Best Exorcist and Demon Hunter Books to Read Next

Why write exorcism novels when The Exorcist exists and nobody's topping it?

Because religious horror is the only kind that still scares me. A monster in the woods is a problem you can shoot. A haunted house is a problem you can leave. Possession gets inside, past the door and past the body, into the place where you keep whatever makes you you, and there's no leaving that.

If that's your fear too, you've read or seen Blatty and you want the next one, so I sorted this list by what you're after. Somebody who loved the slow faith-on-trial dread of The Exorcist and somebody who wants a guy with a shotgun kicking in the door of Hell are not looking for the same book.

I've kept every description to the setup, so nothing below will spoil a book for you. My own books get their own section at the end. It's my blog. You can skip it.

The slow, serious ones: priests and doubt

The Exorcist, William Peter Blatty (1971)

Every other book on this list is arguing with this one, whether it admits it or not. Regan MacNeil is twelve, living in Georgetown with her actress mother, when something takes hold of her, and two priests answer: Father Merrin, an elderly Jesuit, and Father Damien Karras, who is struggling to hold on to his faith. Most people know the film, and I'm not going to argue with the film, but the book gives Karras's doubt as much room as it gives the demon, and that doubt is the reason to read it. If you asked me what my own priest books are like, this is the first title I'd say.

Legion, William Peter Blatty (1983)

Blatty's sequel follows Lieutenant Kinderman, the detective from the first book, and it's a possession story too. Coming at a demon through a cop instead of a priest changes the temperature of everything, and Kinderman is good company for it.

The ones that claim to be true

These are sold as nonfiction, and how much of it you believe is between you and your theology. What they have that the novels can't give you is the procedure, written down by people who say they were in the room.

The Rite, Matt Baglio (2009)

Father Gary Thomas is a California parish priest whose bishop sends him to Rome to train as an exorcist, and Baglio follows him through the training. It's slow and procedural, and I mean that as praise. A man learning a job he isn't sure he believes in is about the best engine for dread I know, and Baglio, to his credit, never tries to speed it up.

Hostage to the Devil, Malachi Martin (1976)

This is nonfiction on possession by a former Jesuit priest, and Martin tells it as though every word of it happened. Read it beside Blatty. The subject is the same, and the difference in how sure of himself each writer is will unsettle you more than either book does alone.

Deliver Us from Evil, Ralph Sarchie and Lisa Collier Cool (2001, first titled Beware the Night)

It's a memoir from an NYPD cop who looked into cases of demonic possession and took part in exorcisms. A working cop on a case that happens to involve Hell is the mix I love most in fiction, and here somebody says he lived it. The 2014 film is a very different animal, so don't judge the book by it.

The modern possession novels

A Head Full of Ghosts, Paul Tremblay (2015)

A strained Massachusetts family has a fourteen-year-old daughter showing signs of severe mental illness, a father who becomes convinced she's possessed, and a reality TV crew filming all of it. Her younger sister tells the story fifteen years later, and she was a kid when it happened, so you're never sure how far to trust her. Go in knowing as little as you can. Whether the possession is real is the question the book runs on, and Tremblay does not make it easy.

My Best Friend's Exorcism, Grady Hendrix (2016)

It's Charleston in 1988, and Abby and Gretchen have been best friends for years when Gretchen starts acting wrong. The one who has to fight for her is a teenage girl with no training, which is a better idea than it sounds. You get jokes alongside the dread, and the dread still shows up.

The exorcist for hire

The Devil You Know, Mike Carey (2006)

Felix Castor is a freelance exorcist in London, which means no collar and nobody upstairs to answer to, only clients and bills. Carey also wrote Hellblazer, the comic John Constantine comes from, and you can tell. If your favorite part of a possession story is the tired professional who shows up at the door, start here.

The demon hunters: bring a bigger weapon

Some of these hunt more than demons, and one of them is a wizard. I'm counting them anyway, because this section is for the people who go in after the thing with a weapon instead of a prayer book.

Sandman Slim, Richard Kadrey (2009)

James Stark escapes from Hell and comes back to Los Angeles to get even with the people who put him there. It's dark and funny and it moves, and Stark has none of the patience of the priests at the top of this list.

