Read every series in the right order
A Shaw Books in Chronological Order – Complete Reading Guide
Table of Contents
Quick Answer (TL;DR)
Read David Baldacci’s A Shaw thrillers in publication order—it’s also the in-universe chronology:
- The Whole Truth (2008) → 2) Deliver Us from Evil (2010).
This two-book sequence is the complete mainline for Shaw & Katie James according to the author’s official series listing and standard references.
Introduction
If you landed here searching for A Shaw Books in Chronological Order, you’re probably a Baldacci fan who likes your thrillers global, contemporary, and just plausible enough to make you check the headlines twice. These are high-velocity geopolitical novels driven by three forces:
- Nicolas Creel, a defense-industry mogul who believes manufactured conflict is the sharpest growth strategy;
- Dick Pender, a “perception management” maestro who weaponizes narrative;
- Shaw, a first-name-less operator reluctantly doing multilateral black-ops to prevent catastrophe—often with a journalist, Katie James, pulled into the blast radius.
The Shaw books are “big canvas Baldacci”: private power, public panic, and field agents who know the difference between an op plan and reality. Because the arc is tight—two novels that escalate cleanly—reading in order preserves the tension, the moral stakes, and the expanding relationship between Shaw and Katie. This guide gives you everything you need: quick facts, clean buy links, spoiler-light blurbs, a series timeline, and format tips, all grounded in official series sources.
Quick Facts
| Item | Details |
|---|---|
| Series | A Shaw by David Baldacci (2 novels) |
| Core Genres | Geopolitical/espionage thriller; political conspiracy |
| Typical Length | ~400–500 pages per novel (edition variance). First HC: The Whole Truth ~406 pp; Deliver Us from Evil ~416 pp. Later reprints show higher counts (trade/mass market). |
| Estimated Read Time | ~8–10 hours per book at 250 wpm; ~16–20 hours for the series |
| Reading Difficulty | Mainstream—fast chapters, modern intel jargon, globe-trotting locales |
| Content Warnings | Political violence/terror, torture mentions, mass-casualty threats, assassination, organized crime |
| Ideal Age Range | Adults & mature teens comfortable with high-stakes thriller content |
| Media Adaptations | None announced/none widely released for the A Shaw duology as of Oct 2025 (the TV King & Maxwell is a different Baldacci series). |
Why the page-count range? Publishers issue multiple formats (hardcover, trade, mass market, reprints). Product pages and catalogs list different page totals by trim size and typeface. We anchor the first editions and note reprint variances.
About the A Shaw Book Series
Baldacci aims the Shaw novels at the soft tissue between truth and plausibility. In The Whole Truth, an aggressive defense executive (Creel) bankrolls perception warfare to tilt the world toward a new Cold War profitability cycle—because markets love predictable enemies. The tool of choice isn’t just missiles or mercenaries; it’s narrative. Pender, the hired “perception manager,” pushes the right stories into the right ears at the right time until panic finds policy.
In the blast radius: Shaw, a reluctant multi-national asset moving from one simmering point to the next, and Katie James, a reporter clawing back her career who catches a once-in-a-lifetime lead. Their trajectories collide, and the series becomes a study in how far the powerful will go to manufacture events—and who pays the bill when lies become doctrine.
The follow-up, Deliver Us from Evil, leans into the fallout: a predator with transnational networks is pursuing a venture measured in millions of deaths, and both Shaw and a separate vigilante cell close in, unaware they’re stepping on each other’s op. The controlling question shifts from “Who is shaping the story?” to “Who gets to decide justice?”—institutions or extralegal actors.
A Shaw Books Books at a Glance
| # | Title (Year) | Amazon |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | The Whole Truth (2008) | Buy on Amazon |
| 2 | Deliver Us from Evil (2010) | Buy on Amazon |
Order and dates confirmed by publisher/official listings.
A Shaw Books in Chronological Reading Order
Good news for planners: A Shaw Books in Chronological Order equals publication order. Here’s what each entry adds, spoiler-light.
1) The Whole Truth (2008)
“Dick, I need a war.” With five syllables, Baldacci sketches an entire business model. Nicolas Creel, head of the Ares Corporation (a defense behemoth), hires Dick Pender, a specialist in perception management, to engineer a global narrative that herds governments—and markets—toward confrontation. Pender’s craft isn’t propaganda in the blunt, old sense; it’s strategic story-planting across media, think tanks, and political backchannels until the “truth” feels inevitable.
Into this storm walks Shaw, an off-book operator working for a murky multinational intelligence consortium, and Katie James, a tenacious journalist desperate to salvage her reputation who lands an interview any reporter would kill for: the sole survivor of a massacre the world can’t stop watching. Their paths converge as manufactured reality tips into real violence.
Why start here: It lays the philosophical spine of the duology—narrative as ordnance—and forges the Shaw/Katie pairing that drives the second book. Publication date and core details: April 22, 2008 (Grand Central Publishing); first-edition HC ~406 pp.
2) Deliver Us from Evil (2010)
Evan Waller is a profit-maximizing monster with a new venture that could kill millions. Shaw tracks him to Provence to shut the deal down—cleanly, quietly, permanently. But a second hunter shadows the same quarry: Reggie Campion, part of a clandestine vigilante organization headquartered in an English estate. Neither team knows the other exists, and their dueling pursuits tangle the op, the objectives, and the ethics: is institutional justice always justice, and when does vengeance claim the moral high ground?
Why it satisfies: The plot is propulsive—one of Baldacci’s most throttled-up chases—but the heartbeat is an argument about power without accountability, whether held by states or “justified” by personal nightmares. Publication date and HC length: April 20, 2010 (Grand Central Publishing), ~416 pp.
