Tess Gerritsen Books in Order

Tess Gerritsen is a Chinese-American author and retired physician best known for her Rizzoli & Isles crime series, featuring Boston homicide detective Jane Rizzoli and medical examiner Dr Maura Isles, as well as for her standalone medical and suspense thrillers.

This page lists all Tess Gerritsen books in order, including the Rizzoli & Isles novels, the Martini Club spy thrillers, the Tavistock Family romantic suspense books, and other standalone titles, organized primarily by publication order.

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Rizzoli and Isles Series (Books in Order)

The Rizzoli & Isles series follows Boston homicide detective Jane Rizzoli and Chief Medical Examiner Dr Maura Isles as they combine police work and forensic pathology to catch serial killers and investigate complex homicide cases.

Reading Order

  1. The Surgeon (#1), 2001
  2. The Apprentice (#2), 2002
  3. The Sinner (#3), 2003
  4. Body Double (#4), 2004
  5. Vanish (#5), 2005
  6. The Mephisto Club (#6), 2006
  7. The Keepsake (#7), 2008 (also titled Keeping The Dead)
  8. Ice Cold (#8), 2010 (also titled The Killing Place)
  9. Freaks (#8.5), 2011
  10. The Silent Girl (#9), 2011
  11. John Doe (#9.5), 2011
  12. Last to Die (#10), 2012
  13. Die Again (#11), 2014
  14. I Know a Secret (#12), 2017
  15. Listen to Me (#13), 2022

Tavistock Family Series (Books in Order)

The Tavistock Family series is an early romantic-suspense duology in which members of the Tavistock family are drawn into dangerous conspiracies and long-buried scandals.

Publication Orde

  1. In Their Footsteps, 1994
  2. Thief of Hearts, 1995 (also titled Stolen)

Martini Club Series (Books in Order)

The Martini Club series follows retired CIA operative Maggie Bird living in the seaside town of Purity, Maine, and a small circle of fellow former CIA spies who pose as an innocent book group while dealing with unfinished business from their past.

Publication Orde

  1. The Spy Coast, 2023
  2. The Summer Guests, 2025
  3. The Shadow Friends, 2026

Standalone Novels

Short Story Collections & Anthologies

Tess Gerritsen Biography

Tess Gerritsen is an American bestselling author and retired physician who has written medical thrillers, police procedurals, spy stories and romantic suspense novels.
Official website: tessgerritsen.com

Tess Gerritsen

Tess Gerritsen was born as Terry Tom on June 12, 1953, in San Diego, California, a Chinese immigrant father and a Chinese-American mother. She earned a BA in anthropology from Stanford University, and a medical degree from the University of California, San Francisco, before working as a doctor in Honolulu, Hawaii.

While on maternity leave, she began to write fiction, winning a statewide short-story contest for Honolulu magazine Her first published novel, Call After Midnight, was bought by Harlequin Intrigue and was published in 1987, followed by several romantic thrillers over the next decade.

In 1996 she published Harvest, starting her journey into the world medical thrillers, drawing on her medical background. The novel became her first New York Times bestseller, and it was followed by Life Support, Bloodstream and Gravity. In 2001 she published The Surgeon, which introduced detective Jane Rizzoli. Her partner, medical examiner Dr. Maura Isles was introduced in Apprentice, and together they were the beginning of the long-running Rizzoly & Isles novels that inspired TNT’s television series of the same name.

Tess Gerritsen has also written several standalone novels, including the historical medical thriller The Bone Garden, and the Tavistock Family romantic-suspense saga, and more recently, the Martini Club series about a group of retired spies on the coast of Maine. Her books have sold tens of millions of copies worldwide and have been published in more than 40 countries.

Tess Gerritsen now writes full time and lives in Maine.

Tess Gerritsen Book Adaptations

  • Rizzoli & Isles series – adapted into the crime drama TV series Rizzoli & Isles (2010-2016)
  • Tess Gerritsen wrote the script for the horror film Island Zero (2018)
  • The Spy Coast – soon to be adapted into the TV series Spy Coast

Tess Gerritsen Awards and Honors

Awards

  • The Surgeon – RITA Award for Best Romantic Suspense Novel (2002).
  • Vanish – Nero Wolfe Award (Nero Award) for Best Mystery Novel (2006)
  • ThrillerMaster Award (International Thriller Writers) (2024)

Nominations and Shortlists

  • Vanish – Edgar Award for Best Novel (2006)
  • Vanish – Macavity Award for Best Novel (2006)
  • The Mephisto Club – CrimeFest: Sounds of Crime Award (2008)
  • Playing With Fire – ITW Award for Best Hardcover Novel (2016)
  • The Spy Coast – ITW Award for Best Paperback original (2024)
  • The Spy Coast – CWA Whodunnit Dagger (2025)

Edited by

Marika

Founder of Mystery Sequels, a reference site focused on listing mystery and thriller books in the correct reading order. I maintain and update the site’s bibliographies as new titles are released, ensuring accuracy and consistency across author and series pages.

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11 Comments

  1. My favorite author. I love the Jane Rizzoli character if she was real I would love 2 meet her ! I would like 2 have Thanksgiving at the Rizzoli table. I’d have some talks with Frankie junior. 👍

  2. Can we get notified when book 3 in the spy series is released – hooked on these characters

  3. Just finished spy coast, picked up randomly at library, title caught my attention. Going to put name on list for summer guests and pick up 3 or 4 of whatever is available. Read everything by Michael Conley and David baldacci, was looking for a new favorite author, after only one book, I think I’ve found her!

  4. I have been a keen reader of Tess Gerritsen books; I have read The Rizzoli & Isles Books 1 to 12 and have just got the 13th & 14th books which I am now looking forward to reading. I have thought that all of these were good to very good reading. I have read 3 of the medical books, but to me, they were not quite so engaging as the R&I series. I do not read the short story books.

    1. I just read the #2 book called The Summer Guests. I finished it in 2 days, I couldn’t put it down. I’m going back to get the #1 book. I hope we don’t have to wait another two years for a 3rd book.

  6. Read three of her books and found them to be very interesting.hope to read the entire series if money permits.

    1. Just read Freaks. It’s a short story, roughly 25 pages. I found it at the back of the paperback version of “The Silent Girl”

  8. I just read the first 3 R&I books. I love the TV series. I like the books also. There is a Whoopie Goldberg movie named Fatal Beauty. Her character name is Rizzoli and she is a detective. In the books I hear the TV Isles voice although she is described more like Abby in NCIS! Rizzoli on the other hand, sounds very much rougher than the TV Rizzoli. I hear Whoopie’s voice even through the 3rd book. Since the movie preceded the books by more than 10 yrs, I wonder if Mrs Gerritsen wrote the Rizzoli character with more of the roughness of the movie Rizzoli?

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