The Hank Hart Books in Order

Hank Hart arrives as a seasoned Chicago trial attorney with the reflexes of a former athlete and the confidence of someone used to working a room, a witness, or a jury. In Baking Ice Cubes, she heads to Apple Grove, Wisconsin, at the last minute to take over a medical malpractice trial. That setup lets the series begin on familiar Venice ground, law, medicine, secrets, and attraction, but the tone feels a little brisker and more playful from the start.

Apple Grove gives the first book a nice pressure-cooker effect. Hank is an outsider in a small town, trying to master the facts fast enough to save a case that is already wobbling. What looks like a straightforward medical dispute turns into something much murkier, with sabotage, hidden relationships, and motives that keep shifting. At the same time, Hank finds herself pulled toward a powerful woman she probably should keep at arm's length. So even before the series changes shape, it is already mixing courtroom danger with personal temptation.

Then it swerves.

Grilling Martinis takes Hank out of legal combat and drops her into covert operations. After an assassination attempt interrupts a Northwoods lake vacation, she agrees to train at a top-secret camp called the French Farm. From there the story opens up into weapons training, undercover work, a mission in the French Alps, and even a space-shuttle hijacking. It is a big jump, but it makes sense because the series is really about whether Hank is willing to become more dangerous than her old life required.

That is the ongoing hook. Hank is smart, competitive, and quick under pressure, but these books keep asking what happens when a courtroom mindset meets espionage. She has to learn new rules, decide who deserves her trust, and figure out whether the legal career that shaped her is still enough. Family also matters more than it first appears, especially once her father's hidden world starts nudging her toward a different future.

This is the most shape-shifting of Venice's series so far.

If you want a pure legal thriller, the first book gives you that foundation. If you want that same heroine pushed into a broader action canvas, the second book delivers it. Across both novels, the through-lines are competence, momentum, romantic heat, and women who are not afraid to step into rooms where they were not expected. The stories move fast, but they still make time for character choices to matter.

Start with Baking Ice Cubes. It introduces Hank's voice, her appetite for a fight, and the mix of law, danger, and attraction that the series builds on. From there, Grilling Martinis shows just how far Venice is willing to take her.