Gregg Olsen Books in Order (Updated September 10, 2026)

Gregg Olsen is an American crime writer whose bibliography is split almost evenly between fictional thrillers and true crime. His recurring fictional investigators include Detective Megan Carpenter, forensic pathologist Birdy Waterman, sheriff’s detective Kendall Stark, homicide detective Nicole Foster, and sheriff’s detective Emily Kenyon.

Olsen’s bibliography is easier to follow when fiction and nonfiction are kept separate. The six Megan Carpenter novels form his largest current detective series. Waterman and Stark have an earlier shared run, while Birdy Waterman will begin a new solo series with Her Best Friend in February 2027.

Which Gregg Olsen shelf are you trying to build?

• For Megan Carpenter: begin with Snow Creek.
• For Birdy Waterman and Kendall Stark: begin the main shared series with Victim Six.
• For Emily Kenyon: begin with A Cold Dark Place.
• For Nicole Foster: begin with The Sound of Rain.
• For young-adult crime: begin the Port Gamble Chronicles with Envy.
• For true crime: If You Tell, Starvation Heights, and By the River’s Edge are separate nonfiction works.

Megan Carpenter books in order

Megan Carpenter works for the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office in Washington State and carries a secret identity and traumatic childhood that become a major part of the series. Rookie deputy Ronnie Marsh develops into an important partner, while Megan’s old therapy recordings gradually expose the history she has tried to bury.

1. Snow Creek (2019): Megan investigates the disappearance of Ida Watson and the discovery of a burned body near an isolated rural community while recordings from Megan’s own childhood begin revealing the secrets behind the person she used to be.
2. Water’s Edge (2020): A red-haired woman is found murdered in a secluded cove with signs of ritualized restraint, and Megan discovers similarities to other unsolved killings while someone begins sending messages about her hidden past.
3. Silent Ridge (2020), also published as Dark Falls: Megan and Ronnie investigate another disturbing case while the danger surrounding Megan’s past becomes increasingly difficult to keep separate from her present life.
4. Stillwater Island (2021), also published as Vanishing Point: A new investigation takes Megan into another isolated Pacific Northwest community where disappearance, murder, and secrets among people who know one another create a closed-circle danger.
5. Cougar Point (2024): Megan returns for a fifth case while the personal history she has concealed continues to threaten her relationships and professional future.
6. Final Victim (2025): The sixth novel brings Megan into another murder investigation while long-running questions about identity, secrecy, and the violent past she has spent years escaping reach a more advanced stage.

There are six published Megan Carpenter novels as of September 2026. Publication order is strongly recommended because Megan’s personal backstory is serialized even when the individual murder cases are not.

Megan Carpenter’s alternate titles can create duplicate purchases

• Silent Ridge has also appeared as Dark Falls.
• Stillwater Island has also appeared as Vanishing Point.

These alternate titles are not additional Megan Carpenter novels.

Birdy Waterman and Kendall Stark in publication order

Forensic pathologist Birdy Waterman and sheriff’s detective Kendall Stark investigate murders around Washington State. Their books combine forensic evidence, serial killers, cold cases, and recurring enemies.

1. Victim Six (2010): Women are being abducted, tortured, and murdered around Puget Sound, forcing Kendall and Birdy to hunt a methodical serial killer before another carefully chosen victim dies.
2. Closer Than Blood (2011): An old murder and a long-buried desire for revenge place the investigators inside a case where the person closest to the truth may also be dangerously close to the killer.
3. The Bone Box (2012): Birdy reopens a decades-old murder case involving her own cousin after doubts about her childhood testimony make her fear that the wrong person may have been convicted.
4. The Girl in the Woods (2014): The discovery of a body part in Banner Forest brings Birdy and Kendall into an investigation that leads toward a serial killer and a group of people bound together by disturbing relationships.
5. Now That She’s Gone (2015): Serial killer Brenda Nevins escapes from prison and prepares revenge against Birdy and Kendall, using a television psychic as part of an elaborate plan.
6. Just Try to Stop Me (2016): Brenda Nevins continues her campaign, using vulnerable young women as bait while preparing a final confrontation designed to be watched live.

The Bone Box is often treated as a prequel novella because its central case reaches deeply into Birdy’s past. For a first read, publication order remains the easiest arrangement: Victim Six, Closer Than Blood, then The Bone Box.

