Is It Worth Reading?
🎧 Full Series Review by LD | Overall Series Rating: 5/5 | Steam: 🔥
⚠️ This is a full spoiler series review. If you haven’t finished all five Nadia Stafford books yet — go read them first. We’ll be here when you’re done.
The Opening
Heck yes it’s worth reading. Every single book. I came into this series not sure what to expect and finished it wishing there were more books!! A hitwoman who is actually a good person and a mentor who communicates almost entirely through grunts. This book has an underlying mystery that threads through three books. I think this series deserves more attention than it gets, because it’s great.
What Is the Nadia Stafford Series?
Nadia Stafford is a former cop turned hitwoman who runs a lodge in Canada. She was forced into this career to keep the doors open at her lodge. She is surprisingly a good person if you can set aside the part where she kills people for money, which somehow you can, because Kelley Armstrong makes you understand exactly how she got here and why she keeps going. Jack is her mentor. He is a man of almost no words who seems to show up every single time she needs someone and communicates his feelings entirely through what he does rather than what he says. The series follows them across five books, maybe more?, as Nadia works through cases, works through the fragmented memories of the worst night of her life, and slowly, quietly falls in love with the most unlikely person imaginable.
The Books — Spoilers Included
Exit Strategy — Book 1 | ⭐ 4.1/5 | Steam: 🔥
This is the book that introduces you to Nadia and Jack and the world they operate in. A serial killer the media calls the Helter Skelter Killer has been publicly linked to hitmen, which is bad for everyone in the profession, and a team of five including Nadia, Jack, Evelyn, Felix, and Quinn comes together to track him down. It is the slowest book in the series and the hardest entry point. Push through it. Everything that follows rewards you for it.
Made to be Broken — Book 2 | ⭐ 4.7/5 | Steam: 🔥
This book is where the series really finds its footing and gets interesting. A young employee that Nadia hired to help at the lodge goes missing and nobody seems to care except Nadia. What Nadia ends up finding is a scheme targeting vulnerable teenage mothers, and watching her methodically tear it apart bit by bit while Jack quietly supports her from the sidelines is genuinely compelling. The dog at the end of this book made me fall even more in love with Jack as a character because Jack bought it for her because she mentioned once as a kid that she always wanted one.
Wild Justice — Book 3 | ⭐ 5/5 | Steam: 🔥🔥
This is the book with ALL the answers you are looking for. It holds everything this series has been building toward comes together here. The Amy storyline ending, and even Nadia finally understanding what actually happened the night her cousin died. Drew Aldridge. And Jack and Nadia finally getting together after two and a half books of carefully not saying anything about it. Nadia killing Koss the same way he killed Amy is the end this series deserved.
Double Play — Book 4 | ⭐ 5/5 | Steam: 🔥
Jack is in Ireland, he is finishing up old contracts so he can ease into retirement and settle down. Jack and Nadia have a deal that he will call daily, and Nadia is at the lodge waiting for his phone call. He misses it. Someone from Jack’s past has engineered a situation designed to force Jack into one more job using Nadia and Quinn as leverage. This book gives us more of Jack’s history than the previous three combined and it was absolutely worth waiting for. The narrator change is noticeable and does cost the experience something, but the story more than makes up for it.
Perfect Victim — Book 5 | ⭐ 5/5 | Steam: 🔥
I read this one as an ebook because there is no audiobook yet and I would do it again without hesitation. Ty Cypher from the Rockton series shows up at Nadia’s lodge looking for Jack. A woman in Honolulu is being targeted and Cypher is funding the investigation. What looks like a past lover turns out to be his daughter. The case has more twists than any of the previous books and ends with Jack pulling a ring box out of his pocket and asking Nadia to be his wife in every way that counts. She says yes. It is the perfect ending for them, though I’m hoping it’s not actually the end fo this series.
What Makes This Series Work
Nadia. She is such an interesting person overall. She is deep and complex, but also fairly easy to read from the readers perspective, Nadia is smart, capable, principled in her own way, but so very human and is constantly underestimating herself. Watching her work through the Amy storyline across three books was interesting and sad. The fragmented memories slowly surfacing we re well done, the guilt she has carried for decades absolutely made sense, but the moment she finally understands what actually happened that night… It is one of the most satisfying character arcs I have encountered in this genre.
Jack. A hitman with his level emotional intelligence is not something you expect to encounter. Typically you’d expect someone emotionally stunted who doesn’t really have feelings, but yet here he is. Across five books he quietly nudges Nadia toward her own realizations. He shows up every time she needs someone, and communicates very little but he is always doing something, and waits patiently for her to catch up. He bought her the dog. He tracked down Aldridge for her. He read the journal first so he could prepare her for its contents. He is completely unlike any love interest I have read in a thriller series and he is wonderful.
The Amy Thread. The Author plants it in book one and she handles it beautifully in the main 3 books. The other 2 books do not contain the Amy thread, but are just as interesting. The Amy storyline never feels like a gimmick or a distraction and it never overtakes the main theme of the book.
The Crossover. I am obsessed!!!! Ty Cypher showing up in book five was beyond exciting. Rockton readers will lose their minds, in mean, if they liked the series as much as I did.
LD’s Personal Rankings
🥇 Wild Justice — Book 3 | 5/5 — the payoff for everything the series built
🥈 Perfect Victim — Book 5 | 5/5 — Cypher, the proposal, all of it
🥉 Made to be Broken — Book 2 | 4.7/5 — where the series finds its voice
Most surprising: How much I came to love a character who communicates almost exclusively through silence
Most emotional: Nadia finally understanding what happened the night Amy died
Best surprise: Ty Cypher showing up in book five
Weakest entry: Exit Strategy at 4.1/5 — still good, just the hardest place to start
Do You Need to Read Them In Order?
Yes. Absolutely yes. I made the mistake of not reading them in order and I would strongly recommend against it. Each book has its own self-contained case, but the Amy storyline, the development of Jack and Nadia’s relationship, the Quinn situation, the Contrepasso thread — none of it makes the same sense out of order. Start with Exit Strategy and read straight through.
A Note on Format
Audiobook for books one through four, ebook for book five since there is no audio version yet. Jennifer Ikeda narrates books one through three and is excellent. The narrator changes in book four and it costs the experience something — Vivienne Leheny has a different energy that doesn’t quite suit Nadia. But the story in book four is strong enough to push through it.
Who Is This For
Anyone who loves Kelley Armstrong’s Rockton or Haven’s Rock series and wants more of her thriller writing. Readers who love a slow burn relationship that builds across multiple books and pays off completely. Anyone who wants a female protagonist who is genuinely complicated and genuinely good at the same time. And Rockton readers who need to read book five specifically just for Cypher.
📚 The Complete Nadia Stafford Series
- Book 1 — Exit Strategy | Reviewed by LD | ⭐ 4.1/5 | Steam: 🔥 — [Read the Review]
- Book 2 — Made to be Broken | Reviewed by LD | ⭐ 4.7/5 | Steam: 🔥 — [Read the Review]
- Book 3 — Wild Justice | Reviewed by LD | ⭐ 5/5 | Steam: 🔥🔥 — [Read the Review]
- Book 4 — Double Play | Reviewed by LD | ⭐ 5/5 | Steam: 🔥 — [Read the Review]
- Book 5 — Perfect Victim | Reviewed by LD | ⭐ 5/5 | Steam: 🔥 — [Read the Review]
- Full Series Review — Is the Nadia Stafford Series Worth Reading? — [Read the Review]
Ready for more from LD? Find them here
Plot Twisted. 🔥
🎧 | Series: Nadia Stafford | Genre: Thriller, Crime | Steam: 🔥