Below is the complete list of Kendra Elliot’s Columbia River books in order. For this series, the chronological reading order is the same as the order of publication.
Publication Order of Columbia River Books
About Columbia River
Kendra Elliot’s Columbia River series is a shared-world crime and romantic suspense sequence that brings together characters from several of her earlier books while introducing new investigators who later develop stories of their own. Set across Oregon, the series does not follow one detective or couple from beginning to end. Instead, its six novels rotate among familiar figures including Zander Wells, Ava McLane, Mason Callahan, Mercy Kilpatrick, Truman Daly, Evan Bolton, and Rowan Wolff, linking separate murder investigations through a common law-enforcement world.
The Last Sister opens the sequence with FBI Special Agent Zander Wells, previously a supporting character in the Callahan & McLane novels. He travels to a small Oregon logging community after a brutal double murder echoes the unsolved killing of Emily Mills’s father two decades earlier. Emily and her sisters have carried different versions of that childhood tragedy into adulthood, and the new crime forces Zander to examine whether the town’s accepted account of the past concealed something far more complicated.
The Silence returns Ava McLane and Mason Callahan to the foreground. Their relationship had already developed through the four Callahan & McLane novels, making this book effectively a continuation of that series within the Columbia River framework. A violent case involving multiple deaths and disturbing connections to Ava’s personal life pulls the couple into another investigation where professional evidence and family loyalties become difficult to separate.
The third book, In the Pines, brings back FBI Special Agent Mercy Kilpatrick and Police Chief Truman Daly from Elliot’s Mercy Kilpatrick series. Eagle’s Nest has been overwhelmed by treasure hunters searching for a fortune hidden somewhere in the Oregon wilderness when murder interrupts the frenzy. At the same time, a young boy reports that his mother and baby sister have disappeared. The two investigations expose buried family secrets and give readers a later chapter in Mercy and Truman’s life after the conclusion of their original six-book sequence.
The First Death introduces search-and-rescue specialist Rowan Wolff as a central character alongside Deschutes County detective Evan Bolton. Rowan survived a childhood kidnapping by a serial killer, but her younger brother did not, and his remains were never recovered. Twenty-five years later, murders resembling those committed by the imprisoned killer force Rowan and Evan to reconsider what actually happened. Their partnership becomes one of the strongest continuing threads in the latter half of Columbia River.
At the River returns to Mercy and Truman for another case rooted in the past. A true-crime podcaster is murdered near the Columbia River at the location where teenage campers were attacked twenty years earlier. One survivor remains alive but cannot remember the crucial events. The investigation also involves Ollie, Truman’s ward, giving the mystery personal consequences for the family Mercy and Truman have built.
The Next Grave brings Evan and Rowan back after the murder of Evan’s retired mentor. When the victim’s daughter and grandson disappear, evidence points toward old cases the former detective had quietly begun reinvestigating. Evan is forced to consider whether corruption within law enforcement may connect the crimes.
Publication order is particularly useful because Columbia River functions as a bridge among Elliot’s fictional worlds. Familiar protagonists return at later stages of their lives, while Evan and Rowan emerge from supporting roles into a continuing partnership. Detective Noelle Marshall, introduced within this broader Oregon setting, subsequently receives her own series. Columbia River is therefore less a conventional six-book saga than a crossroads where Elliot’s established investigators, new characters, and interconnected Oregon crime stories meet.