Monster Hunter International, Larry Correia (2007)

Owen Zastava Pitt ends up working for a secret company that fights monsters for a living. This is the far end of the mood from Blatty, and nobody's faith is on trial. It's about the guns and the job, and it wants you to have a good time.

Storm Front, Jim Butcher (2000)

Storm Front is the first Dresden Files novel. Harry Dresden, Chicago's only professional wizard, gets pulled into a magical double murder, and the book reads like a detective novel that someone let a wizard into, which is more fun than it has any right to be.

Lord Loss, Darren Shan (2005)

This is book one of The Demonata. Grubbs Grady is a kid who finds out demons and magic are real, in about the worst way available. It's published for younger readers, so if there's a teenager in your house asking for horror, read it first and decide. Don't let the shelf it's on relax you.

Mine: priests, assassins and contract law

All right, here's my shelf, sorted the same way. Every one of these is on Kindle and readable through Kindle Unlimited, which Amazon renamed Kindle+ in October 2026.

World of Shadows: the priest and the doubt

The Everett Exorcism is my pick to start with. Father Niccolo Paladina is a Vatican exorcist who has never been asked to perform an exorcism and doesn't believe demons exist. When a young priest in Everett, Washington goes around his whole chain of command to beg the Vatican for help, the Vatican sends Niccolo to discipline him, and Niccolo goes hoping it's nothing.

Everett is an ordinary Washington town with a Costco and a high school baseball team, and a demon is a lot harder to shrug off in a place that looks like where you live.

There's a second man in town, Arthur Vangeest, a Church assassin, and he's the one I root for, which probably says nothing good about me.

The Vatican Children and The Bishop's Legacy finish the trilogy, and the story widens from one town into a conspiracy of underground cells, conditioned children and a dead man's switch. The complete World of Shadows series has the full run, and yes, it's finished.

Fair warning: it has graphic violence, possession, religious trauma, body horror and a Church protecting itself, and it is not a cozy read.

The Covenant Files: the exorcist for hire

Marcus Kane used to investigate for the Vatican. Now he's a defrocked exorcist living in the basement of a condemned church on Chicago's South Side, taking the cases the police can't classify.

Sins of the Father opens on ritual murder victims with the word INNOCENT carved into their chests in Enochian. The killer is collecting Nephilim souls to build a legal case before Heaven. He needs thirty-seven. He has thirty-six.

Number thirty-seven is Marcus's niece.

It's noir, except one of the lawyers is a demon working from the 75th floor and Death runs a jazz bar on the South Side. The complete Covenant Files series runs five books, heavy on theology and Chicago geography. Dresden readers will know these streets, but this one goes darker on Heaven and Hell, and Marcus is nothing like Harry. Marcus's dossier is the quickest way to find out whether you can stand him.

World on Fire: the hunters themselves

Raven's Peak is where the whole universe begins. Abigail was raised by a Hunter, she's very good with a revolver, and there's a question about herself she won't ask. The abandoned mining town of Raven's Peak is where she starts to get the answer, and where a demon called Belphegor finds her first. The World on Fire series is the most straightforward monster-fighting I've written.

If you want to know how my books connect, there's a reading order for the universe. You don't need it to start, and if you've read World on Fire, you'll recognize a few faces in World of Shadows.

How to pick your next one

Or skip everything above and use this:

Why this genre keeps working

My theory, for whoever stayed past the table.

A lot of horror is about getting away from the monster. The possession novels I like are about doing everything the rite asks and getting no answer back, and that is the fear I keep circling.

The Everett Exorcism opens on it with a flash-forward. Niccolo, who came to Everett not believing demons exist, is hiding under the basement stairs of the cathedral, and the possessed man coming down after him takes his rosary, presses the cross to his own forehead while it burns, and laughs.

The demon hunter books come at the same fear from the other side. If nobody's coming, somebody with a revolver has to go.

Go find the next one

Pick one off the table and start it this week. If it's one of mine, start with the first book of World of Shadows, because you don't need any other book first. It's included with Kindle+.

Missed your favorite? Leave it in the comments. I'm always looking for the next one too.

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