Rizzoli & Isles Books in Order

When Boston homicide detective Jane Rizzoli and medical examiner Dr. Maura Isles work on the same cases, they handle different parts of the investigation. Jane searches for suspects, questions witnesses and handles the other routine detective work, while Maura examines bodies at crime scenes and does autopsies in the morgue. She then uses the autopsy results and lab findings to find out how the victim died and whether the medical evidence matches what the police have been told.

Jane first appears in The Surgeon, and Maura is not introduced until The Apprentice. You should still start the series with The Surgeon because the killer from the first book returns in the second. Most of the later books have a new investigation, while Jane and Maura become closer and their families, relationships and work continue to change. The books are best read in publication order.

This page includes all the novels in the series, the optional short stories Freaks and John Doe, and it explains where to start if you’ve watched the Rizzoli & Isles television series.

For the Tavistock Family and Martini Club series, standalone novels and the rest of her work, see Tess Gerritsen Books in Order.

Rizzoli & Isles Books in Order

The numbers below refer to the 13 novels. Freaks and John Doe are shown at 8.5 and 9.5 because they are short stories published between the novels.

1. The Surgeon, 2001
2. The Apprentice, 2002
3. The Sinner, 2003
4. Body Double, 2004
5. Vanish, 2005
6. The Mephisto Club, 2006
7. The Keepsake, 2008 (also titled Keeping the Dead)
8. Ice Cold, 2010 (also titled The Killing Place)
9. Freaks, 2011
10. The Silent Girl, 2011
11. John Doe, 2012
12. Last to Die, 2012
13. Die Again, 2014
14. I Know a Secret, 2017
15. Listen to Me, 2022

Reading notes:

• Freaks and John Doe are optional short stories. Some editions of The Silent Girl include Freaks, while some editions of Last to Die include John Doe, so check your copy before buying either story separately. You can skip both without losing the continuing story between the novels.
• The Keepsake and Keeping the Dead are the same novel. Ice Cold and The Killing Place are also the same novel.
• The Bone Garden is a standalone historical thriller, not a Rizzoli & Isles novel, but Maura briefly appears in its present-day story when she examines an old skull found in a garden. If you want to read every book in which Maura appears, read it between The Mephisto Club and The Keepsake, where it falls by publication date. Jane does not appear, and the main story takes place in Boston in 1830.

How Much Forensic Work Is in the Rizzoli & Isles Books?

Maura is described as both a medical examiner and a forensic pathologist. Medical examiner is her role in the death-investigation system and forensic pathology is the medical specialty she practices. At a crime scene, she looks at the position and condition of the body and any visible injuries. During an autopsy, she examines the wounds and internal organs and uses toxicology and other laboratory results when needed. With her results in hand, she can tell Jane whether an injury happened before or after death, what caused the death and whether the body or crime scene gives a different picture from the witnesses’ account.

The medical evidence sometimes changes the whole direction of an investigation. In The Sinner, Maura discovers during the autopsy that Sister Camille, the murdered novice, had given birth before she died. In The Keepsake, she examines what appears to be an ancient museum mummy and finds evidence that the person was actually murdered much more recently. Tess Gerritsen worked as a physician before writing full time, and she uses her medical knowledge when writing Maura’s examinations and conclusions.

Each book has a different amount of forensic work. Maura is not present in The Surgeon, although the killer’s medical knowledge and the surgical precision of his attacks are important to the case. In The Sinner and The Keepsake, Maura’s findings directly change what Jane is investigating. In Ice Cold, Maura is away from Boston, and Jane is later trying to find out what happened to her. Other books give Maura less to do after the initial examination and spend more time with Jane as she questions witnesses and suspects, checks alibis, searches homes and crime scenes, follows connections between victims and figures out who is lying. The forensic findings still help her, but in those books they are only one part of a larger police investigation and not the main thing that is moving the case forward.

The bodies, injuries and autopsies are described quite graphically at times. The medical explanations are written for a general reader, but Tess Gerritsen does not avoid what Maura sees when she opens a body or examines a violent injury. Compared with the Kay Scarpetta series, these books divide their time and the investigation more evenly between the homicide detective and the medical examiner. After she joins the series, Maura is important, but she is not the main viewpoint in every book.

Where Should You Start with the Books After Watching Rizzoli & Isles?

Start with The Surgeon, then read The Apprentice and continue in publication order.

The television pilot is based on The Apprentice, but the book is the second part of Jane’s confrontation with the killer who was first introduced in The Surgeon. Starting with The Apprentice would leave out Jane’s initial investigation of Warren Hoyt and what happened to Jane during it. Maura does not appear in The Surgeon, but that is not a reason to skip the book.

After the pilot, the television series did not continue adapting the novels one by one. The writers mostly created their own mysteries, although Tess Gerritsen has said that one episode was also based on the short story John Doe. She has described the series and books as following independent tracks, although the TV writers sometimes took smaller character details from the books. So the television seasons do not give you another order for reading the books.

The characters in the two versions are also quite different. At first, Jane and Maura are colleagues who respect each other’s work but are not yet friends. Their friendship develops slowly as they go through more cases together. The television series makes them best friends from the beginning and makes their friendship a much bigger part of the story. It is also much more humorous, while the books are darker, and Jane and Maura sometimes disagree with each other.

More Books by Tess Gerritsen

Tess Gerritsen also writes the Martini Club spy series, the two Tavistock Family romantic suspense novels and standalone medical thrillers including Harvest. Her complete bibliography, collaborative novels and other short stories are listed on Tess Gerritsen Books in Order.