
15 - The Janus Affair (Feb-2016)
16 - First Things (Mar-2016)
17 - Civic Affairs (Apr-2016)
18 - Exegesis (May-2016)
19 - Seeing Double (Aug-2016)
20 - Trichotomy (Sep-2016)
21 - Beginnings (Oct-2016)
22 - Reciprocity (Nov-2016)
23 - Saving Athena (Jan-2017)
24 - Split Infinitives (Feb-2017)
25 - Passions (Mar-2017)
26 - Celebrity News (Mar-2017)
27 - Inquest (May-2017)
28 - Double Entendre (Aug-2017)
29 - Sufferance (Sep-2017)
30 - Warlocks (Oct-2017)
31 - The Skeen Chronicles (Oct-2017)
32 - Reprisals (Nov-2017)
33 - The Pendulum (Dec-2017)
34 - School Days (Jan-2018)

Sparrowhawk

1 - Jack Frake (Nov-2001)
2 - Hugh Kenrick (Dec-2002)
3 - Caxton (May-2004)
4 - Empire (Nov-2004)
5 - Revolution (Dec-2005)
6 - War (Dec-2006)

The War of Ideas

1 - Running Out My Guns (Jan-2012)
2 - Broadsides In the War of Ideas (Jan-2012)
3 - Corsairs & Freebooters (Feb-2012)
4 - Boarding Parties & Grappling Hooks (Feb-2013)

Book List in Order: 59 titles

  • First Prize

    In First Prize, Chess Hanrahan, a private detective in New York City, searches for a missing prize-winning writer, who has not claimed the much-coveted award. He learns that he has been murdered, not by an envious writer, but by the most unlikely per...

  • We Three Kings

    The chief villain of We Three Kings is representative of the most bizarre and anachronistic statist at large in 1980, when I finished this novel, and in 2010: a royal Saudi sheik. The heroes who refuse to submit to his will -- neither pragmatically...

  • Jack Frake

    Sparrowhawk - 1

    Bringing a radically new perspective to the events leading up to The American Revolution, Sparrowhawk, a new series of historical novels, establishes that The Revolution occurred in two stages: the war for independence and also a more subtle revoluti...

  • Hugh Kenrick

    Sparrowhawk - 2

    Follows the life of high-spirited and independent Hugh Kenrick, as he struggles with the constraints of his aristocratic ancestry, and ultimately jeapordizes his own safety when he joins a secret society of freethinkers....

  • Caxton

    Sparrowhawk - 3

    Third in the popular historical series, Sparrowhawk Book Three follows Jack Frake (Book One) and Hugh Kenrick (Book Two) as they meet in Colonial Virginia. Jack is a successful planter who has gained a lifetime of experience since he was brought to V...

  • Empire

    Sparrowhawk - 4

    Amid the political upheaval and turmoil following the French and Indian War, the British government's attempts to tax the American colonies, culminating in the Stamp Act of 1765, draw both colonist Jack Frake and aristocrat Hugh Kenrick into separate...

  • Revolution

    Sparrowhawk - 5

    Following the passage of the Stamp Act of 1765, Hugh Kenrick attends the Stamp Act Congress in New York while Jack Frake forms a local chapter of the Sons of Liberty. After they foil a plan to smuggle the stamps into the colony, Dogmael Jones debates...

  • War

    Sparrowhawk - 6

    The sixth and final installment in this acclaimed series about the start of the American Revolution.

    Opening in the spring of 1774 and ending explosively on the York River in the fall of 1775, Sparrowhawk Book VI: War concludes Edward Cline’...

  • Sparrowhawk Companion

    The six novels in Edward Cline’s critically acclaimed Sparrowhawk series allowed readers a unique glimpse into the American Revolution. Beginning on the cliffs of Cornwall in 1744 and ending on Virginia’s York River in 1775, the series told an ep...



  • Presence of Mind

    Ideas that kill . . . This challenging mystery by the author of FIRST PRIZE brings back Chess Hanrahan, "a thinking man's Mike Hammer." A woman working undercover for the FBI is dead as Russian agents make a grab for a seemingly obscure computer comp...

  • China Basin

    Cyrus Skeen - 1

    Cyrus Skeen, private eye in 1928 San Francisco, is approached by a captivating French countess, Vanessa Favaul, and a brusque retired British army colonel, Burton Heywood, to find the thief who stole a priceless artifact from countess's mother. At th...

  • Honors Due

    * Starred Review Booklist. "Chess Hanrahan, the book-loving New York City gumshoe who's prone to tunnel vision when something gets under his skin, deserves a much wider readership. . . . Hanrahan is a great character, a guy who values literature, lov...

