Nobody ever died in the village before you arrived

M.C. Beaton's nosy, prickly and lovable heroine Agatha Raisin has been featured in 27 novels, so it is high time that she made the transition to our TV screens.  Acorn Media is releasing Agatha Raisin: Series One so that we can finally get to see Agatha and the idyllic village of Carsely in the English Cotswolds. Series one includes the 2014 pilot episode, Agatha Raisin and the Quiche of Death, as well as 8 additional episodes that were shown on UK TV in 2016. There are also some charming behind-the-scenes featurettes about Carsely, the casting and actors.

We meet Agatha in "The Quiche of Death" when she decides to finally chuck in her successful Public Relations job in London and move to a small town in the Cotswolds.  She had paid a firm of interior designers a fortune to make her home look "homey" so she's pleased with the results.  Now her next order of business is to go out and get involved in her new community.  When she hears there's an annual quiche competition coming up, she thinks that will be just the thing to allow her to get involved in village life.  Unfortunately, Agatha lives on microwave meals and has no idea how to bake a quiche, but that's what high-end London bakeries are for, no?  She shows up with her creation, certain of a win, especially after she invites Andy Cummings-Brown (who will be judging the competition) and his wife out for a pricey meal in the local upscale pub.  Therefore, Agatha is shocked when Ella Cartwright wins yet again.  To make matters worse, Agatha comes home and discovers her new cottage has been burgled.  She calls in local police DC Bill Wong and DCI Wilkes, but they don't seem too optimistic that the thieves can be tracked down.  But dark days weren't finished with Agatha, because the next night, Andy is found dead in his home.  He had been eating Agatha's leftover quiche when he collapsed and died.  The police quickly determined it was murder, and that he had been poisoned by deadly cowbane.  At the inquest, Agatha has to admit in open court that she didn't actually bake the quiche that she entered into the competition.  Poor Aggie!  And she endears herself even less to the locals of Carsely when she steals away the cleaner, Gemma Simpson, from her neighbor.  Cleaners are apparently hard to come by in the Cotswolds, so pinching someone else's is just not done!

But things are not all gloom and doom.  DC Bill Wong has a massive crush on Agatha, which means he's often stopping by with gifts, including a kitten and official police investigation notes.  Agatha begins her investigation into Andy's death to clear her name, but soon finds out that she has a talent for it.  Also, her friend Roy Silver is a frequent visitor from London, usually with his latest unsuitable boyfriend (or "boyf" as it's apparently called these days) in tow.  Even better, a hunky next-door-neighbor, James Lacey has taken up residence.

After managing to solve the quiche murder, Agatha is back for Episode One, the Walkers of Dembley.  In this episode we are introduced to Sir Charles Fraith, owner of a large estate, and boss to the gloomy butler Gustav.  When some local ramblers insist they have a right to walk through Sir Charles' fields, Gustav tries to convince them otherwise (using a gun).  Charles arrives on the scene and tells them they are welcome to walk on his land, just not on the crops.  This doesn't sit well with the outspoken leader of the group, Jess Tartick, who claims an ancient right of way goes right through

the fields.  A few days later, she is hit over the head and murdered while walking in these same fields.  Naturally, Charles is a suspect.  Sarah Bloxby, the vicar's wife, brings Deborah Camden to Agatha and they ask her to investigate the death.  Deborah has her heart set on marrying Charles, so she needs to clear his name (Charles may have other ideas about the marriage, though).  Further complicating Agatha's life, Roy Silver has been dumped by his long-term partner and is drowning his sorrows with wine, Pringles, and a naked yoga teacher -- in Agatha's house.  Even more annoying, James Lacey seems to have taken up with the insufferable Mary Fortune.  Although Jess and most of the ramblers were teachers, Agatha soon discovers a hot-bed of infidelity and scandal among the ramblers.

In Episode Two, Hell's Bells, Agatha again tries to fit in with the local community by getting involved in the local bell-ringer's society.  The bishop is coming for a visit soon, and the bell-ringers need all the practice they can get to be able to play something recognizable.  The head bell-ringer, Amanda Ballard, is spending an awful lot of time with the vicar, much to his wife Sarah's annoyance. When Amanda is found hanging in the church with an apparent suicide note nearby, the police are only too quick to accept the death at face value.  Agatha tries to get James to investigate the death with her, but when he refuses, she presses Gemma (her cleaner) and Roy into service as her assistants.  It turns out Amanda wasn't the wealthy widow she claimed to be, but did her death have something to do with Reverend Bloxby being investigated for irregularities in church finances?

