Rory Yates

About the Rory Yates series

Rory Yates is a Texas Ranger -- part of the storied law-enforcement agency with jurisdiction across the whole state -- who spends the series pulled between duty and the kind of trouble that follows him personally. James Patterson co-writes with Andrew Bourelle, a novelist and creative-writing professor whose prior credits include contributing to Patterson's BookShots line, and the two lean into Texas's scale and mythology: wide-open landscapes, small-town corruption, and cases that test Yates's loyalty to the badge as much as his ability to solve them.

The series opens with Texas Ranger (2018) and continues through Texas Outlaw (2020) and The Texas Murders (2025), each pitting Yates against threats that blur the line between lawman and outlaw -- a theme the titles lean into directly. It's marketed under both the character's name and the "Texas Ranger" series banner depending on edition and retailer.

How to read this series

Read in publication order starting with Texas Ranger (2018) -- Yates's personal history and standing with the Rangers develop across the series, and later books reference earlier cases. Each novel resolves its own central case, so the series is approachable for newcomers, but starting from book one gives the fullest sense of Yates's arc.