Lisa Gardner Books in Order

Lisa Gardner is a #1 New York Times bestselling author of crime and psychological thrillers, best known for the Detective D.D. Warren, FBI Profiler, Tessa Leoni, and Frankie Elkin series. Her novels are published in 30 countries, four of her books have been adapted for film or television, and The Neighbor won the International Thriller Writers award for Best Hardcover Novel.

Her books often move between the police and the people involved in the cases. One chapter may follow an investigator working through the evidence, while the next stays with a victim, witness, or suspect who knows only a small part of what is happening. She researches how police actually work, which makes the investigations feel real.

The D.D. Warren, FBI Profiler, and Tessa Leoni books share several characters and cases, but Frankie Elkin stands apart. She has no badge or formal training. She looks for missing people after the police have run out of leads or moved on.

This page lists all Lisa Gardner books in order, including her four crime series, standalone thrillers, short stories, and the romantic suspense novels she published as Alicia Scott.

Latest Lisa Gardner Books

How Lisa Gardner’s Series Connect

The D.D. Warren, FBI Profiler, and Tessa Leoni series have several common characters and books. Tessa first appears in Love You More, which is both D.D. Warren #5 and Tessa Leoni #1. Touch & Go also belongs to both series. Her third book, Crash & Burn, continues Tessa’s story without D.D. as the main investigator.

Pierce Quincy, Rainie Conner, and Kimberly Quincy are in the FBI Profiler series. Quincy and Rainie work with D.D. in the short story The 4th Man. Kimberly later joins D.D. in Find Her, while Never Tell and When You See Me are numbered as part of both the D.D. Warren and FBI Profiler series.

Flora Dane is introduced in Find Her and returns in Look for Me, Never Tell, and When You See Me. She does not have a series of he rown.

The Frankie Elkin series is separate from all three. The standalone thrillers and the romantic suspense books written as Alicia Scott are also independent.

FBI Profiler Books Series (Books in Order)

The FBI Profiler series follows FBI profiler Pierce Quincy, former Oregon police officer Rainie Conner, and later Quincy’s daughter Kimberly. Pierce first appears in The Perfect Husband, helping to hunt an escaped serial killer. He meets Rainie in The Third Victim, when she is put in charge of her first homicide investigation after a school shooting in Bakersville, Oregon.

The books gradually bring Pierce and Rainie together, while Kimberly builds her own career with the FBI. Their cases are separate, but what happens to the family is a background arc in the whole series.

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, 2017
8. Right Behind You, 2017
9. Never Tell, 2019
10. When You See Me, 2020

Detective D.D. Warren Series (Books in Order)

The Detective D.D. Warren series follows a Boston homicide detective who often deals with murders and disappearances. D.D. is introduced in Alone and becomes more important from Hide onward. Her police career continues across the series, but readers also see her marry, become a mother, and adjust when an injury changes the way she works.

Flora Dane enters the series in Find Her. She survived more than a year in captivity and now searches for other missing women, sometimes with D.D. and sometimes on her own. Flora has no badge and does not always wait for the police to agree with her methods, which makes their partnership difficult as well as useful.

1. Alone, 2005
2. Hide, 2007
3. The Neighbor, 2009
4. Live to Tell, 2010
5. Love You More, 2011
6. The 7th Month, 2012
7. Catch Me, 2012
8. Touch & Go, 2013
9. Fear Nothing, 2014
10. 3 Truths and a Lie, 2016
11. Find Her, 2016
12. The 4th Man, 2017
13. Look for Me, 2018
14. The Guy Who Died Twice, 2019
15. Never Tell, 2019
16. When You See Me, 2020

D.D. Warren Short Stories

• The Laughing Buddha, 2015 – with M.J. Rose; first published in FaceOff

Tessa Leoni Series (Books in Order)

The Tessa Leoni series follows former Massachusetts State Police trooper Tessa Leoni who knows how to plan several moves ahead. In Love You More, D.D. Warren investigates Tessa after she shoots her husband and her six-year-old daughter disappears. By Touch & Go, Tessa has left the state police and is working as a private investigator. Here she is using what she learned as a trooper to handle cases involving missing people and families in danger.

Sheriff’s investigator Wyatt Foster joins her in Crash & Burn, when a woman injured in a car accident is sure that her missing daughter needs help, even though her husband says they don’t have a child.

The first two books also belong to the D.D. Warren series. The three Tessa Leoni books should be read in order because her work, family life, and relationship with Wyatt change from one book to the next.

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

Frankie Elkin Series (Books in Order)

The Frankie Elkin series follows middle-aged recovering alcoholic Frankie Elkin who searches for missing people after the police and the public have stopped looking. Frankie has no badge, formal training, or permanent home. She arrives in a new place, finds whatever work she can, and begins asking questions about someone whose case has gone quiet and people forgot about.

Each book takes her somewhere different, all across the counry. She searches for a missing teenager in a Boston neighborhood in Before She Disappeared, then joins a search party in the Wyoming wilderness in One Step Too Far, next travels to a remote Pacific island in Still See You Everywhere, and in Kiss Her Goodbye, she searche for a missing Afghan woman in Tucson.

