Ellie Quicke Books in Order: How to read Veronica Heley’s series?

By the author of The Abbot Agency series.

What are the Ellie Quicke Mysteries about?

Written by British author Veronica Heley, the Ellie Quicke series is about a widow living in the suburbs of London.

After the death of her husband, who was always critical of her, Ellie Quicke starts to develop new skills as an amateur sleuth.

With her friends and neighbors’ help, she now solves crimes in her pleasant London suburb.

How to read the Ellie Quicke Books in Order?

Every book in the Ellie Quicke series works as a standalone story, but the lives of the different characters evolve from one novel to the other.

1. Murder at the Altar – Ellie Quicke is trying to find her place in life after the death of her husband. Her neighbor is the prime suspect in a local murder. As Ellie begins to weigh up the strange goings-on in the neighborhood, she gets nearer to the truth.
2. Murder by Suicide – Just as Ellie Quicke is beginning to come to terms with life as a widow, poison pen letters start to spread through the parish. Ellie soon discovers that the poison spread by the letters can be fatal to anyone who receives them.
3. Murder of Innocence – Ellie Quicke, fiftyish and recently widowed, is still trying to come to terms with her newly single state. She’s coping, just, but could do without everyone else making demands on her; Diana, her selfish daughter, who expects Ellie to drop everything to babysit, the builders working on her new conservatory and her elderly and irritable Aunt Drusilla. To cap it all, ten-year-old Tod, who lives next door, has gone missing.

4. Murder by Accident – Ellie Quicke’s life as a wealthy widow is shattered when she hears that her difficult but endearing Aunt Drusilla has been killed in a freak accident. Drusilla’s only son, Roy, is also devastated. However, Aunt Drusilla has made many enemies in her time, among them Ellie’s selfish daughter Diana, who believes she’s her great-aunt’s heir.
5. Murder In The Garden – The body of a young girl is found in next door’s neglected garden, to the horror of the occupiers, who are friends of Ellie Quicke’s. How long has the body been there, and is it someone who once lived there? Ellie seems to be the only person who has known all the families who have lived in the house – a house that seems to attract misery.
6. Murder by Committee – It seemed an innocent request: would widowed Ellie Quicke visit a man whose dog died in an accident? The dog’s master believes he was the intended target, and that an old enemy is responsible. Feuding financiers are bad news not only for the City where jobs are at stake but also for Ellie, who can’t fill in a tax return without help. The feisty widow already has more than enough to cope with.

7. Murder by Bicycle – When a nasty outbreak of food poisoning afflicts the congregation of Ellie Quicke’s church following a Faith lunch, Ellie is horrified to find her home-baked quiche cast as the culprit. Worse, it’s clear that some of the parishioners think the poisoning was deliberate…
8. Murder of Identity – While out collecting laurel for formidable flower arranger Mrs. Dawes, feisty widow Ellie Quicke comes across a corpse without an identity. Next day, Ellie discovers Mrs. Dawes badly beaten and close to death.
9. Murder in the Park – When Ellie Quicke’s friend witnesses a Pitbull attack in the park, she goes into shock. Soon there are other attacks … and after each one, the dog vanishes. Meanwhile, Ellie’s personal life is heading for a meltdown.

10. Murder in House – Ellie Quicke and her new husband Thomas are suffering from terrible colds when called to deal with Ursula, a young student, who has staged a sit-in at church and refuses to move. Ursula challenges Ellie to solve three mysteries: a broken engagement, her friend Mia’s disappearance, and a murder.
11. Murder by Mistake – Ellie Quicke is still inclined to act hastily, despite husband Thomas’ steadying influence. When she took in a young rape victim, she knew the commitment might become a burden, but she didn’t expect it to become an invitation to further violence.
12. Murder My Neighbour – Ellie Quicke is confronted by an angry young man, demands to know what has happened to his elderly great aunt. Flavia Osborne had refused to move in with her relatives, telling everyone that she’d sold her secluded house and was moving to a retirement flat – but it seems she never arrived at her destination.

13. Murder in Mind – Ellie Quicke has always disliked the local big estate agent, aka Great White Shark, and is distressed when her daughter Diana announces that she is carrying his child and about to become his fourth wife. But Ellie is soon drawn into the family circle when one of the Hooper children dies in their private gym and another succumbs to a peanut allergy.
14. Murder with Mercy – Ellie’s friend on the police force asks her to enquire about some deaths which might or might not be suicide. Unbeknown to the police, an elderly lady with dementia has come across some drugs and is using them to ease people in pain out of their misery.
15. Murder in Time – Ellie Quicke opens the door to a man who is a stranger but instantly recognizable as the father of her housekeeper’s brilliant but difficult young son. Mikey had been conceived at a party during which his mother Vera, a schoolgirl, had been drugged and raped. Abdi hadn’t wanted anything further to do with her – then. Twelve years later he is a high-flying consultant whose wife cannot have children, and he aims to pay off Vera and adopt Mikey: a suggestion that does not go down well.

16. Murder by Suspicion – Ellie Quicke is desperate to find someone to look after their elderly housekeeper, whose health is failing. But employing a carer found by Ellie’s difficult daughter, Diana, proves to be a mixed blessing when Ellie returns from a trip to America to find that carer Claire has implemented a number of bizarre changes to the Quicke household routine.
17. Murder in Style – Poppy’s wealthy father hadn’t liked the look of the men whom his twin daughters intended to marry, and had set them up in the Magpie fashion boutique to ensure they would be able to support themselves; at the same time ensuring that the girls made a will in one another’s favor.
18. Murder for Nothing – Ellie Quicke believes in helping people in trouble. But it would appear that her latest good deed has returned to bite her when she takes in a weeping girl who needs somewhere to stay. Selfish, thoughtless, and irresponsible, Angelica is by no means the easiest of house guests, confident that someone else will always pick up the bill. But when a dead body is found in the garden the morning after a riotous party she’s organized, Angelica plunges Ellie’s household into a situation too hot for any of them to handle.

19. Murder by Suggestion – Ellie Quicke is shocked when her daughter, Diana, turns up at her door with a suitcase in tow. Bunny Brewster has died of an overdose, and Diana’s husband, Evan, is convinced that she is responsible for his friend’s death. It seems that Diana and four other neglected, bored wives of Evan’s friends recently joked about ways to kill their husbands. Diana’s suggested method of murder involved muddling up pills – could this be how Bunny died or was it just a tragic accident?
20. Murder for Good – Ellie Quicke’s husband Thomas is suspicious when he receives not one but five letters advising him that he has been bequeathed money by five different people in their wills. He barely knew three of his benefactors, and what could possibly connect him to the other two strangers?
21. Murder in Law – Ellie Quicke’s absence abroad is disastrous for her daughter, Diana – when her husband is attacked by intruders and left for dead one night, it falls to Ellie’s next-door neighbor, Susan, to reluctantly pick up the pieces and take in Diana’s children. Is Evan’s death really the result of a burglary gone wrong?

22. Murder for Profit – Ellie Quicke returns from Canada to find her home in chaos and her housing charity tearing itself apart. A student has fallen to his death from the top of one of the charity’s properties, let through a reputable local estate agency. Accused of corruption, the agency is the victim of a vicious social media campaign.
    

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