Why Now That She’s Gone and Just Try to Stop Me belong together

Brenda Nevins is not a one-book villain. Her escape and revenge plan make the later Waterman and Stark books more serialized than the earlier cases.

Read Now That She’s Gone before Just Try to Stop Me so the pursuit of Brenda unfolds in the intended order.

Birdy Waterman is getting a new solo series

• Her Best Friend (expected February 23, 2027): A young woman’s body is recovered near Port Orchard with bindings that remind Birdy of the unsolved murder of her best friend Colleen Weston sixteen years earlier, forcing Birdy to determine whether the same killer has returned or a copycat is recreating the crime.

Her Best Friend is officially listed by Kensington as Birdy Waterman Book 1 of a new series. That does not erase Birdy’s earlier appearances with Kendall Stark. Readers wanting Birdy’s complete history can read the Waterman and Stark books first.

Emily Kenyon books in order

1. A Cold Dark Place (2008): Sheriff detective and single mother Emily Kenyon investigates the massacre of a family at a secluded farmhouse while her teenage daughter Jenna becomes personally involved with the missing boy suspected of the killings.
2. Heart of Ice (2009): A killer targets privileged young women across several towns, and Emily faces another hunt in which her daughter remains dangerously close to the violence surrounding the case.

These two books form the main Emily Kenyon sequence. Some lists also associate A Wicked Snow with Emily because of overlapping regional crime-fiction classification, but Olsen’s principal series listings treat Hannah Griffin as the lead of that novel rather than making it the necessary first Emily installment.

Nicole Foster’s two-book recovery story

1. The Sound of Rain (2016): Former homicide detective Nicole Foster has lost her career, home, and financial stability after a child-murder case collapses, but the victim’s father asks her to reopen the investigation and gives her a chance to uncover what really happened.
2. The Weight of Silence (2018): Nicole returns to her childhood home and tries to rebuild her life while investigating the death of a toddler left in a hot car, only for old rivals and dangerous secrets to reopen wounds from her past.

Read these in order. Nicole’s second chance in The Weight of Silence is much more meaningful after seeing how completely her life has collapsed in The Sound of Rain.

The Port Gamble Chronicles for younger readers

Olsen’s Port Gamble Chronicles, also marketed as the Empty Coffin books, follow teenage twins Hayley and Taylor Ryan in the seemingly idyllic Washington town of Port Gamble. The stories combine murder mystery with a slight paranormal element involving the twins’ unusual connection.

1. Envy (2011), also Beneath Her Skin: Hayley and Taylor investigate the mysterious death of their former friend Katelyn and uncover disturbing truths involving cyberbullying, secrecy, and the people closest to the victim.
2. Betrayal (2012), also Dying to Be Her: The stabbing death of foreign-exchange student Olivia Grant leaves her best friend as the obvious suspect, but the twins discover that the public version of the case may be dangerously incomplete.

The alternate titles refer to the same two novels. Do not count the Port Gamble series as four books.

The Vengeance books are another young-adult branch

1. The Girl on the Run (2014), also published as Run and Girls on Film: Fifteen-year-old Rylee comes home to find her father murdered, her mother missing, and a bloody message ordering her to run, beginning a search that reveals shocking truths about her family.
2. The Boy She Left Behind (2017): Rylee tracks a serial killer targeting college students in Portland while dealing with a betrayal that makes it increasingly difficult to know whom she can trust.

Some bibliographies make Girls on Film look like an additional Vengeance installment. It is another title for the first Rylee story rather than a separate Book 2.

Gregg Olsen standalone crime novels

1. A Wicked Snow (2007): Crime-scene investigator Hannah Griffin survived a childhood massacre whose killer was never found, and an anonymous message years later suggests that her supposedly dead mother may still be part of the nightmare.
2. Fear Collector (2013): A police officer obsessed with whether her missing sister was a Ted Bundy victim becomes the target of another woman who idolized Bundy and raised her son to continue his methods.
3. Shocking True Story (2013): True-crime writer Kevin Ryan desperately searches for the sensational case that will revive his career, only to have a dangerous story arrive at his own door.
4. The Last Thing She Ever Did (2018): Liz accidentally causes the disappearance of a neighbor’s young son and hides what happened, setting off a chain of lies that begins destroying two families living along Oregon’s Deschutes River.
5. Lying Next to Me (2019): Adam Warner watches his wife Sophie being abducted from the shore while he is out on the water, and the investigation gradually exposes disturbing connections between two vacationing couples.
6. The Hive (2021): A murder and a group of women connected to a charismatic wellness leader form the center of a psychological thriller about manipulation, belief, and the power exerted inside closed communities.
7. I Know Where You Live (2022/2023): A woman believes the dangerous past she escaped has finally found her again, forcing her to confront hidden identities and the person determined to reach her.

