Linda Castillo Books in Order

Below is the complete list of Linda Castillo books in order of publication. This is the recommended reading sequence for the series.

Kate Burkholder Series

1. Sworn to Silence (2009)
2. Pray for Silence (2010)
3. Breaking Silence (2011)
4. Gone Missing (2011)
5. Her Last Breath (2013)
6. The Dead Will Tell (2014)
7. After the Storm (2015)
8. Among the Wicked (2016)
9. Down a Dark Road (2017)
10. A Gathering of Secrets (2018)
11. Shamed (2019)
12. Outsider (2020)
13. Fallen (2021)
14. The Hidden One (2022)
15. An Evil Heart (2023)
16. The Burning (2024)
17. Rage (2025)

Kate Burkholder Short Stories/Novellas Series

1. Long Lost (2013)
2. A Hidden Secret (2015)
3. Seeds of Deception (2016)
4. Only the Lucky (2017)
5. In Dark Company (2018)
6. In Plain Sight (2019)
7. The Pact (2020)
8. Disappeared (2021)
9. Blood Moon (2022)
10. Hallowed Ground (2023)
11. Dark Storm Rising (2024)
12. A Dark Path (2026)

Kate Burkholder Short Story Collections Series

1. A Simple Murder (2021)

High Country Heroes Series

1. A Hero To Hold (2001)
2. Just A Little Bit Dangerous (2002)
3. A Cry in the Night (2002)

Lights Out Series

1. Royal Lockdown (2007)
   (By Rebecca York)
2. Safe Before Dawn (2007)
3. A Baby Before Dawn (2007)
4. Anything for His Son (2007)
   (By Rita Herron)
5. Meet Me at Midnight (2007)
   (By Jessica Andersen)

Operation: Midnight Series

1. Operation: Midnight Tango (2005)
2. Operation: Midnight Escape (2005)
3. Operation: Midnight Guardian (2006)
4. Operation: Midnight Rendezvous (2006)
5. Operation: Midnight Cowboy (2007)

Standalone Novels Series

1. Remember the Night (2000)
2. Cops And … Lovers? (2001)
3. Lay Down the Law (2001)
4. The Perfect Victim (2002)
5. Uncharted Waters (2003)
6. The Shadow Side (2003)
7. Midnight Run (2003)
8. Fade To Red (2004)
9. Dead Reckoning (2005)
10. Depth Perception (2005)
11. A Whisper in the Dark (2006)
12. In the Dead of Night (2007)
13. Overkill (2007)

About Linda Castillo

Linda Castillo is best known as the author of the Kate Burkholder mysteries, a long-running crime series set in Amish country that has become the clear center of her career. Her official biography describes her as the author of the New York Times and internationally bestselling Kate Burkholder series, notes that her books have sold more than four million copies worldwide and been translated into fourteen languages, and identifies Sworn to Silence as the novel that launched the series and was later adapted as the Lifetime film An Amish Murder.

What makes Castillo’s bibliography distinctive is that she did not build her reputation simply by using an unusual setting. The Kate Burkholder books work because the Amish world is not decorative background. It shapes the cases, the social tensions, and the central character herself. Macmillan’s series page frames Kate as a survivor of the “Slaughterhouse Killer” murders who left the Amish world, built a life in law enforcement, and then returned to Painters Mill, Ohio, as chief of police. That setup explains much of the emotional force of the series. Kate is not an outsider parachuted into a closed community for dramatic effect; she belongs to that world and is estranged from it at the same time. Castillo built an entire crime series on that double vision, and it gave her books a stronger identity than a standard procedural or small-town mystery.

Her bibliography is best understood in two major phases. Before the Kate Burkholder novels became her signature, Castillo wrote romantic suspense. Her official site still lists four romantic suspense titles—Depth Perception, The Perfect Victim, Fade to Red, and The Shadow Side—originally published by Berkley Sensation and later reissued digitally. Those books matter because they show that Castillo’s strengths were already in place before Kate Burkholder: danger, atmosphere, damaged characters, and a preference for suspense that stays emotionally close to the people inside it. The move into crime fiction did not create those instincts from scratch; it gave them a more durable series form.

Once that series form arrived, Castillo expanded it steadily. The Kate Burkholder line now includes full novels, novellas, and short-story collections, and Macmillan continues to present it as an active mystery series. That matters because her career is no longer defined by one breakout title alone. It is defined by the sustained development of a fictional world: Painters Mill, the surrounding Amish communities, and Kate’s uneasy position between inherited tradition and modern law enforcement. Collections such as Kate Burkholder: Three Novellas, A Simple Murder, and A Dark Path: And Other Kate Burkholder Short Stories show how fully Castillo has built that world beyond the main novels.

Her reputation inside crime fiction has also been reinforced by awards recognition. Castillo’s official bio notes major honors including an Edgar Award and the Sue Grafton Memorial Award, and Macmillan specifically identifies her short story Hallowed Ground as the 2024 Edgar Award winner for Best Short Story. That award matters because it confirms that her success is not only commercial. She has also been recognized for craft within the mystery field itself.

Castillo’s style is best described as crime fiction with a thriller pulse. Even when the books are rooted in community, custom, and personal history, they are designed to move. Her publisher calls the series equal parts fast-paced thriller and psychological puzzle, which is a useful description of the balance she strikes. She writes violence as serious and disruptive, but she pairs that darkness with strong recurring characters and a setting that keeps drawing readers back. Official biography material also notes that she lives on a ranch in Texas with her husband, horses, and dogs, a detail that fits the grounded, rural texture that often runs through her fiction.

The best way to understand Linda Castillo’s bibliography, then, is to see it as the work of a suspense writer who found the perfect long-form vehicle for her interests. She began in romantic suspense, but the Kate Burkholder novels gave her a larger canvas for crime, identity, faith, secrecy, and belonging. That series became her defining achievement because it offered more than murder plots. It offered a heroine divided between two worlds and a setting textured enough to sustain a whole career.