Charlie Gallagher Books in Order
See Charlie Gallagher books in order, with quick summaries, series guides, and where to start with Langthorne, Maddie Ives, Joel Norris, and more.
Last updated: June 7, 2026
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Publication Order
20 books
Six Hours to Live
by Charlie Gallagher
2026
A woman is trapped in a shipping container that is slowly filling with water, and her husband can do almost nothing to save her. Abigail Morton is pulled back into policing and into the secretive, dangerous world of source handling.
The Girls Upstairs
by Charlie Gallagher
2024
Two girls sleep upstairs while an intruder terrorises their parents downstairs, making one wrong move potentially fatal. The scene Maddie Ives walks into is horrifying enough, but what shakes her most is that she knows the victim.
The Girl Under The Floor
by Charlie Gallagher
2023
A child hidden under the floorboards may be the only witness to a brutal home invasion. When a second household is attacked, Maddie Ives realises these are not random robberies and must reach the truth before the killer comes back.
Last One Alive
by Charlie Gallagher
2022
Daisy-Mae wakes up bound in an unknown room with a warning painted on the wall. When another woman vanishes and the trail leads back to an unsolved 1999 double murder, Maddie Ives races to stop history repeating itself.
The Friend
by Charlie Gallagher
2021
When a stranger offers grieving parents and a bereaved widower the chance to punish the people who hurt them, revenge starts to look simple. DI Joel Norris sees only scattered murders at first, then the shape of a much darker game.
Lethal Game
by Charlie Gallagher
2021
A murdered woman on a quiet lane is only the opening move in a killer's elaborate real-life game. DI Joel Norris and DS Lucy Rose must decode the rules fast, because every new round brings fresh victims.
The Deadly Houses
by Charlie Gallagher
2020
Four violent abusers join forces to punish the people they blame for losing control of their families. Maddie Ives faces a hidden insider, targeted attacks, and a case that turns domestic terror into something much larger.
He Will Get You
by Charlie Gallagher
2020
A ruthless killer stays one step ahead of Maddie Ives, choosing victims with chilling purpose and watching the fallout unfold. As the body count rises and the pattern shifts, Maddie realises someone close to the police is in real danger.
He Will Kill You
by Charlie Gallagher
2019
Grace Hughes knows that if she stays, her partner will kill her. While Maddie Ives tries to get her to safety, a dead child, a bomber, and a returning Harry Blaker turn the case into a frantic fight against time.
He Will Find You
by Charlie Gallagher
2019
When a barefoot boy walks into traffic covered in someone else's blood, Maddie Ives knows something terrible has happened. A savage murder follows, and Maddie and Harry Blaker must find the hand behind both crimes before more lives are wrecked.
He Knows Your Secrets
by Charlie Gallagher
2019
Holly Maguire dies trying to expose a powerful man, and the woman she leaves behind is marked for a live-streamed murder. Maddie Ives refuses to accept the easy explanation and starts pulling at threads that lead to exploitation and control.
Then She Ran
by Charlie Gallagher
2018
Jenny Harris runs for her life with her baby after armed men burst into her world without warning. At the same time George Elms investigates a violent robbery gone wrong, and the link between the two cases grows deadlier by the hour.
Ruthless
by Charlie Gallagher
2018
After a fatal car crash leaves teenager Rhiannon alone, she is pulled into a violent drugs world she barely understands. Will Dryden has nothing left to lose, and together they become targets for a gang leader who answers every challenge with force.
Her Last Breath
by Charlie Gallagher
2018
Dying serial killer Henry Roberts offers one last bargain, move him, and he'll reveal where two victims lie. George Elms suspects a living partner is still out there, and when more women disappear, the clock starts ticking hard.
He Is Watching You
by Charlie Gallagher
2018
A young woman is left alive in a metal container so her attacker can watch what happens next. New transfer Maddie Ives and DI Harry Blaker follow separate cases that collide into a race to stop a sadistic killer.
