WISE Enquiries Agency Books in Order

The WISE Enquiries Agency books stay closer to home than the Cait Morgan novels, but they are just as fond of a good puzzle. The series begins with The Case of the Dotty Dowager, when a duke's mother insists she saw a corpse on the dining-room floor at Chellingworth Hall, only for the body to vanish. From there, the books build out a cozy but lively world centered on a Welsh stately home, the nearby village of Anwen-by-Wye, and a group of private investigators who are much sharper than the people around them first assume.

The acronym is part of the charm.

WISE stands for Welsh, Irish, Scottish, and English, which neatly sums up the four women at the center of the series: Carol Hill, Christine Wilson-Smythe, Mavis MacDonald, and Annie Parker. They come from different backgrounds, different generations, and very different temperaments, so the agency works because no one sees a case in quite the same way. Some books let one woman take the lead while the others handle side investigations, which gives the series an ensemble feel rather than a single-sleuth rhythm.

The setting does a lot of work. Chellingworth Hall is not just a backdrop, and neither is Anwen-by-Wye. The books are full of village events, family obligations, old grudges, local traditions, pubs, shops, church politics, visiting relatives, and the endless ripple effect of gossip. Henry, the Duke of Chellingworth, his family, and especially the formidable Dowager Duchess Althea Twyst become part of the ongoing fabric, so the series starts to feel like a community you return to rather than a place you visit once.

That matters because the mysteries are often woven through everyday life. A missing Morris dancer can threaten a wedding. A celebrity cook can lead to trouble around a bookshop. A charming suitor may be hiding something darker. Later books bring in disgraced dukes, absent heirs, cursed cottages, intrusive undertakers, fortune tellers, and cold cases that refuse to stay buried. The tone is cozy and funny at times, but Ace never forgets that the crimes matter to the people living through them.

Many of the novels braid together several investigations at once. That structure lets the series move between the Hall, the village, and farther-flung locations without losing its center. It also gives room for the women's personal lives to grow. Romances deepen, families expand, old ties resurface, and work pressures do not always land neatly. The friendships, and the differences between the women, are what keep the whole thing lively.

And yes, Dowager Duchess Althea Twyst is one of the great engines of cheerful chaos.

The real pleasure of the series is watching the four investigators work together, argue a little, cover for one another, and slowly build trust. If you like village mysteries with multiple threads, recurring characters, and a strong sense of place, this series delivers. Start with The Case of the Dotty Dowager, and if you want the very earliest background, Murder Keeps No Calendar and Murder Knows No Season add useful glimpses of how the WISE world began.