  • The Daedalus Conspiracy

    Cyrus Skeen - 3

    In Part One, Cyrus Skeen, private detective in 1929 San Francisco, is asked by Charles Gilchrest, chairman of The Daedàlus Society, an exclusive men-only club, to go to the The Daedàlus Grove, a private enclave north of the city, to determine the n...

  • Broadsides In the War of Ideas

    The War of Ideas - 2

    Why is American foreign policy failing? Should our foreign policy be principled, or pragmatic? Why are politicians and bureaucrats so determined to regulate and rule our lives? Who are the new shock troops of collectivism and statism? Are we at war w...

  • Running Out My Guns

    The War of Ideas - 1

    Why is American foreign policy failing? Should our foreign policy be principled, or pragmatic? Why are politicians and bureaucrats so determined to regulate and rule our lives? Who are the new shock troops of collectivism and statism? Are we at war w...

  • Corsairs & Freebooters

    The War of Ideas - 3

    Why is American foreign policy failing? Should our foreign policy be principled, or pragmatic? Why are politicians and bureaucrats so determined to regulate and rule our lives? Who are the new shock troops of collectivism and statism? Are we at war w...

  • With Distinction

    "Chess Hanrahan deserves a much wider readership," declared Booklist in its starred review of Honors Due (2011). "Fans of detective fiction will love this novel." In With Distinction, Hanrahan in his early career as a small town police chief delves i...

  • The Chameleon

    Cyrus Skeen - 4

    It is November, 1929. The stock market has crashed. The giddy period known as the Roaring Twenties are about to end. But Cyrus Skeen, private detective, is not too concerned. He never bought on margin or gambled on "sure things" to make a quick buck;...

  • The Head of Athena

    Cyrus Skeen - 2

    CYRUS SKEEN, noted private detective in San Francisco, has followed an international art fence, ANDRE PETROSSIAN, to a burlesque theater, hoping that the man will lead him to the artworks stolen from a Boston museum. When the theater is raided by the...



  • Run From Judgment

    Merritt Fury is the unconquerable American entrepreneur who in “Whisper the Guns” foiled a Red Chinese conspiracy in Hong Kong, and in “We Three Kings” gave a Saudi sheik his just desserts. Now, in "Run From Judgment," he finds himself the ta...

  • Whisper the Guns

    When Merritt Fury, a fiercely independent American entrepreneur, returns to Hong Kong on business, little does he know that he has become enmeshed in a conspiracy to confiscate his investment and render the Crown colony a dependency on the Mainland d...

  • Boarding Parties & Grappling Hooks

    The War of Ideas - 4

  • A Crimson Overture

    Cyrus Skeen - 5

    In this fifth adventure of Cyrus Skeen, private detective and socialite in San Francisco, it is January 1930, the end of the Roaring Twenties and the beginning of the "Red Decade," when Soviet spies and Communist fellow travelers have begun to infilt...

  • The New Sparrowhawk Companion

    The Sparrowhawk Companion has become an indispensable reference book for readers of the Sparrowhawk series, containing, in addition to essays by the author and other contributors about the series and period in which it is set , a chronology of Acts o...

  • The Black Stone

    Cyrus Skeen - 6

    In The Black Stone, the sixth adventure of Cyrus Skeen, private detective and socialite in San Francisco, it is February 1930, marking the end of the Roaring Twenties and the beginning of the Depression and the "Red Decade," when Soviet spies and Com...

  • The Pickwick Affair

    Cyrus Skeen - 7

    After having some breathing room from his last case, which brought him up against Islamic operatives in San Francisco in The Black Stone, Cyrus Skeen and his wife take a short vacation on a luxury bus, the Pickwick Stage. But the bus is held up by ga...

  • The Circles of Odin

    Cyrus Skeen - 8

    The time of The Circles of Odin is early September, 1929, after Skeen’s case of the Daedàlus Society in July and before he discovers in November a Nazi Bund in Palo Alto, south of San Francisco, Skeen’s main venue of his adventures. This ninth t...

  • Silver Screens

    Cyrus Skeen - 9

    It is April, 1930. The Roaring Twenties have ended. The nation is absorbing the shock of the stock market crash of the previous October. However, in the wake of the economic catastrophe, Cyrus Skeen, private detective, scion of East Coast wealth, and...

  • Sleight of Hand

    Cyrus Skeen - 10

    It is October 1929. The Roaring Twenties will end near the end of the month with the stock market crash heard round the world. . The nation will absorb the consequences of the crash with great difficulty over the next decade, exacerbated by governmen...



