Chase Waters Books in Order

Chase Waters writes crime fiction that feels rooted in heat, salt air, and the uneasy line between paradise and danger. Public author notes place Waters in Miami, Florida, and say Waters grew up there before spending much of adult life moving between the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. That small biographical detail goes a long way toward explaining why the books feel so tied to shorelines, storms, and cities that live right up against the water.

That coastal pull matters.

It shows up all through the fiction. The Florida setting is never just wallpaper. Islands, causeways, marinas, beach neighborhoods, and storm-heavy skies shape the mood and the stakes, whether a story is unfolding near the Keys or in the middle of Miami Beach. Miami is not treated as postcard Florida, either. In these novels, the same places that draw tourists also hide scams, corruption, organized crime, and people making very bad choices in the heat.

Waters came into print in 2018 with Dead In The Water, the first Dangerous Coast of Florida novel. That book introduces John Godwin, a former EMT turned private investigator, and it also sets a pattern Waters returns to often: a lead who wants a quieter life, then gets pulled into something darker and more dangerous. Over the next few years, Waters built out the Dangerous Coast of Florida books at a quick pace, adding Burned In The Water, Poisoned In The Water, Drugged In The Water, Sleeping In The Water, Framed In The Water, and Protected In The Water.

A second strand of the bibliography starts with Miami Beach Missing. Those books shift the focus to Austin Drake, a former FBI psychological profiler, and Maria Castellanos, his young and tenacious partner in a new private investigation business. From there the Miami Beach stories move through online exploitation, blackmail, kidnapping, gang pressure, and organized crime. Miami Beach Blackmail, Miami Beach Kidnapped, and Miami Beach Addiction all show the same interest in modern threats, messy loyalties, and the gap between how Miami Beach looks in daylight and what can happen after dark.

Waters keeps the public biography short.

That means the clearest picture comes from the books themselves. Again and again, Waters returns to people who are half inside and half outside official systems. John works with the police but is not one of them. Austin knows federal profiling but now has to navigate smaller, messier investigations where the rules are less clear. That outsider position gives both series much of their tension and keeps the stories grounded in practical choices instead of grand speeches.

The crimes are ugly, and Waters does not soften them much. These are not cozy mysteries or puzzle-heavy whodunits. What keeps the novels moving is the mix of pace and place, damaged but capable leads, and cases that start with one death or disappearance and widen into something larger. If you want a good snapshot of the John Godwin side, Framed In The Water is a useful example, pulling him into a mob-linked case on the Miami waterfront. On the Miami Beach side, Miami Beach Missing and Miami Beach Blackmail show how Waters folds digital threats, police pressure, and street-level violence into the same story.

Public biographical details remain pretty spare, but the through line is easy to see. Miami is home turf, coastal living is part of the imagination behind the work, and the books keep returning to places where beauty and danger sit side by side. Public author pages also continue to list Miami, Florida, which fits the world these novels know best.