These books are independent. Similar Pacific Northwest settings and crime themes do not make them Megan Carpenter or Waterman and Stark novels.

Olsen’s true-crime career began long before his detective fiction

Gregg Olsen was established as a nonfiction crime writer before many readers knew him as a novelist. His true-crime books investigate murders, abuse, medical crimes, religious manipulation, disasters, disappearances, and cases that remained disputed or unresolved for years.

1. Abandoned Prayers (1990): Olsen investigates the deaths surrounding Amish-born Eli Stutzman, including the discovery of Stutzman’s young son Danny in a Nebraska ditch on Christmas Eve.
2. Bitter Almonds (1993): The book recounts the Stella Nickell cyanide poisoning case, in which tampered pain-relief capsules killed Nickell’s husband and another woman and led to a major product-safety investigation.
3. Cruel Deception (1995), also published as Mockingbird: Olsen examines the case of Tanya Reid, whose children’s mysterious medical crises became connected to Munchausen syndrome by proxy and deliberate harm.
4. Starvation Heights (1997): Wealthy sisters Claire and Dora Williamson enter Linda Hazzard’s fasting sanitarium near Seattle in 1911, where starvation, control of their finances, and abuse lead to a murder trial.
5. The Confessions of an American Black Widow (1998), also Bitch on Wheels: The case of Sharon Lynn Nelson centers on insurance money, multiple husbands, and the lover prosecutors said she persuaded to commit murder.
6. If Loving You Is Wrong (1999): Olsen examines the Mary Kay Letourneau case involving the Seattle-area schoolteacher convicted of child rape after a sexual relationship with a student.
7. The Deep Dark (2005): This disaster narrative reconstructs the 1972 Sunshine Mine fire in Idaho and focuses on the miners, rescuers, families, and community affected by one of America’s worst mining disasters.
8. A Twisted Faith (2010): The death of minister Nick Hacheney’s wife Dawn in a house fire leads to revelations about affairs, religious manipulation, and a murder hidden inside a church community.
9. If I Can’t Have You (2014), with Rebecca Morris: Olsen and Morris investigate the disappearance of Susan Cox Powell and the escalating family tragedy that ended with Josh Powell killing himself and the couple’s two children.
10. A Killing in Amish Country (2016), with Rebecca Morris: The murder of Barbara Weaver reveals the online affairs of her Amish husband Eli and the relationship with Barb Raber that prosecutors said developed into a plan to kill his wife.
11. If You Tell (2019): Sisters Nikki, Sami, and Tori Knotek recount years of abuse by their mother Shelly and the murders connected to the Washington farmhouse where they grew up.
12. American Mother (2022): Olsen examines another American family murder case through the people, evidence, and relationships surrounding the woman at its center.
13. American Black Widow (2023): A later true-crime work returns Olsen to a case involving marriage, deception, money, and a woman accused of turning intimate relationships into opportunities for murder.
14. The Amish Wife (2024): Olsen revisits an Amish-country death and challenges parts of the accepted narrative by reexamining evidence, witnesses, and decisions surrounding the investigation.
15. Out of the Woods (2025): A survivor-centered true-crime account follows a girl who encounters a killer and then spends years dealing with the consequences of what happened and the effort to find a way forward.
16. By the River’s Edge (2026): Olsen reconstructs the unsolved 1990 murders of Yolanda Sapp, Nickie Lowe, and Kathy Brisbois near the Spokane River and the DNA evidence that decades later identified Donna Perry as the suspect who would be convicted.

By the River’s Edge was published June 23, 2026 and is Olsen’s latest published full-length true-crime book as of September 10, 2026.

Two more true-crime releases are already scheduled for October 2026

1. The Back Bedroom: A True Story of Exorcism and Murder (expected October 1, 2026): Olsen examines the 1976 death of three-year-old Davey Weilbacher and the cult-like religious control that led adults around him to believe abuse was necessary to drive out supposed demonic possession.
2. Ordinary Wife: The True Story of America’s Forgotten Serial Killer (expected October 27, 2026), with Morgan Olsen: Gregg and his daughter investigate Lyda Trueblood, the Idaho woman accused of using arsenic to poison husbands and relatives during the early twentieth century.

