Nick Pengelley Books In Order

Publication Order of Ayesha Ryder Books

Author Nick Pengelley has had a varied career, working as a law librarian and law professor (specializing in international commercial arbitration) in the United Kingdom, Australia, and Canada. Nick has also worked for a major Canadian NGO, as an analyst, that focuses on the politics and culture of the Middle East, something he is passionate about.

Nick is able to read about a book a week, but is terrified to think that if he is able to live until he is two hundred years old, he might just be able to read ten thousand.

Nick lists many influences on his own writing. Authors such as Peter O’Donnell, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, H. Rider Haggard, and John Buchan figure in quite prominently, something that will not shock fans of his “Ryder” stories. He enjoys the ripping yarns from the inter-war years, penned by such writers like Leslie Charteris, Sapper, Edgar Wallace, and Domford Yates. Modern favorites include Elizabeth Kostova (“The Historian”), Alan Furst, Neil Gaiman, Umberto Eco (especially “The Name of the Rose”), Douglas Adams, and Terry Pratchett.

He enjoys fiction still, but is mainly interested in modern Middle Eastern and European history, and biography. This is after he found out years ago that truth is stranger than fiction.

He lists his heroes, all of them literary adventurers, as Gertrude Bell, Winston Churchill, and T. E. Lawrence.

He writes the “Ayesha Ryder” series of thriller novels, the first of which, called “Ryder”, was released in the year 2013.

“Ryder” is the first novel in the “Ayesha Ryder” series, which was released in the year 2013. Ayesha Ryder has the scars from the strife in the Middle East. Now her past starts catching up with her while she races to unravel mystery that spans whole centuries. It even threatens to change the entire course of history.

While Palestinian and Israeli leaders get ready to make a joint announcement at the Tower of London, an influential scholar is tortured and killed in his home in St. John’s Wood. Ayesha Ryder, academic researcher, believes that the killing is not a coincidence. Sir Evelyn Montagu unearthed some stunning revelations about T. E. Lawrence, that famed Lawrence of Arabia. Is it possible Montagu was targeted due to the discoveries he made?

Ryder’s hunt for answers takes her right back to her old life in the Middle East and right into a lion’s den filled with traitors and killers. She draws in the attention of agents on both sides of the conflict, including some detectives from MI5 and Scotland Yard. At the same time, Ryder digs deeper into an astonishing case of blackmail, Lawrence’s secrets, and even the hunt for the Bible’s missing Ark of the Covenant.

Each step of the way, the endgame gets more terrifying. An attack rocks London, and the real players begin to show their hand, with Ayesha left holding the last piece of the puzzle.

“American Treasure” is the second novel in the “Ayesha Ryder” series, which was released in the year 2015. Two hundred years ago, British forces beat the American army out in the field and entered Washington, burning and looting the Capitol and White House. Today, the loot would have been of inestimable financial and historical worth, but no one has found it. Ayesha Ryder, known to the rest of the world as the woman who rescued Israel’s prime minster from a hired killer’s bullet, is called on to locate it.

After pulling herself away from her quest to find the Ark of the Covenant, Ayesha rapidly gets embroiled in a murderous fight between a terrorist organization bent on revenge rival candidates for the American presidency. As she runs for her life, she has to unravel a tangled web that connects President James Madison to the stolen treasure. It even implicates the British prime minister in a rather steamy sex scandal. Following the twisted trails of history, Ayesha finds the truth and she confronts the consequences of her own secret past.

Fans had a tough time putting this one down for very long. The historical elements that were woven into the plot and enjoyed reading about Ryder even more. Readers enjoyed the entire thing and plan on checking out the next one in the series.

“Bird of Prey” is the third novel in the “Ayesha Ryder” series, which was released in the year 2015. The Maltese Falcon was not just the stuff of legend, this gorgeously jeweled golden bird actually existed. It still does, according to a dying man’s final words. Ayesha is trying to track it, but not only to find the Falcon. It is rumored to contain a clue to the lost burial place of King Harold of England, which is a potent symbol for the ruthless politicians looking to break up the United Kingdom and make an independent and new English Kingdom. The Falcon could also contain another clue, one that only few would actually believe.

Tracked by Dame Imogen Worsely from MI5 and Scotland Yard, as well as those who want to take possession of the Falcon and its secrets for themselves, labeled an assassin, Ayesha joins up with Joram Tate. He is the enigmatic librarian that is known to her buddy Lady Madrigal, who was a one time lover of Lawrence of Arabia.

While Ayesha’s attraction to Tate develops, they follow the clues that were left by long-dead knights to a Saxon king’s tomb as well as to the ruined Battle Abbey. The trail takes them to a shocking secret that has been hidden for a thousand years underneath an English castle, Ayesha has to battle modern murderers with some medieval weapons. And this is before she confronts the evil that looks to destroy her nation.

With each and every book, these get more intense and exciting than the previous one was. There is suspense and action that never lets up. Once you pick this book up, you will not want to put it back down until you have finished the entire thing. The book is written well with a resourceful and strong female lead.