Series Timeline & Character Development
A two-book series can still arc hard. Here’s how A Shaw earns reading in order:
- Shaw (no first name): Introduced as a surgical instrument with a rule set and a past he won’t display. In The Whole Truth, the mask cracks as he learns just how far perception campaigns can accelerate real-world killing. In Deliver Us from Evil, he collides with a vigilante counterpart whose methods tempt his worst impulses; the tension becomes not just can I stop the threat? but what kind of man does that make me if I succeed?
- Katie James: In Book 1 she’s the reporter clawing back credibility; by Book 2 she’s not just a witness to events but an agent of pressure who understands the stakes of stories—what they hide, what they unleash, and what they cost the people who carry them.
- Antagonists:
- Creel/Pender (Book 1) weaponize belief; once belief becomes policy, the damage is systemic and hard to unwind.
- Evan Waller (Book 2) weaponizes people, treating lives as inventory. He’s the franchise’s argument that some evils metabolize whatever incentives we give them.
- Theme evolution: From “Who writes the truth?” → to “Who grants justice?” The shift is clean only if you read the A Shaw Books in Chronological Order (start-to-finish) so each question lands on the bones of the prior answer.
Novels sorted in order of in-universe events
- The Whole Truth
- Deliver Us from Evil
(Internal chronology tracks publication.)
Novels sorted in order of publication
- The Whole Truth (April 22, 2008)
- Deliver Us from Evil (April 20, 2010)
Companion Works
There are no canonical prequels/novellas that alter the Shaw timeline. If you’re building a Baldacci shelf with similar vibe and scope, consider:
- Will Robie (assassin duology-plus) for covert ops & federal entanglements.
- The Camel Club for D.C. conspiracies with an eccentric civilian core.
- King & Maxwell for ex-Secret Service PIs who keep falling into national-level messes.
Those are separate series; they don’t change the two-book A Shaw continuity. For the most precise “what to read when,” rely on the author’s series pages and up-to-date publisher lists.
Editions & Formats (hardcover, collector, audio)
- Hardcover (first editions): The Whole Truth (Grand Central Publishing, Apr 2008; ~406 pp HC listing); Deliver Us from Evil (Grand Central Publishing, Apr 2010; ~416 pp HC listing).
- Trade & Mass Market Reprints: Expect higher page counts due to typesetting; for example, a 2019 B&N trade PB of The Whole Truth lists 496 pages.
- Kindle & Audiobook: Both titles are available in e-book and unabridged audio; audiobooks typically feature professional narration aligned with the thriller’s pace (see retailer/publisher product pages).
- Collector tips:
- Match imprint/trim for a tidy two-book set (Grand Central reprints pair well).
- Look for clean jackets and full number lines on HC first printings.
- If you love format parity, the newer trade paperbacks provide consistent spines/dimensions across both titles.
Why Read A Shaw Books in Chronological Order?
- Continuity of ideas: Book 1’s “perception as weapon” directly informs Book 2’s “justice by any means?” If you reverse them, the ethical debates feel unmoored.
- Character momentum: Shaw’s guarded interiority and Katie’s career reclamation build book-over-book; watching their judgment harden (and soften) is half the pleasure.
- Escalation that sticks: The second novel presumes you understand the consequences of Book 1’s manufactured truths—politically, personally, operationally.
Short version: if your aim is clarity and maximum punch, stick to A Shaw Books in Chronological Order exactly as published.
Author Spotlight: David Baldacci
David Baldacci has published 50+ novels for adults, translated into 45+ languages, selling in 80+ countries with global sales reported at 150 million+ copies. His breakout debut, Absolute Power (1996), was adapted into a feature film directed by and starring Clint Eastwood. Beyond writing, Baldacci and his wife founded the Wish You Well Foundation, which funds U.S. literacy initiatives. For series order and current releases, the author’s and publishers’ official pages remain authoritative and up to date.
What sets Baldacci apart—especially evident in the Shaw books—is the fusion of pace (short chapters that refuse to idle) with questions that outlive the last page: Who builds the stories we believe? Who benefits? And when institutions fail, who’s allowed to act?
Media Adaptations (films, TV, radio)
As of October 2025, there are no widely released film or TV adaptations of the A Shaw duology. (If that changes, check the author’s series page and publisher listings—we’ll update this section first.) Note: TNT’s King & Maxwell (2013) adapts a different Baldacci series.
FAQs
Do I have to read the Shaw books in order?
Yes. It’s only two novels, and Book 2 presumes familiarity with the people and stakes from Book 1. Publication order = story order.
Is this connected to King & Maxwell or Will Robie?
No. Separate casts/universes. You can read them independently, though the themes (intel, state power, moral gray zones) rhyme across Baldacci’s work.
Is there a prequel or novella for Shaw?
None that change continuity. If Baldacci adds to the Shaw line, place it by publication date and keep the two novel spine intact
How intense is the content?
Mainstream thriller intensity: political violence, mass-casualty threats, torture mentions. The tone is tense rather than graphic.
Audiobook or print?
Whichever you’ll finish. The tight chapter structure sings on audio; print is great for a weekend double-feature.
Where is it set?
Global—Washington/London/continental Europe moving to Provence and other hotspots in Book 2. (Expect passports, burner phones, and too many acronyms.)
Final Thoughts
If your goal today was simply to find A Shaw Books in Chronological Order, you’ve got your marching orders: The Whole Truth then Deliver Us from Evil—two novels that read like one long operation escalating from engineered narratives to the morality of justice itself. Start with The Whole Truth for the “weaponized story” foundation; continue with Deliver Us from Evil for the hard question of what we owe the world when the system can’t (or won’t) do what’s right.
Ready to go? Grab both, queue a chair (or an audiobook app), and give yourself a two-book sprint that hits like a season of prestige TV—with sharper plotting and no hiatus.