  • Stolen Words

    Cyrus Skeen - 11

    It is June, 1929. The Roaring Twenties are still “roaring” but the period is doomed. San Francisco’s celebrated Cyrus Skeen, private detective, and scion of Eastern wealth, is secure in his solvency; he has never bought stock on margin. He is a...

  • An August Interlude

    Cyrus Skeen - 12

    It is August, 1929. Fresh and rested from his case in The Daedàlus Conspiracy in July, which took him to the Daedàlus Grove in Northern California to foil an assassination attempt, Cyrus Skeen hires a new secretary, the promisingly capable Clara Re...

  • Wintery Discontent

    Cyrus Skeen - 13

    It is February, 1929. Cyrus Skeen is hired by an Austrian aristocrat whom Skeen calls a “One-Worlder Gadabout,” Count Paul Axel Heinrich Joachim von Wormuth-Esterházy, of Vienna, to find out who is trying to kill him. He gives Skeen a list he ha...

  • Manhattan Blues

    Cyrus Skeen - 14

    It is March, 1929. Cyrus Skeen is called to New York by his father, Garnett Skeen, to attend to some trust fund affairs. Skeen’s detective agency is subsidized by a trust fund his father set up years before, but his mother, Eleanor “Nellie” Ske...

  • The Janus Affair

    Cyrus Skeen - 15

    It is April, 1929. Cyrus Skeen is recovering from his startling escapade in New York City, where he journeyed in March to attend to some of his father’s business. There he met a captivating opera singer for whom he developed an affection almost bor...

  • First Things

    Cyrus Skeen - 16

    It is late April, 1929. Cyrus Skeen has concluded his case in The Janus Affair involving the murder of a prominent commercial artist by apprehending the murderers of an advertising agency’s office manager. He has just seen off his wife, Dilys, on a...

  • Civic Affairs

    Cyrus Skeen - 17

    It is late May, 1929. Cyrus Skeen has concluded his case in The Head of Athena in which he exonerated a prominent lecturer of the charge of murder. His artist wife, Dilys, has returned from a visit to relatives back East in Massachusetts, and is prep...

  • Exegesis

    Cyrus Skeen - 18

    It is late June, 1929. Cyrus Skeen has concluded his case in Stolen Words, in which he exonerated a prominent novelist of the charge of murder, even though the author had plagiarized other authors with the cooperation of the now defunct publisher. Sk...

  • Seeing Double

    Cyrus Skeen - 19

    It is early December, 1929. Cyrus Skeen has concluded his case in The Chameleon, in which he uncovered a cell of the Nazi Party near Stanford University in Palo Alto, a college town south of San Francisco. But into his life come two Germans, one a Ho...

  • Trichotomy

    Cyrus Skeen - 20

    This is the twentieth Cyrus Skeen detective novel. Skeen and his artist wife, Dilys, plan to have a quiet Christmas together, but then Skeen is suddenly invited to speak before a sociology class about his “Trichotomy” article in the American Merc...



  • Beginnings

    Cyrus Skeen - 21

    It is early October, 1928. This is the twenty-first Cyrus Skeen detective novel. It covers the time when Dilys Jones was his secretary, and before he formed close friendships with Mickey Kane, Lieutenant Raggio, and Lieutenant Donovan. In this episod...

  • Reciprocity

    Cyrus Skeen - 22

    It is early January, 1929. This is the twenty-second Cyrus Skeen detective novel. It covers the time after Skeen has married Dilys Jones, his intrepid and lovely secretary, and after he has formed close friendships with Mickey Kane, Lieutenant Raggio...

  • Saving Athena

    Cyrus Skeen - 23

    It is early January, 1930. This is the twenty-third Cyrus Skeen detective novel. It covers the time after Skeen has married Dilys Jones, his intrepid and lovely secretary, and after he has formed close friendships with Mickey Kane, Lieutenant Raggio,...

  • Split Infinitives

    Cyrus Skeen - 24

    It is late January 1930. This is the twenty-fourth Cyrus Skeen detective novel. It covers the time after Skeen has married Dilys Jones, his intrepid and lovely secretary, and after he has formed close friendships with Mickey Kane, Lieutenant Raggio, ...

  • Celebrity News

    Cyrus Skeen - 26

    It is early February 1930. This is the twenty-sixth Cyrus Skeen detective novel. Cyrus Skeen finds himself at odds with a Hollywood gossip magazine that wants to splash his name around. But then odd things begin to happen, and details of Skeen’s li...

