Lisa Gardner Books In Order – Complete List

New York Times bestselling author Lisa Gardner is well known for her romantic suspense and crime thriller novels, many included in popular series like the D.D. Warren series, the FBI Profiler series, the Tessa Leoni series, and the newer Frankie Elkin series, while others written as standalone books. In addition she has also written romance novels under the alias Alicia Scott.

I have listed below the Lisa Gardner books in order for her series and the standalone books. If the publication order differs from the reading order, I will mention it.

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Latest Lisa Gardner Books

Detective D.D. Warren Books in Publication Order

1. Alone, 2005
2. Hide, 2007
3. The Neighbour, 2009
4. Live to Tell, 2010
5. Love You More, 2011
6. The 7th Month (#5.5), 2012
7. Catch Me, 2012
8. Fear Nothing, 2014
9. 3 Truths and a Lie (#7.5), 2016
10. Find Her, 2016
11. Look For Me, 2018
12. The Guy Who Died Twice (#9.5), 2019
13. Never Tell, 2019
14. When You See Me, 2020

D.D. Warren Short Stories in Publication Order

• The 7th Month, 2012
• The Laughing Buddha (Malachai Samuels vs. D.D. Warren), 2015
• 3 Truths and a Lie, 2016

Frankie Elkin Books in Publication Order

1. Before She Disappeared, 2021
2. One Step Too Far, 2022
3. Still See You Everywhere, 2024
4. Kiss Her Goodbye, 2025

Tessa Leoni Books in Publication Order

1. Love You More, 2011
2. Touch & Go, 2013
3. Crash & Burn, 2015

FBI Profiler Series in Publication Order

1. The Perfect Husband, 1997
2. The Third Victim, 2001
3. The Next Accident, 2001
4. The Killing Hour, 2003
5. Gone, 2006
6. Say Goodbye, 2008
7. The 4th Man (#6.5), 2017
8. Right Behind You, 2017

Standalone Novels in Publication Order

• The Other Daughter, 1999
• The Survivor’s Club, 2003
• I’d Kill For That, 2004
• The Laughing Buddha (The Reincarnationist with M.J. Rose), 2015

Short Story Collections and Anthologies

• Suspense Magazine February 2012, 2012
• Suspense Magazine February 2013, 2013
• Suspense Magazine June 2013, 2013
• FaceOff, 2014 (edited by David Baldacci)

Writing as Alicia Scott

Should We Read The Lisa Gardner Books In Order?

I have read all 3 series by the author Lisa Gardner, and if you want to start with any of the series, I do suggest you read the books in order. Luckily it’s easy as the publication date and the chronological order of these books are the same, so if you follow the list above, reading them in the right order shouldn’t be a problem.

Having said that, I feel I should mention one exception. When reading the first Detective D.D. Warren books, I felt I could have read them pretty much in any order. D.D. hardly appears in the first books, and even the third book she is not much there. However, as the series progresses, we see more of her, and we see her character develop nicely – I felt I actually started to really like her by books 6.

However for the sake of continuity, if you pick up the earliest D.D. Warren novels and read them before continuing with the newest ones, I think you will be best served.

Lisa Gardner Biography

Born in 1956 in Oregon under the name Alicia Scott, Lisa Gardner graduated from Glencoe High School in Hillsboro, Oregon. In college, she was always writing short stories instead of paying attention to her classes. In 1993 she graduated magna cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania with a degree in international relations.

In the 1990s, she worked as a research analyst in Boston for a consulting firm called Mercer Management. Lisa Gardner started her career in the food industry, however soon she turned her talents to writing, much to the delight of her loyal fans.

Before writing thriller novels, she wrote several romance novels under the pseudonym Alicia Scott for the Silhouette Intimate Moment publisher. She worked for three years on her debut novel, which she finally published at the age of 20.

Her first novel under her own name (and the first books I’ve read by her) is The Perfect Husband, written in 1997, the first book in the ex-FBI profiler Pierce Quincy series.

In 2014 she moved with her family and two dogs to New Hampshire in New England, where she is busy working on her next novel.

While this is, in fact, my favorite set of books by Lisa Gardner, she has also written several other series, veteran police detective D.D. Warren, with several books published (latest book, When You See Me, published in 2020, Tessa Leoni, with 3 books written in the series (book #3 with the title Crash & Burn was published in 2015), FBI Profiler with currently 7 books, and the newest series, Frankie Elkin, which includes 4 novels to date.

