Below is the complete list of Allison Brennan’s Quinn and Costa Thriller books in publication order. For this series, the chronological reading order is the same as the order of publication.
Quinn & Costa Thriller Books in Publication Order
- The Third to Die (2020)
- Tell No Lies (2021)
- The Wrong Victim (2022)
- Seven Girls Gone (2023)
- The Missing Witness (2024)
- See How They Hide (2025)
- Make It Out Alive (2026)
- One Last Warning: (2027)
About Quinn and Costa Thriller
Allison Brennan’s Quinn and Costa Thriller series brings together two investigators with very different instincts: Kara Quinn, an LAPD detective known for undercover work, and Matt Costa, an FBI special agent who leads a mobile response team. The partnership gives the series its central tension. Kara is sharp, impulsive, and comfortable operating in morally messy spaces, while Costa is more controlled, strategic, and responsible for keeping a team moving through high-risk federal cases. Their dynamic is not simply a contrast between local police and the FBI; it is a clash of methods that gradually becomes a working trust.
The series begins with The Third to Die, where Brennan introduces the Mobile Response Team through a serial-murder investigation that crosses jurisdictions. That structure is important because it allows the books to move beyond a single city or police department. The team can be pulled into cases wherever the pattern, politics, or danger demands federal involvement. Kara’s role is especially effective because she does not begin as a typical FBI insider. Her LAPD background and undercover experience give her a different way of reading suspects, witnesses, and dangerous situations.
In Tell No Lies, the series moves into environmental crime, murder, and corruption in the Arizona desert, showing that Brennan is not limiting Quinn and Costa to traditional serial-killer cases. The book expands the team’s range and deepens the sense that their investigations often expose larger systems of power and concealment. The Wrong Victim then takes the series into a deadly explosion and a case shaped by secrets, grief, and competing motives, while Seven Girls Gone uses a Louisiana bayou setting to create a more atmospheric mystery involving missing women, local resistance, and corruption.
What makes the series work is the balance between case-driven suspense and team continuity. Brennan gives each book its own central investigation, but the returning cast matters. Kara and Matt are the obvious anchors, yet the Mobile Response Team adds texture because the cases require different skills, not just one heroic investigator solving everything alone. The books often involve jurisdictional friction, hidden agendas, reluctant witnesses, and communities where people have reasons to stay silent. That makes the investigations feel layered without losing the pace of a thriller.
Kara Quinn is one of Brennan’s most distinctive protagonists because she is talented but not easily contained. She has the instincts of an undercover officer, which means she notices behavior, pressure points, and lies in ways that can make her valuable and difficult at the same time. Matt Costa’s role is different. He carries the burden of leadership, and his challenge is not only solving the case but managing personalities, risk, and federal responsibility. Their relationship develops through pressure rather than convenience, which gives the series a steadier emotional foundation as the books continue.
Later entries such as The Missing Witness and See How They Hide keep widening the series’ scope, bringing Kara and Matt into cases involving missing testimony, institutional secrets, and crimes with long shadows. Brennan’s style remains direct and urgent, but the series is not only about speed. It is about what investigators bring with them into each case: training, damage, loyalty, suspicion, and the knowledge that justice can be blocked by fear or influence.
The Quinn and Costa books are best understood as modern FBI thrillers with a strong character spine. They have enough procedural detail to satisfy crime-fiction readers, enough danger to keep the pace tight, and enough personal continuity to make the partnership feel increasingly important. Across the series, Brennan builds a world where every case stands on its own, but the deeper pull comes from watching Kara Quinn and Matt Costa learn how to work together when the rules, the evidence, and the people around them keep shifting.