The cases stand alone, but Frankie’s recovery and the parts of her past she slowly shares continue across the series.

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

Standalone Novels

• The Other Daughter, 1999
• The Survivors Club, 2003
• You’ll Be Sorry, 2026

Collaborative Novels

• I’d Kill For That, 2004

Short Story Anthologies

• FaceOff, 2014 (edited by David Baldacci)

Books Written as Alicia Scott

Lisa Gardner started writing as Alicia Scott with romantic suspense for Silhouette Intimate Moments. These thirteen novels were published between 1992 and 2000.

Walking After Midnight Series (Books in Order)

1. Walking After Midnight, 1992
2. Shadow’s Flame, 1994

Guiness Gang Series (Books in Order)

1. At the Midnight Hour, 1995
2. Hiding Jessica, 1995
3. The Quiet One, 1996
4. The One Worth Waiting For, 1996
5. The One Who Almost Got Away, 1996

Family Secrets / Maximillian’s Children Series (Books in Order)

1. Maggie’s Man, 1997
2. MacNamara’s Woman, 1997
3. Brandon’s Bride, 1998

Other Alicia Scott Novels

• Waking Nightmare, 1994
• Partners in Crime, 1998 (36 Hours #9)
• Marrying Mike…Again, 2000 (Men in Blue)

Lisa Gardner Biography

Lisa Gardner is an American crime and psychological thriller author, best known for her FBI Profiler, Detective D.D. Warren, Tessa Leoni, and Frankie Elkin novels. She also published romantic suspense earlier in her career under the pseudonym Alicia Scott.
Official website: lisagardner.com

Lisa Gardner was raised in Hillsboro, Oregon, and graduated from Glencoe High School. began writing stories as a teenager. At seventeen, while studying at the University of Pennsylvania with a degree in international relations, she decided to see whether she could finish an entire novel. After several drafts and a two-year-wait, revision letter and spent the next year rewriting it. The novel was published in 1992 as Walking After Midnight under the name Alicia Scott, when she was twenty.

Under that name she wrote thirteen romantic suspense novels, including the Guiness Gang books and the Family Secrets trilogy. Those early years taught her to write to deadline and to keep working past the first draft of a book. After graduating from Penn, she worked as a worked as a business consultant and research analyst for an international consulting firm. She worked twelve-hour days, then wrote late at night. Within two years, she knew she wanted to become a full-time novelist.

The Perfect Husband was published under the Lisa Gardner name in 1997 and began the FBI Profiler series. It also began her move from romantic suspense into darker crime novels. Boston homicide detective D.D. Warren first appeared in Alone in 2005, followed by former state trooper Tessa Leoni in Love You More and missing-persons searcher Frankie Elkin in Before She Disappeared. In March 2011, Alone reached number one on the New York Times bestseller list.

For her research, Lisa Gardner has interviewed FBI and ATF agents, state and local police officers, and corrections staff about how cases are handled. She has also visited prisons, visited the Body Farm in Tennessee, took boxing lessons, and did wilderness survival training. She researches how police actually work, which makes the investigations feel real.

Her novels are published in 30 countries, and four have been adapted as television movies. Lisa Gardner lives in New Hampshire with her dogs. Away from writing, she hikes, gardens, snowshoes, travels, and plays cribbage. In 2017, International Thriller Writers gave her the Silver Bullet Award for her work supporting at-risk children and animal welfare organizations.

Lisa Gardner Book Adaptations

• At the Midnight Hour – adapted into the TV film At the Midnight Hour (1995)
• The Perfect Husband – adapted into the film Instinct to Kill (2001)
• The Survivors Club – adapted into the CBS movie The Survivors Club (2004)
• Hide – adapted into the TNT television movie Hide (2011)
• Before She Disappeared – announced as a television series adaptation in development (2021)

Lisa Gardner Awards and Honors

Awards

• The Perfect Husband – Reviewer’s Choice Award (1998)
• The Other Daughter – Reviewer’s Choice Award (1999)
• The Other Daughter – Daphne du Maurier Award for Suspense (2000)
• The Neighbor – International Thriller Writers Award for Best Hardcover Novel (2010)
• The Neighbor – Grand Prix des Lectrices de Elle, Prix du Policier (2011)
• Catch Me – AudioFile Earphones Award for the audiobook (2012)
• Silver Bullet Award, International Thriller Writers (2017)

Nominations and Shortlists

• The Neighbor – Library Journal Best Thriller of the Year (2009)
• Catch Me – International Thriller Writers Award for Best Hardcover Novel (2013)
• Touch & Go – International Thriller Writers Award for Best Hardcover Novel (2014)
• FaceOff – Anthony Award for Best Anthology or Collection (2015)
• FaceOff – Audie Award for Short Stories/Collections (2015)
• Right Behind You – RT Reviewers’ Choice Award for Best Mystery and Suspense (2017)
• Before She Disappeared – Audie Award for Best Female Narrator, for Hillary Huber (2022)
• Still See You Everywhere – Audie Award for Mystery, narrated by Hillary Huber (2025)

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