Matt Richtel Books In Order

Publication Order of Nat Idle Books

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Picture Books

Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books

Matt Richtel
Matt Richtel was born in Los Angeles, California on October 2, 1966. He works as a reporter for the New York Times, where he writes under his own name. He is the co-founder and former writer of a syndicated comic strip called Rudy Park which he wrote under the name Theron Heir.

Matt obtained an MS from the Columbia School of Journalism and a bachelor’s degree from the University of California at Berkeley.

Matt was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting in 2010 for a series he did on distracted driving.

Matt’s debut novel, called “Hooked”, was released in the year 2007. His work is from the thriller and mystery genres.

“Hooked” is the first novel in the “Nathaniel Idle” series and was released in the year 2007. Nat Idle, medical journalist, narrowly survives the explosion in an Internet cafe after he gets a mysterious note that warns him to leave. He gets caught up in the most dangerous assignment of his whole life. Nat believes that the handwriting on the note that saved his life belongs to his dead girlfriend, who was a Silicon Valley venture capitalist he has been obsessively mourning.

Thus starts a fevered quest to solve the mystery of his lost love. The journey forces him to confront the underbelly of the digital revolution and question his very own sanity.

“Devil’s Plaything” is the second novel in the “Nathaniel Idle” series and was released in the year 2011. Nat Idle has stumbled across an extraordinary conspiracy and the ultimate mind game. All of sudden, in pursuit of finding the truth, he is running for his life through the shadows of Silicon Valley, a human lab animal that is caught in the deadly maze of institutional paranoia and neurotechnology.

His own survival rests entirely in the hands of Lane, his eighty-five year old grandmother, who suffers from dementia, and is unable to remember the secret at the core of the world-changing conspiracy.

“The Cloud” is the third novel in the “Nathaniel Idle” series and was released in the year 2013. One late-night accident on a San Francisco subway platform has altered Nat Idle’s reality. Then again, there are no accidents.

Bloodied and disoriented after a near-deadly fall onto the subway tracks, Nate finds that a gorgeous stranger has come to help him, and that the burly guy that barreled into him intended on doing Nat harm. He doesn’t know why, and his quest to find answers leads him to uncover a handful of suspicious deaths, and a strange neurological disorder that plagues Bay Area kids, while he ventures into the Cloud.

The Cloud, in a brave new world, is where we store dreams, data, and secrets. It is something much more, something insidious with the power to change not just the way we interact with the world, however our brains and behavior? Nat, in his hunt for the truth, finds himself lost in one psychedelic maze, finding things that can’t possibly be, realizing that there ain’t anybody and nothing he can trust, not even his own mind.

“A Deadly Wandering” is the first non-fiction book and was released in the year 2014. What is technology really doing to people? Can our minds keep up at all with the pace of change? How will we find any balance?

On the final day of summer, Reggie Shaw (just an ordinary Utah college student) fatally hit two rocket scientists while he was texting and driving along one majestic piece of highway that borders on the Rocky Mountains.

The story follows Reggie from the moment of the tragedy, through the police investigation, the state’s groundbreaking prosecution, and Reggie’s ultimate wrenching admission of responsibility.

“The Doomsday Equation” is the second stand alone novel and was released in the year 2015. A man has just three days to thwart total annihilation: the outbreak of World War III.

Jeremy Stillwater, a computer genius, has designed a machine able to predict global conflicts and head them off. However, he is a stubborn guy and sure of his genius, and ended up making enemies. He’s even seen his brilliant invention discredited.

There isn’t anywhere for him to turn when a very remarkable thing occurs: his computer beeps with a warning that World War III’s outbreak is only three days away.

Armed with his own ingenuity and all by himself he goes off on a journey to find the powerful and mysterious nemesis that is determined on destroying all of mankind. Foes lurking in the shadows wait to strike out. Could they have figured out how they can use Jeremy, his invention, for their evil gains?

Before he can possibly save billions of lives, Jeremy must figure out how to save his own.

Fans of this novel is a pulse-pounding thriller that is irresistible, ingenious, and urgent.

“Dead on Arrival” is the second stand alone novel and was released in the year 2017. Flight 194 landed, while something lethal waits outside.

One airplane touches down at one desolate airport in one isolated Colorado ski town. Right after landing, Dr. Lyle Martin, who is a prominent infectious disease specialist, gets brusquely awakened to shocking news: everybody that wasn’t on the plane seems to be dead. The world’s gone dark.

As they were in the air, a deadly new type of virus surfaced, and threatens man’s survival. Martin, who is one of the most sought-after virologists on the globe until his career went and took a precipitous slide, is at the investigation’s core.

From the secret campus of Google X to the snowbound Rockies, where unlimited budgets could be producing wonders beyond our capacity to control.

This is a topical and timely novel with some of the creepiest chapters, and this ominous and gripping thriller explores our fears about technology, proving they could be more justified than we first thought. Fans found this to be a high wire act of straight exhilarating storytelling, from its shocking opening to the ending that some never saw coming, this is a book that keeps you glued to your seat, flipping pages furiously.