Two sets of village residents are at each other's throats in Episode Three: The Wellspring of Death.  Robina Toynbee owns the land where an ancient spring sits.  She has agreed to allow a company called Ancombe Water to collect the water for sale.  The problem is that the village is small, and the heavy, loud and dangerous trucks thundering through the area are disrupting village life. The parish council is going to vote on whether or not to allow the trucks access to the spring.  The council is evenly divided, with Robert Struthers having the deciding vote.  Both sides are hoping to influence him, but he is found dead at the spring the morning of the meeting.  Due to the negative publicity surrounding Ancombe Water after the death, the company hires Agatha to manage the PR surrounding the product launch.  She's able to convince the head of the company, Guy Fremont, to work closely with her (personally and professionally).  James Lacey doesn't seem to be paying much attention to her domestic arrangements, much to  Agatha's annoyance, because he and Mary Fortune have decided to out-detect Agatha and investigate the murder themselves.  DCI Wilkes, meanwhile, has learned some new investigation techniques from watching "Morse" so there is no shortage of sleuths trying to trap the murderer.

Just because Agatha didn't win the quiche competition doesn't mean she's not willing to compete in other areas.  In Episode Four: The Potted Gardener, Agatha is getting her back yard ready for the upcoming Open Gardens Competition.  Just as well that she's going for something modern and zen, because nearly all the flowers and plants in her competitor's gardens are vandalized a few days before
the competition.  Could it have something to do with the noisy joyriders who have been terrorizing the villagers in the middle of the night?  When one of the gardeners is found "planted" upside down in her own garden, Agatha has many mysteries to solve:  the murder, the vandalism and the joyriding.  It seems like she's on to the killer when she finds out the dead woman's daughter might be in need of money, but could it be more complicated than that?

Carsely has a new handsome vet in Episode Five: The Vicious Vet.  It's a good thing there's nothing really wrong with Agatha's cat Hodge when she takes him in for a visit, because every other female in town is in the waiting room with a healthy pet in need of an urgent exam by the vet.  Paul Bladen, the vet, asks Agatha out to dinner.  She's flattered, but is somewhat taken aback when she calls his house and his "wife" answers.  When Paul makes excuses, she's ready to forgive him, but then he turns up dead at Lord Pendlebury's horse stables.  Paul was going to operate on a horse, when he somehow managed to inject the horse tranquilizer into his heart.  Once again, the police see no reason to investigate this tragic accident, but Agatha sets out to find out who might want the vet dead.  Since James (an ex-army man) has some shared colleagues with Pendlebury, he comes along to give Agatha an introduction and a chance to snoop around the estate.  Agatha and crew do manage to find an important clue, but James is distracted by the prospect of a date with Lord Pendlebury's daughter Cilly and the clue goes missing.  Things go from bad to worse when Agatha discovers that someone has "catnapped" Hodge and demands that she stop investigating if she ever wants to see the kitty again.

Although Sir Charles Fraith certainly doesn't need the money, he's started a lucrative sideline in renting out his estate for weddings in Episode Six: The Day the Floods Came.  Couples are lining up to hold ceremonies there until new bride Kylie Leeson is found floating the the river the day after her

wedding.  Even though business is suffering, Charles doesn't want Agatha to investigate.  This demand is easy to meet, since none of Kylie's friends are eager to speak to Agatha.  That is until she comes up with the idea of having Roy pose as the producer of a new reality program about the village youth that they are currently scouting talent for.  Agatha soon finds out that Kylie was having affairs and blackmailing people left and right, which certainly doesn't help to narrow down the list of suspects.

In the Witch of Wyckhadden, Episode Seven, Agatha makes a somewhat understandable error. She's booked into a spooky castle for a Spa Retreat, only it turns out that SPA stands for Special Paranormal Activity.  The reason she needs to get away for a while is that she's had an unfortunate

hair disaster, and needs to hide out until she can rectify the situation. One of the other guests at the hotel tells Agatha about Francie Juddle, the local witch, who, in addition to doing palm and Tarot readings also has a booming sideline in potions of all sorts.  Agatha visits Francie for a hair tonic and after returning to her room, becomes alarmed at the caustic nature of the product.  She storms back to Francie's caravan to demand a refund, only to find her dead.  When Roy, Gemma and James read about the murder in the newspaper, they all come to the castle to help Agatha find the murderer.  When there is another death during a seance in a locked room, it turns out the paranormal might be involved after all.

