Leine Basso Books in Order

The Leine Basso series follows Madeleine "Leine" Basso, a former government assassin who is trying to live with the consequences of her old life. She is highly trained, watchful, and very good at surviving, but the books do not treat a new start as something simple. Leine's past keeps reaching forward, often putting her daughter, April, and the people closest to her at risk.

The series begins chronologically with A Killing Truth, which shows Leine still working as an assassin and caught in a betrayal that changes everything. In Serial Date, she has left that work behind and takes a security job on a strange reality dating show. When a killer begins targeting contestants and abducts April, Leine has to use the skills she hoped never to need again.

She is not a conventional private investigator.

As the series continues, Leine becomes involved with SHEN, an organization devoted to fighting human trafficking. That work shapes many of the early books. In Bad Traffick, she and a homicide detective race to find an abducted girl. The Body Market takes her to Tijuana to look for a missing teenager, and Cargo sends her from Bangkok toward sub-Saharan Africa while she investigates another disappearance. These stories can be dark, but their main drive is the urgent effort to get people out alive.

The scope gets broader as the books go on. The Last Deception pulls Leine into espionage, arms dealing, and a threat that could push nations toward war. In Dark Return, she returns to Tripoli and finds herself investigating abductions at a refugee camp. Absolution brings her into a direct pursuit of Salome, an assassin and terrorist who knows exactly how to attack Leine's weak spots.

The locations keep changing, but the pressure stays close.

Later installments lean into action-adventure without losing Leine's personal stakes. Dakota Burn takes place amid North Dakota's oil boom, where Leine joins an old ally against child traffickers. In Shadow of the Jaguar, she and April head into the Amazon after an expedition member is kidnapped. A Plague of Traitors raises the stakes again with a bioweapon crisis in Libya, while Fatal Objective begins with Leine herself missing.

Expect brisk, globe-spanning thrillers with gunfights, rescues, betrayal, and people whose loyalties are never entirely clear. Leine is tough, but the series also makes room for her uneasy relationship with family, her friends, and the life she is trying to build after violence. Start with A Killing Truth for the full backstory, or try Serial Date if a darkly offbeat crime thriller sounds like the better entry point.