In addition, Lisa Gardner has also written several standalone thriller novels, and under the alias Alicia Scott, she has published 13 romance novels.

The first thriller she wrote, The Perfect Husband, took the author 3 years of writing and editing until it got ready to be published. Soon after publication, it climbed the New York Times bestseller list, getting to position 17.

Most of the Lisa Gardner books are based on real-life stories, cased that actually happened. For example, Look For Me was inspired by a headline the author read in the newspaper. True crime is something Lisa Gardner is interested in, and her tales can weave lots of different possibilities, whereby the author asks herself, ” how would you approach this in real life?”

For example, Find Her is inspired by a particular article Lisa read on a new FBI unit that deals with assisting victims of crime. From this unit she learned that a victim’s journey is far from over once the perpetrator is caught. She also keeps asking for a new novel, “What does it mean to be a survivor?”

Also, for her research, Lisa Gardner keeps tabs on the latest technological advancements that the police are using in solving their cases, such as Alexa, or the Echo from Amazon. She also interviews experts in their fields, and she always learns more forensic techniques that she can implement in her books. She also visits institutions that help her set the scene better. Over the years, she went to mental wards, maximum security prisons, morgues, and FBI academies. In addition, she is known to interview family members of kidnap victims, who know first-hand what it is to live with the torment in their lives.

For example, when doing research for her novel Kiss Her Goodbye, Lisa Gardner mentioned that it was a very difficult process, in fact maybe her most challenging yet, since it involved also many heartbreaking interviews of Afghan refugees.

Initially, when writing Alone, Lisa Gardner envisioned D.D. Warren to have only a few chapters in the book, and she didn’t imagine the detective would become the main hero of a long-standing series.

Having been a thriller writer for 25 years, currently, Lisa Gardner has over 22 million books in print across more than 30 countries.

In 2022, Lisa Gardner took a well-deserved break – a sabbatical as she called it – which came after the Covid19 quarantine, and also due to her being slightly tired after working 30 years under deadline after deadline. She really needed a reset, which is why she took one year to travel around the world to various remote and interesting locations that would inspire her later works, including Still See You Everywhere (which was inspired by her stroll in the Pacific).

What Is the Latest Lisa Gardner Novel?

The latest Lisa Gardner book, Kiss Her Goodbye, published in 2025 is the fourth book in the Frankie Elkin series, the author’s also latest series. In this installment, Frankie investigates the disappearance of Sabera Ahmadi, a young mother and Afghan refugee who disappeared not long after arriving in Tucson, Arizona.

Novel Adaptations

Currently, several of Lisa Gardner’s novels have been adapted into films or television productions, including:

• Instinct to Kill – a 2001 film adaptation of The Perfect Husband, featuring Mark Dacascos in the main role.
• The Survivors Club – A CBS movie made in 2004 based on the novel of the same name, starring Roma Downey and Jacqueline Bisset. ​
• Hide – a 2011 TNT television movie adaptation of Hide, with Carla Gugino as Detective D.D. Warren. ​
• Before She Disappeared: Currently in development as a television series. Miramax picked up the rights to the series that was originally intended to feature Hillary Swank (who cancelled due to giving birth to twins).

Lisa Gardner Awards and Nominations

• The Other Daughter received the Daphne du Maurier Award in 2000
• The Neighbor received the International Thriller Writers Award in the Best Hardcover Novel category in 2010
• The Neighbor received the Grand Prix des Lectrices de Elle in 2010
• Love You More was nominated for the Goodreads Choice Award in the Best Mystery & Thriller category in 2011
• Catch Me was nominated for the International Thriller Writers Award in the Best Hardcover Novel category in 2013
• Touch & Go was nominated for the ITW Award in the Best Hardcover Novel category in 2014
• Touch & Go was nominated for the Goodreads Choice Award in the Best Mystery & Thriller category in 2013
• FaceOff was nominated for the Anthony Award in the Best Anthology/Collection category in 2015
• Lisa Gardner was awarded the Silver Bullet Award by the ITW in 2017
• Before She Disappeared was nominated for the Audie Award in the Best Female Narrator category in 2022
• Lisa Gardner was an Audie Awards finalist for audiobook work in 2025