JA Konrath (Blake Crouch) Books in Order

This entry focuses on the many ways J. A. Konrath and Blake Crouch have woven their fictional worlds together. Both writers built their own series first Konrath with Chicago homicide lieutenant Jack Daniels, Crouch with horror novelist Andrew Z. Thomas and the sadist Luther Kite and then began letting those universes overlap.

The earliest collaborations are relatively small in scope. Short works like Serial and its expanded versions show the authors trading chapters, each writing a different killer and then crashing them together. You can feel the energy of two distinct sensibilities Konrath’s grim humor and love of outrageous set pieces alongside Crouch’s tighter, claustrophobic dread.

From there, the projects get more ambitious. Stirred is a full-length thriller that functions as a meeting point for their marquee characters. Jack Daniels, battered and stubborn after years on the job, finds her path crossing with Andrew Z. Thomas and Luther Kite, who bring a very different kind of menace into her world. The book reads like a finale for multiple arcs at once, rewarding readers who have followed both series while still delivering a coherent standalone story.

The omnibus novel Serial Killers Uncut goes a step further, acting as a kind of grand crossover event. Villains and heroes from across Konrath’s and Crouch’s backlists appear, often in unexpected combinations. The book is structured as an interlocking set of episodes that gradually reveal just how many points of contact exist between the fields of bodies these characters have left behind. It is busy, violent, and intentionally over the top.

What ties all of these joint works together is a sense of play. The authors clearly enjoy dropping each other’s creations into new contexts and seeing what breaks. A killer who seemed unstoppable in one series may find themselves outmatched when facing the rules of another. A detective used to one city’s horrors discovers that the world is wider and worse than she thought.

For readers, this collaboration zone is a chance to explore a much larger fictional landscape without losing the familiarity of recurring characters. If you are already a fan of Jack Daniels or Andrew Z. Thomas, the crossover books deepen your understanding of them. If you are new, they offer a wild sampler platter that might send you back to the individual series to see where everyone came from.

This page lays out the joint titles and suggested reading paths so you can decide whether to jump straight into the chaos or work your way up by first reading the solo novels on which that chaos is built.