@Chaley: You were spot on! After connecting as a wireless device the books were then properly sorted. Thus shears to be needed after every cloud download. Which is peculiar, the metadata.db file in googledrive and in calibre should be identical.
A new issue has reared it's head.
I briefly received a message about "1 new book located" and after calibre was done connecting wirelessly there was a new "book" in my library.
I've deleted the book from Book Details and relaunched CC and tried connecting wirelessly but cannot replicate on any of my devices.
Debug log sent.
Will report further, but calling it a night presently.