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See the Kate Fox books in order by Shannon Baker, with short summaries, series background, and help choosing where to start this Nebraska mystery series.

Last updated: June 10, 2026

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Publication Order

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14 books

1

Stripped Bare

by Shannon Baker

2016

Kate Fox's life on a Nebraska ranch shatters when a murder, her husband Ted's shooting, and her niece Carly's disappearance hit at once. As betrayal and land politics surface, Kate has to uncover the killer before the danger circles back to her.

2

Close Enough

by Shannon Baker

2017

In this prequel novella, sheriff candidate Kate Fox joins the search for a missing boy as a brutal snowstorm bears down on the Nebraska Sandhills. When the story stops adding up, she trusts her own instincts and goes looking for the truth.

3

Dark Signal

by Shannon Baker

2017

On the day she's sworn in as sheriff, Kate Fox is called to a gruesome death on the railroad tracks. Everyone else sees an accident, but Kate sees murder, and solving it means standing up to doubters, suspects, and a whole town watching.

4

Bitter Rain

by Shannon Baker

2018

New sheriff Kate Fox is still finding her footing when Deputy Kyle Red Owl's sister disappears from a nearby reservation. The search uncovers buried family secrets, rising tensions, and a case far more dangerous than it first appears.

5

Easy Mark

by Shannon Baker

2021

A hated ranch foreman turns up dead in Kate Fox's brother's truck, and her missing brother becomes the obvious suspect. As Kate investigates, she finds secrets on every side, including inside her own family.

6

Broken Ties

by Shannon Baker

2022

Still searching for her missing niece, Sheriff Kate Fox gets pulled into a fresh nightmare when her ex-husband's wife leaves a baby on her doorstep and vanishes. The trail leads Kate into the Wyoming mountains and toward a secretive group with deadly reach.

7

Exit Wounds

by Shannon Baker

2022

When an intruder attacks her mother and dies in the struggle, Kate Fox knows the break-in is not random. A hidden phone sends her digging into her mother's buried past, where old lies and new danger threaten the whole family.

8

Double Back

by Shannon Baker

2023

A mysterious older woman arrives in town and charms two aging bachelor brothers, but Kate Fox suspects she wants more than companionship. Rumors of hidden money turn the case dangerous, and Kate soon realizes the newcomer's past is anything but harmless.

9

Bull's Eye

by Shannon Baker

2024

When a top bull breeder is killed at a rodeo, Kate Fox refuses to accept the easy answer. Her off-the-books digging exposes fraud, grudges, and danger in the rodeo world, just as her own political troubles threaten to sideline her.

10

Close Range

by Shannon Baker

2024

Attorney Garrett Haney's death is ruled an accident, but Kate Fox and young Sheriff Zoe are not convinced. As they pull at family lies and powerful connections, they discover the killer may be much closer than anyone wants to admit.

11

Killer Flock

by Shannon Baker

2025

A blizzard strands Kate Fox with a van full of bird-watchers in a high school gym, then one of them turns up dead. Cut off from help, Kate has to keep the peace and find the killer before the storm traps her with a second victim.

12

Taking Stock

by Shannon Baker

2025

At Denver's National Western Stock Show, Kate Fox gets drawn into a case involving a drugged billionaire, a fake engagement, and a murder that follows fast behind. The deeper she goes, the more the money trail points to old secrets and fresh danger.

13
New

Scorched Line

by Shannon Baker

2026

Kate Fox's estranged mother returns to the Sandhills after years away, and almost immediately someone tries to kill her. Protecting her means reopening old wounds, facing new betrayals, and deciding how much family still counts.

14

South Forty

by Shannon Baker

2027

Kate Fox is pulled far from Nebraska when Baxter disappears in Costa Rica and her niece Carly is arrested while trying to free trafficked wildlife. To save them both, she has to step into a brutal smuggling network far outside her comfort zone.

Series background & context

Kate Fox is the kind of series that starts as a ranch-country mystery and quickly turns into something bigger. In Stripped Bare, Kate is living in Frog Creek, Nebraska, helping run the family cattle place, raising her teenage niece Carly, and trying to hold together a life that looks settled from the outside. Then a murder, a shooting, and a disappearance blow that life apart. By the time the dust clears, Kate is no longer just close to law enforcement. She has become part of it.

The Sandhills do a lot of work in these books.

This is not city detective fiction moved to a rural backdrop. The Nebraska Sandhills shape everything, the distances between houses, the weather, the ranch economy, the local grudges, and the way news travels faster than a pickup on a dirt road. Storms matter. Cattle matter. Who owns the land matters. A case that might seem small anywhere else can turn into a county-wide fight because everyone is tied together by family, work, or old history.

Kate is a practical, stubborn, very human lead. She knows the country and the people in it, but that doesn't make the job easy. If anything, it makes it harder, because nearly every case touches someone she knows. Her huge Fox family is loud, meddling, and loyal in equal measure, and Baker gets a lot of mileage out of the push and pull between affection and exasperation. Kate's history with her ex-husband Ted, her love for Carly, and her uneasy place in a male law-enforcement world give the series its emotional backbone.

Each book brings a fresh mystery, but Kate's personal life keeps moving. Dark Signal drops her into a railroad death that looks like an accident. Bitter Rain pulls her into a missing-person case tied to a nearby reservation. Broken Ties and Exit Wounds dig even harder into family secrets. Later books carry her into rodeos, stock shows, blizzards, and cases that force her to revisit old loyalties and old damage. There is a bigger arc underneath the murders, especially around Carly, Kate's family, and the cost of being the one everyone expects to hold things together.

The tone sits in a sweet spot between western mystery, police story, and family drama. These books are tense, but they are not cold. Kate can be funny. Her relatives can be a lot. The danger is real, yet so is the sense of community, even when that community is making her life miserable. If you like mysteries where the setting feels solid under your boots, and where the sleuth has to balance duty with personal history, this series has plenty to offer.

You can read many of the investigations on their own, but the series is richer in order, starting with Stripped Bare. That way you get the full arc, how Kate changes, how the Sandhills close around her and sometimes open up, and why every new case feels personal even when she wishes it wouldn't.

Edited by

Richard Reis

Software engineer whose passion for tracking book recommendations from podcasts inspired the creation of MRB.

Anurag Ramdasan

Lead investor at 3one4 Capital whose startup expertise and love for books helped shaped MRB and its growth.

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All 14 Kate Fox Books in Order (Complete List 2026)