Panic Button
by Charlie Gallagher
2017
A killer is hunting Langthorne police officers and making each victim broadcast their final moments. With the force panicking and George Elms barely holding himself together, the case turns personal fast.
Missing
by Charlie Gallagher
2017
A woman and young boy vanish from a busy town centre, while a desperate man on a viaduct may hold the answers. Negotiator Shaun Carter and George Elms are dragged into a case where every choice hurts someone.
End Game
by Charlie Gallagher
2017
Fresh out of prison, George Elms is pulled back into a force still reeling from corruption and murder. To stop cop killer Kane Forley, he must lead the hunt while wondering whether his own bosses are using him as bait.
Bodily Harm
by Charlie Gallagher
2017
After a teenage girl and her boyfriend are stabbed on a bus, Langthorne erupts. Detective George Elms digs into the notorious Effingell Estate, where media pressure, shaky confessions, and hidden loyalties make the truth hard to reach.
Blood Money
by Charlie Gallagher
2017
Tony Robson needs money to keep his son alive, and the quickest route leads straight to Langthorne's criminal underworld. His desperate choice sets off a chain reaction that pulls George Elms and the police into a brutal crisis.
Where should I start?
If you want to start at the beginning: Bodily Harm → Panic Button → Blood Money → End Game
If you want his biggest ongoing police series: He Is Watching You → He Will Kill You → He Will Find You
If you want twisty, puzzle-led crime: The Friend → Lethal Game
If you want something darker and more standalone: Ruthless
If you want his newest direction: Six Hours to Live
Author bio
Charlie Gallagher grew up just outside Dover, and he has said that writing was always the thing he wanted to do. Long before the books were published, he was already drawn to stories, to people under pressure, and to the small details that make a thriller feel real. That mix still runs through his work now.
The police came first.
Gallagher joined the force in Kent and spent thirteen years in policing. Over that time he worked as a front-line response officer, served in a specialist tactical team, and later became a detective investigating serious offences. He has also spoken about working in areas that touched counter terrorism. That background shows up in his fiction, not because he copies real cases, but because he understands how people act when they are frightened, desperate, angry, or hiding something.
He has said one reason he joined the police was that he wanted to understand people better and gather material for stories. It gave him exactly that. He saw people at their best and at their worst, and it taught him how to keep a thriller plausible. He often writes about the pressure around a case, the strain on families, and the way ordinary places can turn dangerous very quickly.
For years he wrote around the day job, building books in the gaps between shifts and family life. That long stretch produced the George Elms novels, beginning with Bodily Harm, and later the Maddie Ives books, which opened with He Is Watching You. The settings often draw on the Kent coast, especially the Folkestone area, though in the earlier books he used fictional names for places while he was still serving as an officer.
He likes pressure on the page.
That is easy to see across his books. Her Last Breath turns on a dying serial killer and a last bargain. The Friend and Lethal Game lean into manipulation and twisted rules. Ruthless steps away from the police station and drops into the orbit of drug dealers and vulnerable young people. More recently, Six Hours to Live opens a new strand of his work by moving into the secretive world of source handling, where informants, intelligence, and trust are all in short supply.
Readers tend to come to Gallagher for pace, believable police detail, and characters who feel like working people rather than genre ornaments. His detectives are rarely glamorous. They are tired, stubborn, sharp, and often carrying damage from the job. Again and again, his books circle back to a few core interests: families under strain, coercion and control, hidden criminal networks, and the split-second choices that can ruin or save a life.
Gallagher now writes full time and lives on the south coast of England, in Folkestone, with his wife and two children. He has also mentioned a geriatric spaniel, a tortoise, and two cats, which tells you something about the household energy. He has been writing for around twenty years, and his fiction still feels rooted in the same idea that seems to have started it all, people are messy, pressure reveals character, and a good thriller should never feel too far from real life.
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