Jesse McDermitt Books in Order

Years after a near-fatal ascent from the Florida Straits, Jesse finally has the means to revisit the mysterious wreck he glimpsed in the depths. While he prepares, Armstrong asks him to lead an elite team against a corrupt ruler, and he starts to wonder which mission is truly cursed.

Deep in the Everglades, Jesse, Rusty Thurman, and Billy Rainwater begin salvaging a World War II Nazi submarine driven inland by a hurricane. As they uncover a fortune in stolen gold, an unseen predator stalks a local middle-schooler, forcing Jesse to balance treasure hunting with hard justice.

After nine months away, Jesse returns to his island north of Big Pine Key to find systems failing and his caretaker missing. A yacht broker’s cryptic tip and a body in Miami reveal a coordinated attack on the Keys that only Jesse and his friends can confront.

Life on Jesse’s little island no longer feels like the Keys he first fell for. Yacht thieves prowl the Middle Keys at night, and when they pick the wrong target, Jesse and his family are dragged into a covert struggle that gets painfully personal.

Living off the grid aboard the custom cruiser Taranis, Jesse and his small crew drift toward the misty peaks of Dominica, enjoying deserted coves and quiet beaches. There they discover the island doubling as a staging ground for drugs and arms, and paradise turns violent fast.

A simple family cruise to Apalachicola for oysters pulls Jesse into the pine woods of Tate’s Hell State Forest, where hidden meth labs poison Florida’s Forgotten Coast. As rumors swirl on the waterfront, he plays a high-stakes game with dealers who know the swamp too well.

When Jesse’s lifelong friend Billy Rainwater finds something impossible deep in the Everglades, the two chase the mystery like they did as kids. Others have been searching for decades, and the fight over the Glades’ buried secret soon spills into Jesse’s favorite Keys watering hole.

Finally ready to retire, Jesse is diving a remote backcountry reef with family and friends when he finds a sunken 1928 Duesenberg once owned by a Saudi prince. The discovery hides a darker secret that turns one of his own protégés into a lethal threat.

Back in the Keys, Jesse senses a strange tension in the heavy July air. A former investment banker, now a hollow-eyed waiter, and another broken stranger hint at something sinister hollowing out lives. Jesse needs to uncover the source before the next islander disappears inside it.

During what should be an easy stretch of time at sea with family and friends, Jesse once again finds danger riding in his wake. A new threat forces him to choose between slipping quietly out of sight and confronting the trouble head-on to protect those around him.

Now captaining the research vessel Ambrosia, Jesse’s public mission is mapping the seafloor for oil. His real assignment is tracking a Venezuelan cartel moving drugs and slave labor through legitimate shipping lanes, hidden among thousands of freighters that cross the Caribbean every year.

A homemade skiff drifts under the Seven Mile Bridge carrying an injured boy who speaks perfect English but remembers nothing. Clues point back to Fort Myers gangs Jesse once fought, forcing him into a fast, dangerous return he swore he would never make.

On a dive vacation in Honduras, Jesse discovers a cartel stripping rain forest for coca fields and smuggling rare hardwoods and wildlife out through hidden coves. With activists being butchered, he and the Ambrosia crew must decide how far they are willing to go to stop it.

Back in Fort Myers, Jesse joins friends on a kayaking trip that turns into a rescue for a sick baby manatee. As red tide devastates the coast, he uncovers a man-made scheme in the Ten Thousand Islands that is far deadlier than any natural bloom.

After a brutal mission in Mexico, Jesse just wants to sail away and forget. That plan dies when a severed leg tangles in his dinghy line, pointing to a serial killer and a former Russian smuggler hunting victims in the jungles outside Belize City.

On sleepy Grassy Key, a young woman vanishes on her way to work, leaving only her car behind. Months later the trail is cold, until Jesse starts leaning on locals and uncovers a web of secrets someone is willing to kill to keep buried.

On Norman Island, a strange commune of newcomers seems merely odd until one of them washes ashore dead. Visiting a friend, Jesse stumbles into a cult-like drug ring using hidden coves as cover and must shut it down before more followers disappear into the sea.

Rebuilding his storm-ravaged island after Hurricane Irma, Jesse hopes for peace. Instead, an eco-minded woman from his past uncovers a massive drug lab in Virginia, and a contract killer starts stalking his friends, dragging Jesse into snow-covered mountains far from his home waters.

After drifting too long as a hard-drinking, drifting sailor, Jesse forces himself back into fighting shape. A message from Charity Styles offers what he needs most, a shared mission that carries them from the deep canyons of Exuma Sound to the marinas of Bimini.

Relaxing among laid-back cruisers in the Berry Islands, Jesse tries to enjoy life off the grid. When destroyed reefs and slaughtered sea turtles point to a vicious crew hiding nearby, he is forced to trade beach bars for blue water and hunt killers once again.

In Miami’s Coconut Grove, a seedy new crowd is preying on adventurous young women while a fortune in Aztec emeralds vanishes. Hired to find the gems, Jesse digs into the waterfront’s glitz and grime and uncovers a predator whose crimes go far beyond theft.

A quiet day in the Keys ends when a shrimp trawler explodes on the horizon, killing someone from Jesse’s past. Chasing answers from Miami to Fort Myers, he uncovers a plot that brings violence to his doorstep and answers it with a fury he thought he had buried.

When a young treasure-diving couple is found murdered in the Keys backcountry, one of Jesse’s closest friends becomes the prime suspect. Convinced of his innocence, Jesse teams up with Detective Devon Evans to stop a serial killer before more bodies wash ashore.

A rushed rescue off the Bahamian Out Islands goes sideways when the kidnap victims would rather return to the Jamaican killers than face the man who ordered their deaths. Chasing that puppet master pulls Jesse to the Carolina Lowcountry, where politics and murder collide in the marsh.

Jesse’s morning swim turns grisly when he finds a human arm in the surf. The next day a drifting mega-yacht reveals more bodies, pointing to Eastern European black marketers using the Keys as a base. Jesse races across the Gulf Stream to save the missing owners.

Explosions on fragile patch reefs in Florida Bay shatter the quiet backcountry, and Jesse is furious to find a violent Miami gang behind the blasts. After he and his daughter witness a brutal double murder, he uncovers a psychopath using the Keys as bait.

A young man fleeing a Pittsburgh cocaine dealer lands in Key West, hoping the island is far enough away. When his past follows and bodies start appearing from the Bahamas to the Everglades, Jesse steps in, determined to shut down the smugglers stalking his waters.

Jesse is helping a fellow Marine’s son battle crippling PTSD in the Keys when a deadly threat from inside Homeland Security targets them both. As a government assassin closes in, Jesse has to decide how far he will go to protect his makeshift family.

Fresh out of the Marine Corps and unwilling to face another cold winter, Jesse heads for the Florida Keys, buys a liveaboard boat, and starts a charter business, only to discover that danger in Marathon and the Everglades is impossible for him to ignore.

A centuries-old clue hidden in a mangrove tree sends Jesse and his friends after a lost Spanish treasure in the Bahamas. When the Croatian mob, a predatory islander, and a crooked attorney close in, the hunt for gold turns deadly fast.

Retired Marine Jesse McDermitt runs a quiet charter business on a remote Florida Keys island until a former sergeant dies in a suspicious diving accident. Hunting the truth pulls Jesse toward a psychotic killer, buried treasure, and a terrorist cell in the Caribbean.

Still grieving a devastating loss to terrorists, Jesse hides on his island and numbs himself with busywork. When a friend begs him to save her father from a Cuban smuggler tied to Hezbollah, Jesse sees a chance for vengeance and heads back into danger.