Will Trent Books in Order
Will Trent is a GBI special agent with an eidetic memory, severe dyslexia, and scars from eighteen years in Atlanta's foster care system. He compensates for his reading difficulties with obsessive attention to detail and the kind of pattern recognition that makes him the agency's best investigator. His past haunts him, but it also makes him relentless when children are involved.
Karin Slaughter introduced Trent in Triptych (2006), pairing him with his partner Faith Mitchell, a detective dealing with her own family complications. The series took a major turn in Undone (2009) when Sara Linton, the pediatrician and coroner from Slaughter's earlier Grant County series, crossed over and eventually became Will's love interest. The two series are now effectively merged, with Sara appearing in every Will Trent book from Undone onward.
The series spans 12 novels plus three novellas, with the 13th book scheduled for 2026. ABC adapted the books into a television series in 2023, with Ramon Rodriguez playing Trent. The show takes liberties with the source material but captures the procedural intensity and Atlanta setting that define the books.
Slaughter writes brutal crime fiction. The violence is explicit, the subject matter often involves crimes against women and children, and the investigations dig into institutional failures and systemic abuse. These aren't cozy mysteries. They're unflinching looks at the worst things people do to each other and the toll that investigating those crimes takes on the people who catch them.