Dante Valentine
#6833.83 in the official ranking · full ranking
Books 5 books Status Complete 2006–2008 Reading commitment Medium Lilith Saintcrow Last reviewed 2026-09-11
Overview
Dante Valentine is Lilith Saintcrow's completed five-novel urban fantasy sequence, published between 2006 and 2008: Working for the Devil (2006), Dead Man Rising (2006), The Devil's Right Hand (2007), Saint City Sinners (2008), and To Hell and Back (2008). It follows Dante Valentine, a bounty hunter and necromancer working cases in a near-future city where demons walk openly among humans, psychics, and an institutionalized church, including a contract that puts her directly in the crosshairs of Lucifer himself after a deal goes wrong. The series is characteristic of the mid-2000s wave of hard-edged urban fantasy centered on a tough, first-person female protagonist navigating a criminal underworld of magic users and demonic politics, and Saintcrow, a prolific genre author, has continued writing in adjacent urban-fantasy and paranormal-romance series since completing this one, though Dante Valentine itself remains a closed, five-book sequence.
Urban fantasy · For Adult
Core Canon: Reading Order (5 works) counts toward ranking
Dante Valentine Lilith Saintcrow
| Work | Year | Internal chron. | Canon | Rating | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 | Working for the Devil | 2006 | 1 | core | 3.80 (13,002 ratings) |
 | Dead Man Rising | 2006 | 2 | core | 3.87 (7,929 ratings) |
 | The Devil's Right Hand | 2007 | 3 | core | 3.82 (5,761 ratings) |
 | Saint City Sinners | 2008 | 4 | core | 3.87 (5,124 ratings) |
 | To Hell and Back | 2008 | 5 | core | 3.85 (4,615 ratings) |
Completed 5-book urban fantasy sequence; all five novels are the whole of the Core Canon.
Quick answers
- How many books are in Dante Valentine? Dante Valentine's Core Canon is 5 books.
- What is the reading order for Dante Valentine? Publication order, starting with Working for the Devil. Full list and years in the Core Canon table above.
- Is Dante Valentine finished? Complete (2006–2008).
- How much reading does Dante Valentine take? Medium reading commitment (estimated from 5 Core Canon books).
- How is Dante Valentine ranked? #683 in this site's official ranking, based on 36,431 reader ratings across 5 Core Canon books. See the full ranking for how this is calculated.
Why is it ranked #683?
Ranked #683 in the official ranking.
- Average reader rating of 3.83 across 5 core books.
- A smaller readership (36,431 ratings), so the score carries less weight of numbers.
- Remarkably consistent across the whole series: all 5 rated core books rate within 0.07 of each other.
- Less than 0.01 behind #682, Ash: A Secret History (a finer tie-break level decides the order).
- Below the top-10 average of 4.45.
Why explore this universe?
Rated · 5 books · Complete · 36k ratings · Ranks #683 overall
Good choice if you want a moderate-length urban fantasy universe that's already finished, so there's no wait for the next book.
Reading order
Publication order (5 Core Canon books)
- Dead Man Rising (2006)
- Working for the Devil (2006)
- The Devil's Right Hand (2007)
- Saint City Sinners (2008)
- To Hell and Back (2008)
Documented internal/story order
- Working for the Devil (2006)
- Dead Man Rising (2006)
- The Devil's Right Hand (2007)
- Saint City Sinners (2008)
- To Hell and Back (2008)
Awards (verified)
- No awards found for this series.
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Official resources
Research details
Ranking metrics: weighted average 3.83 across 36,431 ratings on 5 Core Canon books. See Why is it ranked here? above for the full breakdown, or the full ranking.
How do we know this?
Admission: Canon extension: Dante Valentine (Lilith Saintcrow) accepted 2026-09-11
Sources: (see source tier definitions)
- Wikipedia: Lilith Saintcrow Tier 2
- Reading-order/series bibliography cross-check: Dante Valentine Tier 3
Last reviewed: 2026-09-11
Rule: Core Canon = all five novels in the sequence (Working for the Devil, Dead Man Rising, The Devil’s Right Hand, Saint City Sinners, To Hell and Back). There is no expanded or companion tier; the bibliography is complete and settled at five books.