Stephen Mertz

Stephen Mertz is a bestselling American fiction author that has made his name writing mainstream suspense and thriller novels. His novels cover a wide range of writing styles from hardboiled noir, to historical speculative thrillers, and paranormal dark suspense novels. The author was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, which is where he spent most of his childhood.

The best place to start is the Kilroy Mystery series, the earliest of Stephen Mertz's multi-book series: it opens with Some Die Hard (1979) and runs to 4 books across 1979–2019, ending with Sweet Blackmail (2019). Stephen Mertz's other series stand alone, so they can be read in any order.

Stephen Mertz has 75 books catalogued in this guide, published between 1979 and 2023. 59 of them belong to 8 named series — the largest being the M.I.A. Hunter series with 17 books — and 16 are standalone titles, collections or anthologies.

Read each series in publication order — the numbered entries in each series follow the year each book first appeared. Stephen Mertz's series do not depend on one another, so they can be started in any order; by start date they are Kilroy Mystery (1979–2019, 4 books), Steve Madison Mysteries (1979–2004, 2 books) and M.I.A. Hunter (1985–2014, 17 books), plus 5 more.

This guide splits Stephen Mertz's 75 books into 8 named series and 16 titles that stand alone or appear only in collections: M.I.A. Hunter (17 books, 1985–2014); Blaze! Western (16 books, 2015–2017); Cody's War (10 books, 2019–2023); Cody's Army (7 books, 1986–1988); Kilroy Mystery (4 books, 1979–2019), plus 3 further series.