words in scarlet ink

I read a series of books by author Victoria Abbott in 2020 that I really liked – The Book Collector Mysteries. They were:

The Christie Curse
The Sayers Swindle
The Wolfe Widow
The Marsh Madness
The Hammett Hex

The series revolves around Jordan Kelly, who is back in her hometown, living with her not-quite-on-the-straight-and-narrow uncles after a treacherous ex-boyfriend put her crippling debt by running up massive credit card bills. She finds a job with local recluse Vera Van Alst (the most hated person in town), who likes her collection of rare books, and not much else, but the position includes room and board, and Jordan gets to work for Vera. Her job entails researching and tracking down rare books for her employer, and her first assignment (in The Christie Curse) is the rumored play that Christie wrote while she “disappeared” briefly in 1926 (reappearing eleven days later at a health spa under an assumed name).

The task seems simple, if challenging, until Jordan discovers her predecessor in the position died while looking for the play. That complicates things a bit.

I enjoyed this series a lot. A lot, a lot. I really like what Otto Penzler calls ‘bibliomysteries.’ (BRB, buying books). I googled the author to see when the next book was coming out, and discovered a couple of things.

1 – Victoria Abbott is the pen name for a mother-daughter writing duo. 2 – their website hasn’t been updated in years (and 3 years later still has not been updated). There’s no indication when another book will be out, or IF another book will be out. The mother is half of the duo seems to be the main writer and has started multiple series…and then seems to drop them. She hasn’t published anything since 2016, by the looks of it. If it weren’t for the fact the official Facebook page was updated, I would have guessed she was dead. (Really. Most of her pages don’t look to have been updated in years.)

The fact that there doesn’t seem to be a lot going on with the series isn’t encouraging. Again, I found those books in 2020 and there hadn’t been a mention of a new one in four years, and now it’s three years later and it’s seven years without any indication from an official source regarding a new book.

But I enjoyed the series a lot. I love the mysteries, Jordan is a decent protagonist and I really like Vera. I know a couple of Veras in my own life. She’s grumpy but pretty great. She lives in a big, old Victorian house (which I would love to live in) and which Jordan recognizes is *definitely* one of the perks of her job. I definitely do not live in a big, old Victorian house, but it sounds like a dream, especially the big clawfoot soaking tub in Jordan’s bathroom!

I’m going to keep any eye out for more of this series, but I don’t have high hopes. Fingers crossed, though!