Both remain upcoming as of September 10, 2026. Ordinary Wife is also the launch title for the new Notorious Press true-crime imprint.

Her Best Friend creates an unusual continuity question

Birdy Waterman is not a new character. Readers already know her from the Waterman and Stark thrillers, including Victim Six, The Bone Box, and the Brenda Nevins storyline.

However, Kensington is marketing Her Best Friend as Book 1 of a new Birdy Waterman series. The safest cataloging method is therefore to keep the earlier Waterman and Stark books as one sequence and begin a separate Birdy Waterman heading with Her Best Friend.

A fiction-only reading route through Olsen

1. A Cold Dark Place: Begin with Emily Kenyon if you want Olsen’s earlier detective fiction.
2. Heart of Ice: Complete Emily’s main two-book sequence.
3. Victim Six: Meet Kendall Stark and Birdy Waterman.
4. Continue Waterman and Stark through Just Try to Stop Me: Follow Birdy’s major early continuity.
5. The Sound of Rain: Begin Nicole Foster.
6. The Weight of Silence: Complete Nicole’s two-book arc.
7. Snow Creek: Begin Megan Carpenter.
8. Continue Megan through Final Victim: Follow the serialized secrets of Megan’s past.
9. Her Best Friend: Add Birdy’s new solo-series launch when it is published in 2027.

A true-crime route if you do not want to read twenty books chronologically

1. Abandoned Prayers: Start with Olsen’s early investigative true crime.
2. Starvation Heights: Move into historical medical murder.
3. The Deep Dark: Read his nonfiction disaster history rather than another murder case.
4. A Twisted Faith: Return to murder inside a religious community.
5. If You Tell: Read Olsen’s survivor-centered account of the Knotek family.
6. The Amish Wife: See him revisit and challenge a previously accepted case narrative.
7. By the River’s Edge: Reach his newest published full-length case investigation.

This route samples the range without implying that any of the true-crime books form one narrative series.

What is newest for Gregg Olsen?

By the River’s Edge, published June 23, 2026, is Olsen’s latest published full-length book as of September 10, 2026.

The Back Bedroom is scheduled for October 1, 2026, followed by Ordinary Wife on October 27, 2026.

For fiction, Final Victim is the latest published Megan Carpenter novel, while Her Best Friend is scheduled for February 23, 2027 as the first book in Birdy Waterman’s new solo series.

Questions readers usually have when fiction and true crime share one author page

What is the first Megan Carpenter book?

Snow Creek is Book 1 and should be read before Water’s Edge.

How many Megan Carpenter novels are there?

There are six published books through Final Victim.

Are Silent Ridge and Dark Falls different books?

No. They are alternate titles for the same Megan Carpenter installment.

Are Stillwater Island and Vanishing Point the same novel?

Yes. They are alternate titles for the same Megan Carpenter story.

What is the first Waterman and Stark book?

Victim Six is the main series starting point. The Bone Box is a Birdy-focused novella that reaches back into an older case.

Is Her Best Friend a continuation of Waterman and Stark?

It uses the established Birdy Waterman character, but the publisher labels it Book 1 of a new Birdy Waterman series.

What is Gregg Olsen’s latest true-crime book?

By the River’s Edge, published in June 2026, is the latest published full-length true-crime title at this update.

Is Ordinary Wife already published?

No. It is scheduled for October 27, 2026 and is co-written with Morgan Olsen.

Is Envy the same book as Beneath Her Skin?

Yes. They are alternate titles for the first Port Gamble Chronicles novel.

Is The Girl on the Run the same as Run?

Yes. The first Vengeance story has appeared under multiple titles, including The Girl on the Run, Run, and Girls on Film.

The order that prevents Olsen’s catalog from becoming one giant crime list

Keep each fictional character series separate. Read Megan Carpenter from Snow Creek through Final Victim, Waterman and Stark beginning with Victim Six, Emily Kenyon from A Cold Dark Place, and Nicole Foster from The Sound of Rain.

Then keep the true-crime books on their own shelf. They share Olsen’s investigative interest in real cases, but they are not a series and do not require publication order. When Her Best Friend arrives in 2027, treat it as Birdy Waterman Book 1 while remembering that Birdy’s fictional history began much earlier beside Kendall Stark.