Agent Kat Polinski Thriller Books in Order

Kat Polinski is not a neat, rule-following spy. She is a hacker, burglar, and undercover operative who works out of Washington, and part of the appeal of this series is that she never feels entirely comfortable inside the system she serves. Hawksley builds her as clever, bruised, restless, and useful in places where governments want deniable people doing dangerous work.

The series starts with The History Book, later republished as Security Breach. Kat returns from a deadly embassy mission to learn that her sister Suzy has been murdered in England. That loss pulls her into a conspiracy around Project Peace, an international security pact that promises order while stripping away privacy and freedom. The book has a near-future edge, but it plays like a political thriller first, with surveillance, energy politics, and blurred loyalties driving the plot.

Kat works best under pressure.

In Home Run, the stage shifts to Asia and the closed world of North Korea. An offer comes from inside the regime: help destroy its nuclear weapons and bring it down, but first a young boy has to be taken safely to America. Kat is sent into the middle of the deal, and the book leans hard into uncertainty, because every handler seems to know more than she does, including her boss Bill Cage.

Friends and Enemies widens the series again. When Kat's close friend Jennifer Fox, a trauma surgeon, is kidnapped while treating bombing victims in Iraq, Kat breaks rules to find her. The story moves between Baghdad and Washington and plays on the idea that allies, enemies, and motives can change faster than anyone wants to admit.

Across the books, the tension comes from more than action scenes. Hawksley is interested in the security state, in what governments do after terrorism, and in how private grief can be used by people with power. Kat is a good guide for that world because she is talented but not protected, and because she is willing to push back when the official version stops making sense.

Expect fast movement, international settings, and a heroine who solves problems with nerve, tech skills, and stubbornness. These are political thrillers with chase scenes, not cozy spy puzzles. If you want a series that mixes hacking, fieldwork, and big arguments about freedom and control, Kat Polinski is where Hawksley goes darkest.