Charlie Parker
supernatural crime
Series · fantasy
Samuel Johnson
The Samuel Johnson series by John Connolly has 3 books and is best read in publication order, starting with The Gates (2009).
- Books
- 3 books
- First published
- 2009
- Status
- completed
- Last checked
Start here: The Gates (2009) — then read straight through in publication order.
Reading order
The order the books were released — the default way to read the series.
- Book 1:
The Gates
Alternative text for cover: Cover of The Gates - Book 2:
The Infernals
Alternative text for cover: Cover of The Infernals - Book 3:
The Creeps
Alternative text for cover: Cover of The Creeps
About the Samuel Johnson series
Samuel Johnson is an ordinary boy in an ordinary English town who accidentally helps tear a hole between our world and Hell while investigating his neighbor's suspicious basement activities, setting off a comic-horror trilogy that runs in a very different register from Connolly's Charlie Parker novels. Working with his dachshund Boswell and a succession of thoroughly incompetent demons -- Nurd, the Scourge of Five Deities, chief among them -- Samuel has to stop a genuine demonic invasion using little more than curiosity, decency and a willingness to talk his way past monsters who are, mostly, not very good at their jobs. Connolly plays the horror completely straight while making almost everything around it very funny, including regular footnotes that undercut the story's own tension for a joke.
The trilogy escalates from a small-town portal opening in The Gates through Hell's own internal politics and a botched invasion attempt in The Infernals (published in the UK as Hell's Bells) to a final confrontation in The Creeps, while keeping its footing as accessible middle-grade and younger-YA fantasy throughout -- readers who know Connolly only from Charlie Parker's grim supernatural crime will find this a genuinely different, gentler, and consistently funnier side of his writing, though no less inventive about demons and the mechanics of Hell.
How to read this series
Publication order -- The Gates (2009), then The Infernals / Hell's Bells (2011), then The Creeps (2013) -- is the only sensible way through this trilogy; each book picks up directly from the fallout of the last, and the demon politics and character relationships build continuously. Note that The Infernals was retitled Hell's Bells for its UK edition, so the same book appears under two names depending on where an edition was published -- check before buying a "fourth" book that turns out to be a duplicate. The trilogy is complete at three books and works well as a lighter companion read alongside Connolly's darker Charlie Parker novels.
Frequently asked questions
How many books are in the Samuel Johnson series?
Three: The Gates (2009), The Infernals (2011, published in the UK as Hell's Bells) and The Creeps (2013).
Is The Infernals the same book as Hell's Bells?
Yes -- Hell's Bells is the UK title for the same novel published in the US as The Infernals.
What order should I read the Samuel Johnson books in?
Publication order: The Gates, then The Infernals (Hell's Bells), then The Creeps. Each book continues directly from the previous one's ending.
Is the Samuel Johnson series connected to John Connolly's Charlie Parker novels?
No, it's an unrelated comic horror-fantasy trilogy for younger readers, tonally very different from the Charlie Parker crime novels.
Is the Samuel Johnson trilogy finished?
Yes, it's complete at three books; no further volume has been published since The Creeps in 2013.
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Reading order last verified .