Shaw and Katie James Books in Order

The Shaw and Katie James books are Baldacci in globe-trotting, high-stakes mode. Instead of a small investigative team working one jurisdiction, these stories jump between countries, newsrooms, and back-channel government operations. The tension comes from the idea that one bad actor with enough money and enough secrecy can do enormous damage before anyone even realizes what’s happening.

Katie James is a journalist who wants the kind of story that changes her career. She’s ambitious and persistent, and she knows that being first sometimes matters as much as being right. Shaw—usually referred to simply by that name—is something very different: a covert operative tied to a shadowy, unofficial effort to stop the worst kinds of criminals before they can strike again.

Information is a weapon in this series.

In The Whole Truth, Katie’s chance to interview the lone survivor of a brutal massacre pulls her into a much bigger web. Shaw is chasing the same trail from the other side, following money, false identities, and private security forces that don’t answer to any single government. Their paths cross in a way that’s uneasy at first—journalism and espionage don’t mix neatly—but the threat is big enough that neither can afford to ignore what the other sees.

One thing the series does well is show how the same event looks different depending on your job. Katie has to deal with editors, sources who lie, and the pressure of going public with information that could get someone killed. Shaw works in the dark, where “proof” is often a suitcase of documents or a whispered confession—and where stopping something fast can matter more than building a case that holds up in court.

Deliver Us from Evil raises the stakes further, pitting Shaw against an extremely wealthy, ruthless figure whose plan could kill on a mass scale. The story leans into urgency: moving pieces in multiple locations, deadlines, and the constant risk that the people trying to stop the disaster will be framed as the villains. It also deepens the uneasy partnership between Shaw and Katie, because both of them are chasing the same truth from opposite directions.

These books are fast, dark, and built around momentum. They’re short, sharp reads that work best back-to-back. If you like thrillers where the “bad guy” isn’t just one murderer but a whole system of money and influence, this two-book arc delivers a clear reading order and a satisfying through-line from start to finish.