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Standalone Books in Order
Below you'll find the complete list of Standalone books in publication order. This is generally the recommended reading order for the series.
Reading order verified: March 2026
Quick Answer
What order should I read the Standalone series? Start with "Now and on Earth" (1942) and follow publication order through all 41 books.
The complete Standalone reading order is listed below in publication sequence.
Publication Order
Now and on Earth
1942
Heed the Thunder
1946
Nothing More Than Murder / Murder at the Bijou
1949
Cropper's Cabin / Sharecropper Hell
1952
The Killer Inside Me
1952
Bad Boy
1953
The Criminal
1953
Recoil
1953
The Alcoholics
1953
Savage Night
1953
The Golden Gizmo
1954
A Swell-Looking Babe
1954
The Nothing Man
1954
A Hell of a Woman
1954
Roughneck
1954
King Blood
1954
After Dark, My Sweet
1955
The Kill-Off
1957
Flint (As: Gil Dodge)
1957
Wild Town
1957
The Getaway
1958
The Transgressors
1961
The Grifters
1963
Pop. 1280
1964
Texas by the Tail
1965
South of Heaven
1967
Ironside
1967
The Undefeated
1969
Nothing But a Man
1970
Child of Rage
1972
The Cellini Chalice
1988
The Rip-Off
1989
ireworks: The Lost Writings
1988
City Sleuths and Tough Guys
1989
Murder Plus
1992
First Fiction: An Anthology of the First Published Stories by Famous Writers
1994
Great Chicago Stories: Portraits and Stories
1996
Pulp Frictions: Hardboiled Stories
1996
The Mammoth Encyclopedia of Modern Crime Fiction
2002
Robots
2008
Two of Jim Thompson books have been adapted into movies. The Getaway
1959
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