Hunter and Tate Books in Order

The Hunter and Tate books bring Brenda Chapman's crime fiction into a very current lane. At the center are Detective Liam Hunter and Ella Tate, a former crime reporter who turns to true-crime podcasting and independent reporting. The series opens with Blind Date, where a murdered woman turns out to have been living in Ella's old apartment and looks unsettlingly like her. From the start, the appeal is clear: one character works the case from inside the system, the other works it from the edges, and Ottawa hangs over both of them.

They do not investigate in the same way, and that is the point.

Liam has the badge, the unit, and the obligation to follow procedure even when time is running out. Ella has media instincts, old contacts, and a habit of asking the question other people would rather avoid. Sometimes she helps the investigation. Sometimes she complicates it. Chapman gets good tension out of that push and pull. Their connection is not built on gimmicks. It comes from trust earned under pressure, and from the fact that each of them can reach places the other cannot.

The cases are broad enough to feel like full procedurals but personal enough to stay tense. In When Last Seen, a missing three-year-old boy starts to echo an earlier disappearance. Fatal Harvest moves into the nearby village of Ashton, where a double murder and a missing boy expose the cracks in a small community. Who Lies in Wait widens the field further, tying a dead fiancée, an escaped captive, and a dangerous anonymous source into one fast-moving investigation. The crimes change, but the series keeps returning to hidden lives, damaged families, and the cost of looking too closely.

Ottawa is more than a backdrop here. Heat waves, frozen woods, the Ottawa River Parkway, downtown condos, quiet residential streets, and nearby small towns all help set the pressure level. Chapman also folds in very modern kinds of evidence and exposure: social media posts, anonymous messages, online reputations, and the strange intimacy of a voice speaking to listeners through a podcast. The books feel current without turning into tech showcases.

Tony, Ella's neighbour, adds some warmth and personality to the world around the investigations, but the tone stays grounded. These are suspense novels first, and the danger lands close. People get hurt. Leads go cold. The wrong assumption can send an investigation in the wrong direction for too long.

If you like mysteries that sit halfway between police procedural and amateur sleuth, this series hits a sweet spot. Start with Blind Date and read forward. The books build an ongoing world around Hunter and Tate, but each one also gives you a strong central case, a vivid Ottawa setting, and the kind of chapter-ending tension that makes one more chapter a very easy mistake.