Born in Essex, Barnard was educated at the Royal Grammar School in Colchester and at Balliol College in Oxford.His first crime novel, A Little Local Murder, was published in 1976. The novel was written while he was a lecturer at University of Tromsø in Norway. He has gone on to write more than 40 other books and numerous short stories.

Barnard has said that his favourite crime writer is Agatha Christie. In 1980 he published a critique of her work titled A Talent to Deceive: An Appreciation of Agatha Christie.

Barnard was awarded the Cartier Diamond Dagger in 2003 by the Crime Writers Association for a lifetime of achievement.

Under the pseudonym Bernard Bastable, Robert Barnard has published one standalone novel and three alternate history books starring Wolfgang Mozart as a detective, he having survived to old age.

Barnard and his wife Louise live in Yorkshire.

Mystery novels

• A Little Local Murder (1976)
• Death on the High Cs (1977)
• Death of an Old Goat (1977)
• Blood Brotherhood (1977) ISBN 0802753876
• Unruly Son (1978) aka Death of a Mystery Writer
• Posthumous Papers (1979) aka Death of a Literary Widow
• Death in a Cold Climate (1980)
• Mother's Boys (1981) aka Death of a Perfect Mother
• Little Victims (1983) aka School for Murder
• Out of the Blackout (1984)
• A Corpse in a Gilded Cage (1984)
• Disposal of the Living (1985) aka Fete Fatale
• Political Suicide (1986)
• The Skeleton in the Grass (1987)
• At Death's Door (1988) ISBN 978-0-00-232195-2
• A City of Strangers (1990) ISBN 978-0-440-20750-4
• Scandal in Belgravia (1991) ISBN 978-1-890208-16-5
• Masters of the House (1994) ISBN 978-0-380-72511-3
• Touched by the Dead (1999) ISBN 978-0-00-232684-1
• Unholy Dying (2000) ISBN 978-0-7432-0149-0
• The Mistress of Alderley (2002) ISBN 978-0-7490-0686-0
• A Cry From The Dark (2003) ISBN 978-0-7432-5345-1
• The Graveyard Position (2004) ISBN 978-0-7432-5346-8
• Dying Flames (2005) ISBN 978-0-7432-7219-3
• Last Post (2008) ISBN 978-0-7490-8068-6

Charlie Peace novels

• Death and the Chaste Apprentice (1989)
• A Fatal Attachment (1992) ISBN 978-0-380-71998-3
• A Hovering of Vultures (1993) ISBN 978-0-380-77653-5
• The Bad Samaritan (1995) ISBN 978-0-00-232562-2
• No Place of Safety (1997) ISBN 978-0-684-84503-6
• The Corpse at the Haworth Tandoori (1998) ISBN 978-0-7432-2427-7
• The Bones in the Attic (2001) ISBN 978-0-684-87379-4
• A Fall from Grace (2006) ISBN 978-0-7432-7220-9

Perry Trethowan novels

• Death by Sheer Torture (1981)
• Death and the Princess (1982)
• The Missing Bronte (1983)
• Bodies (1986)
• Death in Purple Prose (1987) aka The Cherry Blossom Corpse

Novels written as Bernard Bastable

• To Die Like a Gentleman (1993)
• Dead, Mr. Mozart (1995) ISBN 978-0-312-11771-9
• Mansion and its Murder (1998) ISBN 978-0-7867-0515-3
• Too Many Notes, Mr. Mozart (1998) ISBN 978-0-7515-1806-1

Non-fiction

• Imagery and Theme in the Novels of Dickens (1974)
• A Talent to Deceive: An Appreciation of Agatha Christie (1980)
• A Short History of English Literature (1984) ISBN 978-0-631-19088-2
• Emily Brontë (British Library Writers' lives series) (2000) ISBN 0712346589
• A Brontë Encyclopedia (with Louise Barnard) (2007) ISBN 1405151196