Below is the complete list of Ellery Adams’ Antiques and Collectibles Mysteries books in publication order. For this series, the chronological reading order is the same as the order of publication.
Antiques & Collectibles Mysteries Books in Publication Order
- A Killer Collection (2006)
- A Fatal Appraisal (2006)
- A Deadly Dealer (2011)
- A Treacherous Trader (2015)
- A Devious Lot (2016)
- A Killer Keepsake (2017)
- A Bidder End (2019)
- A Fatal Fabergé (2020)
- Mint Condition Murder (2021)
(With Parker Riggs)
About Antiques and Collectibles Mysteries
Ellery Adams’s Antiques & Collectibles Mysteries is a cozy mystery series built around the antiques trade, small-town social networks, and the kind of knowledge that turns collecting from a hobby into a way of reading people. The series begins with Molly Appleby, a journalist for Collector’s Weekly, and the early books make very good use of that profession. Molly is not a police detective and not a random amateur who simply stumbles over bodies. She moves through auctions, pottery studios, appraisal culture, and collector circles as part of her work, which gives the mysteries a natural setting and a believable way into each case. Ellery Adams’s official site identifies A Killer Collection as the first book and describes Molly in exactly that role.
The first phase of the series has a distinct shape. A Killer Collection, A Fatal Appraisal, and A Deadly Dealer establish the world and the recurring appeal of it: antiques are never just objects, but carriers of ego, money, obsession, and family memory. That is part of what makes the series work. Collecting can look refined from the outside, but Adams understands how quickly rarity and value can sharpen envy, rivalry, or greed. Goodreads and Fantastic Fiction both show those first three novels as the opening run of the series, published from 2006 to 2007.
Then there is a noticeable gap before the series resumes, and that later stretch matters because it gives the books a slightly unusual rhythm. The fourth novel, A Treacherous Trader, arrives years after the opening trio, and from that point onward the line continues with titles such as A Devious Lot, A Killer Keepsake, A Bidder End, A Fatal Fabergé, and Mint Condition Murder. Fantastic Fiction’s series page lays out that longer continuation, and Ellery Adams’s official site confirms the later titles as part of the same mystery line.
That publishing history is useful context because it explains why the series can feel like it has two lives. The first books introduce Molly and the antiques-reporting framework in a classic cozy mode, while the later novels extend the same world with a more visibly revived series identity. There is also a co-author wrinkle in the later run: Fantastic Fiction lists books four through nine as written with Parker Riggs, while the early books are associated with Ellery Adams alone, and some listings also note the earliest titles under Adams’s earlier byline J.B. Stanley. That makes Antiques & Collectibles one of those cozy series where the underlying world stays recognizable even as the publication history becomes a little more layered.
What keeps the series appealing is its subject matter. Antiques mysteries can easily become gimmicky, but these books have a natural advantage because collecting culture is already full of stories, performance, and hidden motive. An appraisal is never only about price. A dealer is never only selling an object. Provenance, authenticity, reputation, inheritance, and taste all create social pressure before the murder plot even begins. That gives the books a richer backdrop than many hobby-based cozies. The series is less about flashy action than about rooms full of beautiful things and the very human impulses those things bring out.
Read as a whole, Antiques & Collectibles is best approached as a cozy mystery series with a strong niche and a slightly unusual publication arc. The appeal is not just Molly Appleby solving crimes. It is the way the books turn collecting into character, motive, and atmosphere all at once. That gives the series a clear identity and makes it more memorable than a generic small-town mystery line.