  • Passions

    Cyrus Skeen - 25

    It is early 1930. This is the twenty-fifth Cyrus Skeen detective novel. Skeen meets the Kentucky moonshiner, Lemuel Skitter, who has been charged with murdering his daughter, Jewell, who eloped with the son of a rival moonshiner, Ezekiel McBride. Ski...

  • Inquest

    Cyrus Skeen - 27

    Struggling to make a success of his detective agency, he finds himself the target of an ambitious local assistant district attorney after, an inquest has been held surrounding the death of a criminal. Skeen had tried to subdue and have him arrested; ...

  • Double Entendre

    Cyrus Skeen - 28

    It is early December, 1927. Cyrus Skeen has concluded his case in Inquest, in which he was at odds with an Assistant District Attorney in Redwood City, just south of San Francisco. He was subpoenaed by the Assistant D.A. there to appear before an inq...

  • Sufferance

    Cyrus Skeen - 29

    Sufferance is the twenty-ninth Cyrus Skeen detective novel, set in San Francisco in mid-March 1928. Skeen has moved into his new office in the Humboldt Bank Building on Market Street " a vast improvement over his Howard Street office " and is set...

  • The Skeen Chronicles

    Cyrus Skeen - 31

    The Skeen Chronicles is the thirty-first Cyrus Skeen title, set in December 1930. The series itself is set in San Francisco between 1927 and 1930. His late friend, Mickey Kane, reporter for the San Francisco Observer-World, kept a record of Skeen’s...



  • Warlocks

    Cyrus Skeen - 30

    It is June, 1928. There are signs that the Roaring Twenties will end in October with the stock market crash. However, in the wake of the coming economic catastrophe, Cyrus Skeen, private detective, scion of East Coast wealth, and a figure in San Fran...

  • Reprisals

    Cyrus Skeen - 32

    It is early November, 1929. The stock market has crashed. The Roaring Twenties are about to end. But Cyrus Skeen, private detective, is not too concerned. He never bought on margin or gambled on "sure things" to make a quick buck; his wealth is secur...

  • The Pendulum

    Cyrus Skeen - 33

    It is late November 1929. Cyrus Skeen has concluded his case in Reprisals, and apprehended the elusive Gideon Knowles, the Nazi enforcer of a vendetta concocted against Skeen because in the previous month he exposed an American Nazi Bund near Stanfor...

  • School Days

    Cyrus Skeen - 34

    It is late December 1929. A few days before Christmas. Cyrus Skeen has concluded his case in The Pendulum, and Witnesses the Berlin project to assassinate a German envoy to America, but blame the killing on Skeen’s friend, Mickey Kane, a top newspa...

  • Breakdown

    In this 36th installment of the series, Skeen is the unfazed victim of an insidious plan to drive him crazy, but in this case he learns it is a policy of the Soviets, although it is an idea handed to the East German Communists by the Soviets later in...

  • The Gumshoe Guild

    In this 37th Cyrus Skeen novel, in March, 1930, Skeen is attacked by the Association of Private Investigators Alliance (the PIA), or, as it is nicknamed, “The Gumshoe Guild,” for refusing to join. He is initially approached by its president, Mars...

  • Serenity

    It is mid-March, 1930. Cyrus Skeen has concluded his case in The Gumshoe Guild. In this, the 38th Skeen novel, Skeen and his wife, Dilys, are attending a party at the mansion of Maud Skipton, their wealthy Nob Hill neighbor, when they are introduced ...

  • Chicago Serenade

    In this 39th Cyrus Skeen novel, set in April 1930. Skeen flies to Chicago to help a former Yale classmate, who calls him at the office about his problem. After listening to his friend’s problem, Skeen decides to fly to Chicago to look into the conf...

  • Flute

    In this 40th Cyrus Skeen novel, set in late April 1930, the detective, fresh from a case in Chicago, looks into the troubles of a black comedian at the Happy Time nightclub in China Basin, owned by Morris Avinatti, and Italian with connections to the...

  • A Final Canvas

    It is May, 1930. Skeen rushes Dilys, his wife, to the hospital after she has fainted and fallen in her studio. She has damaged the area where a thug had sapped her with a pistol two months earlier when she and Skeen were ambushed in Huntington Park. ...

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Edward Cline has published 59 books.

Edward Cline does not have a new book coming out soon. The latest book, A Final Canvas, was published in November 2018.

The first book by Edward Cline, First Prize, was published in March 1988.

Yes. Edward Cline has 3 series.
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