Abbott Agency Books In Order

Publication Order of Abbot Agency Books

The Abbott Agency series is a series of detective and mystery novels written by the popular American author Veronica Heley. All the novels of the series feature the primary character of Bea Abbott as the operator of the Abbot Agency and the main protagonist of the series. In the series, Bea Abbot is depicted as a widow, who owns the detective agency, the Abbott agency and takes up cases from the clients who are not able to involve the police force. There is a total of 9 books in the series published between the years 2007 and 2015. The first novel of the series was published by the Severn House Publishers in the year 2007. It was published under the title ‘False Charity’ and introduced the primary character of Bea Abbot as a widowed woman and the operator of the detective agency, the Abbott Agency. The plot of the novel is set in a mysterious town and revolves around the lives of the main characters Bea Abbot, Max Abbott, Coral Payne, Oliver Ingraham, Hamilton Abbott, Noel Briggs, Nicole Abbott, Lena Summers-Briggs, Sandy Weston, Maggie the assistant, Velma Weston, Piers, etc. In the opening sequence of the plot of the novel, Bea Abbot is introduced as newly widowed. She is required to decide about the fate of the business of her deceased husband, an exclusive detective organization that specializes in handling domestic issues.

The name of the organization is Abbott Agency, which Bea thinks of selling out, but she soon gets involved in the investigation of several accounting irregularities in a catering firm. Although, Bea takes up the case as her first after the death of her loving and dedicated husband, she does not realize the fact that she is going to deal with someone who seems to be way out of her control and who finds it very easy to kill his victims. Before the death of her husband, Bea used to run the agency along with him, which had become successful over the years. But, her husband fell ill and died. After that, Bea was forced by her son, who was a Member of Parliament, to close the agency and retire. She herself had been tired of nursing her husband during the long years of his illness and wanted to live the rest of her life with peace in her early Victorian house situated in Kensington, London. However, what she gets in return is a couple of lodgers with troubled past lives and one of her old friends who comes to her for help. Soon, she gets involved in a murder case. Her friend Coral, had been a long time client of the Abbott agency and was the owner of the Coral Catering. Recently, she had catered for a charity event on two occasions and the checks of the organizers had bounced on both the occasions. Coral was in a dilemma as she could not go to the police because of the irregularities in the cash payments of her staff members. Therefore, she comes to Bea Abbott for help. Bea begins to investigate the matter along with her two young lodgers and discovers that the organizers had been doing this for a very long time. They had also planned to do it again. However, Bea and Coral do not know that one of the members of the gang of the organizers is a dangerous person and would go to any extent to kill the ones who come in his way.

The second novel of the Abbott Agency series was published under the title ‘False Picture’. It was published by the Severn House Publishers in the year 2008 and featured the same set of characters as in the first novel of the series along with a few others like Liam Forbes, Zander, Charlotte, Raphael, Mr. Goldstone, Florrie Green, Maria, C.J. Cambridge, Yvonne, etc. In the opening sequence of the plot of the novel, Velma Weston is introduced as a charming lady with every luxury in her life. But, seems to be tensed with her stepson Philip Weston, who seems to have acquired a valuable and costly picture which was last seen in the apartment of the elderly lady who has been recently murdered. Now, Velma comes to Bea Abbott and her agency in order to ask for their help in finding the truth about the picture and find out what her stepson Philip Weston is involved in. The initial investigation by Bea and her team lets them know that a professional art thief is desperately after the picture and wants it at all costs. This makes Bea believe that the picture is actually valuable. Now, she is required to locate Philip Weston and the missing Millais and make him tell the truth about the valuable picture, but she must remain alert at every step, otherwise she might fall prey to a deadly killer, who already has to his credit several deadly murders.

The good hearted but noisy assistant of Bea Abbott named Maggie moves quietly into the flat of Philip Weston in his absence in order to try and investigate about the recent happenings in his life. The professional art thief who is behind the valuable picture always aims not to leave his targets alive and he seems to have contacts in the flat of Philip Weston already. He is in the need of sending a courier with stolen treasures to an abroad country. He becomes successful in arranging innocent Maggie and her weird flatmate Charlotte to take the courier with valuable goods to his formidable business partner across the Continent. Now, Bea Abbott is required to extricate Charlotte and Maggie, locate the missing Millais and the stepson of Velma Weston named Philip Weston, and achieve her new outfit and the booty from Bruges, before falling foul of the deadly criminal. The novel became extremely successful just like the first novel of the series and helped author Veronica Heley to establish herself as a popular author of the mystery genre. The initial novels of the series were very much liked by the readers because of their setting in a domestic agency. This helped them to become successful and reach out to a vast number of audience all over the world. This allowed author Veronica Heley to receive a lot of motivation for writing the other novels of the series as well as other successful mystery series’. Each of the further novels of the series also deal with a domestic case and a murder mystery.