Michelle Blanchard Ardillo

If you know me at all, you know that mystery is my favorite genre, and to be honest, cozy mysteries at that. I don’t mind murder, but I prefer it to be off the page, and if there is any sort of abuse or torture (mental or physical), count me OUT. After I read The Thursday Murder Club and its two sequels, I was bombarded by Amazon ads for mysteries “picked just for me.” Ha! Good luck with that, I thought, but actually, I’ve enjoyed two of the Amazon-recommended series quite a bit. Today I’ll be reviewing The Abbott Agency Series by Veronica Heley, of which I have now read 3 of the 16 books of this series. The titles all begin with A False ______________, and that new word that is plugged in each time is a teeny bit of foreshadowing. Because I am not a monster (IYKYK), I am reading them in order.

The series is set in London in contemporary times as the characters communicate frequently on their mobile phones and there is quite a bit of computer technology used in the solving of the mysteries. Our protagonist is Bea Abbott, a well-dressed and well-coiffed woman who has inherited her late husband’s business housed in her upscale Kensington home complete with a great wardrobe, valuable furnishings, and a private walled-garden, no doubt a luxury in London.

Book #1 is A False Charity. Here, along with Bea, we are introduced to our cast of characters who I assume will continue on for the foreseeable future: Bea’s son Max (a newly elected Member of Parliament), his wife Nicole, Bea’s late second husband Hamilton (who is frequently mentioned), Bea’s first husband Piers (alive and well, a portrait artist and man about town), and two young people who become Bea’s “found family,” Maggie and Oliver.

The Abbott Agency, under Hamilton’s management, was a very successful placement agency for domestic services, placing well-vetted workers in homes of the well-to-do clientele. Now under Bea’s reign, the agency is frequently being called upon to solve mysteries that involve financial scams, art forgery, and smuggling, and yes, murder.

A False Charity deals with a financial scam whereby people purchase tickets to a charity function, high priced (stolen) items are auctioned off, and the monies raised never see the light of day, much less the charity they were supposed to be supporting.

Book 2, A False Picture, deals with art forgery and smuggling of stolen items, with the two naive young women who are caught up in the smuggling ring carrying the stolen items into Belgium. This one was a bit darker than the first, but sufficiently off the page for me to still enjoy it.

Book 3, A False Step, deals with a dead man dressed as a woman, his three ex-wives, a stepdaughter and her former best friend from childhood, and wills being written and rewritten. When reading a mystery, I purposefully don’t try to figure out the end prematurely, and I must say, the big twist near the end in Book 3 caught me completely off guard. As they say, I did not see that coming.

One of the things that we learn about Bea early on in the first book is that her 2nd husband Hamilton was a religious man, attending church services every Sunday and reading from his Bible before bed each night. He prayed frequently in a way that Bea was aware of but did not understand. As she finds herself mourning the loss of him, she also finds herself looking for something to assuage her grief, something more substantial than drinks with friends, or dinner out with her first husband. While solving the mysteries presented to her agency, and finding herself in all sorts of difficult situations, she begins to pray, to talk to God, and to talk to Hamilton. This is not something I have often found in contemporary fiction, and being religious myself, I was a bit surprised to see it continue on in subsequent books, a bit more and more as Bea’s profile grows. It is not a major part of the story in any of the three I’ve read thus far, and if you are not religious, you might miss it altogether, but I found this particular character trait of Bea Abbott very interesting.

With 13 more to go in this series, I look forward to watching Bea work through the grief of losing her beloved Hamilton, becoming more and more confident in handling the business as well as using her fine-tuned sense of observation to solve these mysteries, while also watching Oliver and Maggie continue to grow and mature into young adults as they have already endeared themselves to Bea.

While these quick and easy reads are not quite the level of my favorite Agatha Christie novels, I am enjoying them. Next up, Book 4: A False Pretence. Let’s see what Bea gets herself into this time!