The Recommended Reading Order for Kate Wise Mystery Books
To fully experience Kate's personal journey, family updates, and professional resurgence, you should read the series in publication order. Because the books follow a linear path starting from her early days of retirement and continuing through her return to investigative work, the chronological order matches the publication sequence exactly.
After a five-year hiatus between Book 7 (2020) and Book 8 (2025), Blake Pierce (a highly productive collaborative author pen name) revived the series. The complete list of Kate Wise Mystery books in recommended reading order includes:
- If She Knew (2018)
- If She Saw (2018)
- If She Ran (2018)
- If She Hid (2019)
- If She Fled (2019)
- If She Feared (2019)
- If She Heard (2020)
- If She Lied (2025)
- If She Listened (2025)
- If She Stayed (2025)
- If She Remembered (2025)
- If She Dared (2025)
- If She Believed (2025)
- If She Waited (2026)
- If She Returned (2026)
- If She Sensed (2026)
- If She Escaped (2026)
- If She Watched (2027)
- If She Followed (2027)
- If She Slept (2027)
- If She Screamed (2027)
Where to Start and What to Expect
The absolute best place to start is the first book, If She Knew. This novel introduces Kate Wise at 55 years old, bored in her newly retired life and facing an empty nest. When her friend's daughter is murdered, Kate cannot resist using her 30 years of FBI profiling experience to solve the case. This book establishes her sharp intellect, her relationship with her daughter, and the contrast between peaceful suburban locations and the dark minds of serial killers.
While each book features a self-contained mystery and a specific killer to hunt, the character development, Kate's personal struggles with aging, and her ongoing relationship with the FBI carry over from book to book. Reading them out of order is possible, but you will miss the progression of her second career act.
Spin-Offs, Crossovers, and the Blake Pierce Universe
Although Blake Pierce is famous for creating a massive catalog of thriller series (most notably the Riley Paige series), there are no official crossovers or shared-universe connections between Kate Wise and other characters. Blake Pierce operates as a collaborative brand name rather than a single author writing a shared universe. Consequently, you can read the Kate Wise series independently without needing to read any other Blake Pierce series first.