Episode Eight: The Murderous Marriage, finds Agatha about to go through with a wedding.  She's finally managed to snare James Lacey and has sold her cottage in preparation of moving in with him.  On the day of the wedding, as she and James are exchanging their vows, everyone is shocked when Agatha's husband, Jimmy Raisin, turns up and says she's already married.  It turns out Agatha had never bothered to get a divorce from Jimmy when he disappeared soon after their marriage many years earlier.  It seems Jimmy has been living rough, and he's only too happy to agree to a divorce -- but it will cost Agatha.  When she argues with him, they are spotted by a villager.  Jimmy is discovered strangled to death soon after that.  Agatha would seem to have the strongest motive for murder, so she is quickly arrested.  James also has a motive, so he soon joins Agatha in the cells.  After they are bailed, their investigations determine that Jimmy had been sent to rehab by a charity for the homeless run by a woman named Fiona Gore-Appleton.  When they try to track her down, they find she and the charity seem to be bogus.  But some new female villagers have

moved into Carsely lately, so could there be a connection?

I have been a big fan of the Agatha Raisin books, so I was thrilled to see all the characters come to life.  Ashley Jensen is a bit more glamorous than I had pictured Agatha, but her ability to get herself into embarrassing situations and her hopeless love life are completely in keeping with the Agatha we know and love.  A few other changes have been made from the books, such as Rev. and Mrs. Bloxby being a young couple, and the cleaner being a single mother, but other than that, the setting and other characters will be familiar to fans of the books.  I really liked the comedic touches, such as the hopelessly inept DCI Wickes.  We can only hope we haven't seen the last of Agatha and her friends on the small screen!

Disclaimer:  I received a copy of Agatha Raisin: Series One from Acorn Media in exchange for this review

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Agatha's at it again

I'm always thrilled to see a new Agatha Raisin mystery.  Her latest adventures are chronicled in the book Hiss and Hers by M.C. Beaton.  As usual, Agatha is short-tempered and man-hungry, yet somehow she manages to solve mysteries that have the police stumped.

Agatha is a 50-something owner of a detective agency in the picturesque Cotswolds.  She lives in a thatched cottage with her two cats, Hodge and Boswell.  Her ex-husband, James Lacey, lives next door, but as he's a travel writer, he's frequently away from home.  She also has an on again/off again relationship with Sir Charles Fraith, the flighty and somewhat undependable peer who drops into her life from time to time, only to disappear again without warning.

So Agatha is an easy target for the latest unattached man to move to the village, the hunky gardener George Marston.  Her garden has never looked so beautiful, as she's constantly calling George over to work on it.  She never misses an opportunity to flirt with him, and he seems receptive, so she's hopeful that there will be a romantic relationship soon.  To move things along, she arranges a charity ball and gets George to promise her the first dance.  At the ball, however, George is a no-show.  Agatha determines to get to the bottom of why he stood her up, so she goes to his cottage.  To her dismay, she discovers George dead in his backyard.  After the police arrive, they discover that George was killed by being drugged and then having a bag of poisonous snakes tied over his head.  All that idyllic living in the countryside surely does create some colorful killers!

George's sister hires Agatha's agency to look into the circumstances surrounding George's death.  As Agatha and her staff begin to research George's life, she is quite upset to learn that George was having affairs with nearly every woman in the village over the age of 50 -- except her.  Agatha spends a lot of money on personal maintenance.  Every time she sees another of George's "frumpy" conquests, we are treated to a catalog of her expenses for tweezing, plucking, dying, etc.  Unfortunately, she also smokes and drinks and subsists on microwave meals, so throwing money around is perhaps not the most practical physical fitness solution.

As Agatha and her crew get closer to the solution, someone begins a campaign to throw her off the track.  She has excrement pushed through her letter box, is sent a box of chocolates (that proves to contain yet another snake) and a woman sitting in her garden is murdered (apparently mistaken for Agatha).  To make matters worse, her old friend Charles has gotten engaged, which makes Agatha even more desperate about her husband-less state.

I enjoyed Agatha's antics, as always, even though there were some things that were rather glossed over.  For instance, when Charles and his new love go to France, Agatha is able to "go on the computer" and find out what hotel they're staying in.  Say what?  Later on, Charles goes online to find all the hotels in town and resorts to the old-fashioned method of calling them to find out which one Agatha is staying in.  While this approach makes more sense, I have to wonder if modern security policies would allow employees to give out information of this sort.

