Tess Drake Books in Order

Tess Drake is the central figure in The Agency, a sharp, funny look at the London publishing world. Tess is a literary agent with an eye for talent, a knack for making deals, and little patience for being told to stay in her place. She knows writers, contracts, feuds, and egos. She also knows that the business can turn personal very quickly.

When the head of her agency dies in circumstances that raise plenty of questions, Tess sees a chance to build something of her own. The opportunity comes with problems. Her workplace rival has no reason to help her, old loyalties become shaky, and Tess's private choices keep tangling with her professional ambitions. Building an independent agency means winning clients, finding money, and surviving the people who would rather see her fail.

It is not a traditional detective series.

Instead, the tension comes from power struggles, secrets, relationships, and the strange mix of commerce and creativity that keeps publishing alive. Writers are treated as people rather than tidy literary stereotypes. Some are needy, some are brilliant, some are difficult, and some are all three before lunch. Tess has to manage them while trying to figure out who is being honest with her.

The novel was written under the Ally O'Brien name, a collaboration between Brian Freeman and Ali Gunn. That helps explain its different feel from Freeman's crime novels. The story has a quicker, more playful social tone, but it still enjoys a secret, a suspicious death, and a lead character who can spot a weak story when she hears one.

Tess is bold, flawed, and very good at causing herself fresh trouble.

The broader Tess Drake world also connects to West 57, which shifts attention toward a struggling New York publishing house. It is not required reading for The Agency, but it offers another view of the same business, where career plans, friendships, authors, and romantic complications rarely stay in separate boxes for long.

Start with The Agency. It is the key Tess Drake story and works as a self-contained introduction to a world of literary parties, hard bargaining, private grudges, and people who know that the right manuscript can change everything.