Below is the complete list of Kathy Reichs’ Temperance Brennan books in order. For this series, the chronological reading order is the same as the order of publication.
Publication Order of Temperance Brennan Books
- Déjà Dead (1997)
Déjà Dead was published in 1997 and is listed as book #1 in the Temperance Brennan series. - Death du Jour (1999)
Published in 1999, Death du Jour is listed as book #2 in the Temperance Brennan series. - Deadly Decisions (2000)
Deadly Decisions is a 2000 release and appears as book #3 in the Temperance Brennan series. - Fatal Voyage (2001)
In the Temperance Brennan series, Fatal Voyage is book #4 and was published in 2001. - Grave Secrets (2002)
Grave Secrets was first published in 2002; within the Temperance Brennan series, it is listed as book #5. - Bare Bones (2003)
Bare Bones was published in 2003 and is listed as book #6 in the Temperance Brennan series. - Monday Mourning (2004)
Published in 2004, Monday Mourning is listed as book #7 in the Temperance Brennan series. - Cross Bones (2005)
Cross Bones is a 2005 release and appears as book #8 in the Temperance Brennan series. - Break No Bones (2006)
In the Temperance Brennan series, Break No Bones is book #9 and was published in 2006. - Bones to Ashes (2007)
Bones to Ashes was first published in 2007; within the Temperance Brennan series, it is listed as book #10. - Devil Bones (2008)
Devil Bones was published in 2008 and is listed as book #11 in the Temperance Brennan series. - 206 Bones (2009)
Published in 2009, 206 Bones is listed as book #12 in the Temperance Brennan series. - Spider Bones / Mortal Remains (2010)
Spider Bones / Mortal Remains is a 2010 release and appears as book #13 in the Temperance Brennan series. - Flash and Bones (2011)
In the Temperance Brennan series, Flash and Bones is book #14 and was published in 2011. - Bones Are Forever (2012)
Bones Are Forever was first published in 2012; within the Temperance Brennan series, it is listed as book #15. - Bones in Her Pocket (2013)
Bones in Her Pocket was published in 2013 and is listed as book #16 in the Temperance Brennan series. - Bones ofthe Lost (2013)
Published in 2013, Bones ofthe Lost is listed as book #17 in the Temperance Brennan series. - Swamp Bones (2014)
Swamp Bones is a 2014 release and appears as book #18 in the Temperance Brennan series. - Bones Never Lie (2014)
In the Temperance Brennan series, Bones Never Lie is book #19 and was published in 2014. - Bones on Ice (2015)
Bones on Ice was first published in 2015; within the Temperance Brennan series, it is listed as book #20. - Speaking in Bones (2015)
Speaking in Bones was published in 2015 and is listed as book #21 in the Temperance Brennan series. - A Conspiracy of Bones (2018)
Published in 2018, A Conspiracy of Bones is listed as book #22 in the Temperance Brennan series. - The Bone Code (2021)
The Bone Code is a 2021 release and appears as book #23 in the Temperance Brennan series. - Cold, Cold Bones (2022)
In the Temperance Brennan series, Cold, Cold Bones is book #24 and was published in 2022. - The Bone Hacker (2023)
The Bone Hacker was first published in 2023; within the Temperance Brennan series, it is listed as book #25. - Fire and Bones (2024)
Fire and Bones was published in 2024 and is listed as book #26 in the Temperance Brennan series. - Evil Bones (2025)
Published in 2025, Evil Bones is listed as book #27 in the Temperance Brennan series.
Publication Order of Temperance Brennan Collections Books
- The Bone Collection (2016)
The Bone Collection is a 2016 release and appears as book #28 in the Temperance Brennan series.
About Temperance Brennan
Kathy Reichs’s Temperance Brennan series is one of the major modern forensic mystery lines, and it works because the science is not decorative. Reichs is herself a forensic anthropologist, and the official material around both the books and the television adaptation makes clear that Temperance Brennan grew directly out of her professional life. That gives the series a different weight from crime novels that simply borrow lab language for atmosphere. Tempe’s work with bones, trauma, identification, and long-buried violence is the foundation of the books, not a stylish extra layered on top.
The first novel, Déjà Dead, established that identity immediately. Simon & Schuster’s author page notes that it was Reichs’s debut novel in 1997 and that it won the Ellis Award for Best First Novel, which helps explain why the series arrived with such a strong sense of authority. From the start, these books were different from lighter amateur mysteries or conventional police procedurals. Tempe is a professional scientist, and the novels are built around reconstruction: not simply who killed someone, but how the dead can still be read when almost everything human about them seems to have been erased.
Publication order matters here because Tempe’s life and working world develop across the series in a meaningful way. The books may each contain their own case, but this is not a franchise that wipes the slate clean after every ending. Her professional settings, recurring personal ties, and emotional wear all accumulate. Simon & Schuster currently presents Evil Bones as the latest book in the series, while its broader series page and catalog listings show just how long the run has become, extending from Déjà Dead through later entries such as The Bone Code, Cold, Cold Bones, The Bone Hacker, Fire and Bones, and now Evil Bones. Read in order, that scale becomes part of the experience.
Another reason order matters is that the Tempe Brennan of the novels is not the same figure many readers think they know from Bones. Reichs’s official site states plainly that the show was based on her Temperance Brennan novels and that the heroine bears strong similarities to Reichs herself, but the books remain their own thing: darker, more rooted in forensic casework, and more closely tied to Reichs’s actual professional environments. Official site material also notes that Reichs split her work between North Carolina and Québec, which helps explain why the books feel so grounded in specific places rather than in a generic crime-fiction landscape.
What gives the series its staying power is the balance between technical credibility and narrative drive. These novels are full of bones, pathology, decomposition, and the institutional mechanics of identifying the dead, but they do not read like textbooks. Tempe is intelligent, stubborn, professionally exacting, and often emotionally frayed in believable ways. Reichs writes forensic work as painstaking labor, but she also understands suspense, which is why the books can move from autopsy rooms and evidence analysis into wider criminal networks, family secrets, historical trauma, and contemporary violence without losing coherence. That blend is what turned the series into the defining center of her bibliography.
For readers who already have the list above, the best way to think about Temperance Brennan is as a long-form forensic series with real continuity rather than a string of interchangeable case files. The novels reward publication-order reading because Tempe’s expertise may stay constant, but her life does not. Over time, the books become more than crime stories built around bones. They become a sustained portrait of a woman whose work forces her to listen to the dead again and again, and whose persistence gives the series both its rigor and its emotional force.