Still, these are minor quibbles.  I really enjoyed my visit with Agatha and her friends (and cats).  I can only hope she's gearing up for a new adventure soon!

Final verdict for Hiss and Hers:  Four Gherkins, for being a welcome visit with a neurotic old friend

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When will busy Agatha slow down?

Oh Agatha!  Everyone's favorite short-tempered private detective is back again in M.C. Beaton's latest Agatha Raisin novel Busy Body.  As usual, the bodies pile up along with Agatha's man-troubles.

In this adventure, the lives of the villagers in Odley Cruesis have been disrupted by an overly enthusiastic Health and Safety Board officer, John Sunday.  He has put a stop to nearly everything (from putting up Christmas decorations to the selling of homemade craft items) due to "safety concerns."  He's managed to offend just about everyone, so when he turns up murdered (outside a gathering of most of the villagers), there's no shortage of suspects. 

Agatha is brought into the case when one of the suspects, Miriam Courtney, hires her to find the real killer.  Things go from bad to worse when Ms. Courtney is murdered, too.  As usual, it's up to Agatha to sort out the truth, while dodging threats to her own safety and engaging in various romantic entanglements.  All of her friends are back, too, including her assistant Toni, her friend policeman Bill Wong, former employee Roy Silver, sometime lover Sir Charles Fraith, and patient confidant Mrs. Bloxby.

I do love reading about Agatha's adventures, but I must say there were several things that were odd in this book.  ** Possible Spoiler Alert Ahead **  Such as the insistence that "identical twins" could be of different genders and be indistinguishable when cross-dressing.  Huh?  I guess that's a new wrinkle, but it doesn't seem to be at all possible.  There are also people who are attacked for "knowing too much" who know and do much less than Agatha herself.  Someone close to her also asks for a job, an idea she dismisses immediately, but then a bit later she's advertising for a new assistant.  Hmm . . .

All in all, though, with a bit of the old suspension of disbelief, this book is a welcome visit to Agatha and her old friends.

Final Verdict for Busy Body:   Three Gherkins, for some plot holes, but a generally enjoyable visit to Carsley

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Oh Agatha!

Agatha Raisin is at it again. By "it" I mean of course chasing after unsuitable men, daydreaming about romance, sticking her nose in everyone's business, and dealing with "the press." Along the way, she does manage to stumble over several dead bodies, but not to worry, she always finds the guilty party in the end. The evildoers get their comeuppance, the cats are let out into the garden, and Mrs. Bloxby is waiting in the wings with a cup of tea. What more could anyone ask for?

In M.C. Beaton's latest Agatha Raisin novel A Spoonful of Poison, we are once again transported to the charming Cotswolds village of Carsley. Agatha has arranged the publicity for a local church fete, and is on hand when several elderly ladies, apparently under the influence of drugs, die. It soon transpired that someone has spiked the jams in the tasting tent with LSD (as criminals are wont to do).

There is no shortage of suspects. In attempting to sort through them all, Agatha allows herself to be drawn into a pursuit of George Selby, whose wife died in a mysterious fall down some stairs. Since then, it appears that there have been no shortage of women in George's life. Agatha also has a few problems at her detective agency, with young Toni Gilmour stealing all the male attention and a newly hired detective engaging in some sinister behavior. Along the way, Agatha's two mostly platonic male friends Roy Silver and Sir Charles Fraith wander in and out of the story without seeming to do much.

Since the Agatha Raisin series is one of many that M.C. Beaton writes, it's no wonder that the story is a bit slap-dash at times. Still, Agatha gets into enough humorous scrapes to keep everyone wondering what she'll do next. Her hair extension experience alone makes this book worth reading! Film version please!
Final Verdict for A Spoonful of Poison: Four Gherkins, for being a reliably enjoyable visit with old friends

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This skeleton should have stayed in the closet

The Scottish author M.C. Beaton can be guaranteed to write funny, faced-paced mysteries with flawed characters and lots of action. In her "one off" novel Skeleton in the Closet, however, she didn't manage too make her characters likable while putting them in one hair-raising situation after another.

The story opens by introducing us to Fellworth Dolphin, a nearly 40 year old virgin who still lives with his mother. His mother is a thoroughly unpleasant woman, constantly nit-picking and controlling, so it is with little sadness that Fell comes home one day from his job as a waiter and discovers her dead. His father had died several years before, so for the first time, Fell is able to take control of his life. He is stunned to learn that his parents have left both a sizable inheritance for him in their wills, as well as a box of cash in a desk drawer in the house. Fell quits his job and convinces his only friend, the dumpy and equally maternally brow-beaten Maggie Partlett, to move in with him (strictly on a platonic basis).

Maggie and Fell set out to discover where the money could have possibly come from. Was his father, who worked for the railroad, involved in a famous unsolved robbery? Are there secrets in Fell's background that might explain it? The plot moves along briskly as the two amateur detectives try to track down leads, and there are plenty of surprises to keep the story moving along.

The main problem is that Fell is a selfish, mean and totally unlikeable character. We feel sorry for Maggie, who is in love with Fell, but the way he treats her is just outlandish. He constantly belittles her, and as she has come to depend on him in order to have a place to live (as he's convinced her to quit her job, too), she simply accepts his humiliating comments and remains stubbornly loyal. Even though everything is neatly tied up with a bow at the end, it still is impossible to enjoy the story with such a bully for a leading man.

M.C. Beaton's Agatha Raisin and Hamish MacBeth mystery series are much more enjoyable. Even though the leading characters can be eccentric at times, the reader is still rooting for them. Fell Dolphin, on the other hand, is in no way deserving of sympathy. Thank goodness, it doesn't appear as if this was the start of a new series.

Final Verdict for Skeleton in the Closet: One Gherkin, for some exciting plot twists, but a nasty hero

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Stories your high school English teacher never told you

Did you know that Ernest Hemingway's transsexual son Gloria died of a heart attack at the Miami-Dade Women's Detention Center? Or that Louisa May Alcott was an opium addict? Or that Charles Dickens horribly dissed his house guest Hans Christen Andersen? These are just some of the startling facts presented in the book Secret Lives of Great Authors by Robert Schnakenberg. Aside from Dickens, there are plenty of interesting tidbits about other British authors, too, including J.R.R. Tolkien's aggressive driving style ("Charge 'em and they scatter!") and Arthur Conan Doyle's deadly serious devotion to ghosts, magic and fairies. While the book provides lots of interesting insights and facts about well-known authors, the veracity of the entire work was thrown into question for me when the author claimed (both in the text and in a highlighted blurb), "Mark Twain once delivered an entire speech on breaking wind to an audience that included Queen Elizabeth I." Now, as QEI had been dead for over 230 years before Twain was even born, that would have been quite a feat -- although I suppose dear old Bess wouldn't have been too upset at that point by subject matter of any speech! I know that Twain dealt with the subject of time travel in at least one of his books, but I had no idea that he was speaking from experience! Poor editing and fact-checking like that make me question how much of the rest of the book can be taken as truth. On the bright side, I did learn a new word from this book: inimical, meaning hostile. Of course, whether or not I will remember it tomorrow is another question . . .

In other news, my name finally floated to the top of the library holds list, and I have recently made a return visit to the Scottish village of Lochdubh in the audio book version of Death of a Gentle Lady by M.C. Beaton. In this episode, Hamish Macbeth narrowly escapes a wedding, is kidnapped, and of course, single-handedly solves the most current of a series of murders that have a way of plaguing the small fishing village. Some reviewers have remarked upon the fact that some recurring characters are suddenly displaying new personality traits. I was startled by the assertion in this book that Hamish had broken off his engagement to Priscilla Halburton-Smythe because of "her coldness." For some reason, I had a hazy thought that it was Priscilla who did the breaking off, but I could be mistaken. She, of course, makes a return appearance in the book, and both she and Hamish are as jealous as ever of each other even speaking to a member of the opposite sex. A strange part of this book was that Hamish's cat, Sonsie, is forever startling people who see it. They always remark that "it looks like a wild cat." That rather begs the question, what exactly does a wild cat look like? Most feral cats I've ever seen look like your basic pet, although usually a bit skinnier -- certainly nothing to be frightened of. Is it supposed to be bigger than a domestic cat?? Maybe this was explained in an earlier novel, but I never did really work out what made the cat "wild." One problem with this version of the audio book was that I didn't enjoy the narrator, Graeme Malcolm, nearly as much as Davina Porter, who read some of the earlier ones I'd heard. She seemed to make each character more distinct, and I would forget that it was one person doing all the voices!

Final Verdict on Secret Lives of Great Authors: Two Gherkins, for enjoyable reading, but questionable facts

Final Verdict on Death of a Gentle Lady: Two Gherkins, for being an enjoyable visit with old friends

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