Agatha Raisin mysteries

Putting all her eggs in one basket, Agatha Raisin gives up her successful public-relations firm, sells her London flat, and samples a taste of early retirement in the quiet village of Carsely.

Bored, lonely, and used to getting her way, she enters a local baking contest—surely a blue ribbon for the best quiche will make her the toast of the town. But her recipe for social advancement sours when Judge Cummings-Browne not only snubs her

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A little friendly competition for the attention of a handsome neighbor turns deadly in this third installment of the popular Agatha Raisin mystery series.

When Agatha Raisin returns home after a sojourn in the capital, she finds a new woman ensconced in the affections of her attractive bachelor neighbor, James Lacey. The newcomer, Mary Fortune, is superior to Agatha in every way, especially when it comes to gardening. With Carsely Open Day

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Almost bigamy and absolute murder—Agatha Raisin's life is never dull.

The morning of Agatha's longed-for marriage to James Lacey dawns bright and clear. But her luck runs out in the church when Jimmy, the husband she had believed long dead, turns up large as life and twice as ugly. Agatha has a go at strangling him. It's all too much for James, who breaks off the engagement. So when Jimmy is found murdered the next day, Agatha and James

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"This time, the feisty sleuth stumbles upon the victim of an unnatural death in a Cotswold village's famous natural spring. Who was the unlucky corpse? The Ancombe Parish Council chairman, and the only uncommitted member voting on whether to allow the Ancombe Water Company to tap into the town's spring. Add ex-fiance James, watery politicians, and slippery entrepreneurs to the mix, and you have Agatha up to her neck in a murky murder mystery."--Back...

There is nothing more depressing for a middle-aged lovelorn woman with bald patches on her head than to find herself in an English seaside resort out of season. Agatha Raisin, her hair falling out after a run-in with a hairdresser-cum-murderess from a previous investigation, travels to an old-fashioned hotel in order to repair the damage away from the neighbors in her all-too-cozy Cotswolds village. Unhappy about the slow results and prompted by the...

Recently married to James Lacey, the witty and fractious Agatha Raisin quickly finds that marriage, and love, are not all they are cracked up to be. Rather than basking in marital bliss, the newlyweds are living in separate cottages and accusing each other of infidelity. After a particularly raucous fight in the local pub, James suddenly vanishes-a bloodstain the only clue to his fate-and Agatha is the prime suspect. Determined to clear her name and...

Depressed after being humiliated and abandoned by the two men in her life, Agatha Raisin finds a new prospect in curate Tristan Delon, whose untimely death prompts Agatha to investigate strange mysteries surrounding the victim.

Invited to spend a seaside vacation with her ex-husband, James Lacey, at a rundown town called Snoth-on-Sea, Agatha Raisin becomes the prime suspect in the murder of a woman staying at the same hotel and is forced to step in to find the real culprit.

Agatha Raisin's detective agency has become so successful that now all she wants is some R&R. But as soon as she cuts back her hours, Agatha remembers that when she has too much quality time, she doesn't know what to do with it. So it doesn't take much for the vicar of a nearby village to persuade her to help publicize the church fete, especially when the fair's organizer, George Selby, happens to be a gorgeous widower.

The problem is

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When a Scrooge-like officer with the Health and Safety Board spoils the Costwolds holiday festivities by trumping up reasons to ban town decorations and May Dimwoody's hand-made toys, Agatha Raisin is called on to investigate the officer's subsequent murder.

Agatha has fallen head over heels in love--again. This time, she has her eye on the local gardener, George Marston, but so do other women in their little Cotswold village. Shamelessly determined, Agatha will do anything to get her man--including footing the bill for a charity ball just for the chance to dance with him. And then George doesn't even show up. Only partly deterred, Agatha goes looking for him, and finds his dead body in a compost heap....

Even though Agatha Raisin loathes amateur dramatics, her friend, the vicar's wife, has persuaded her to support the local pantomime. Stifling a yawn at the production of "Babes in the Woods," Agatha watches the baker playing an ogre strut and threaten on the stage, until a trapdoor opens and the Ogre disappears in an impressive puff of smoke. Only he doesn't re-appear at the final curtain. Surely this isn't the way the scene was rehearsed. . .

When Agatha Raisin left behind her PR business in London, she fulfilled her dream of settling in the cozy British Cotswolds where she began a successful private detective agency. Unfortunately, the village she lives in is about to get a little less cozy. Lord Bellington, a wealthy land developer, wants to turn the community garden into a housing estate. When Agatha and her friend Sir Charles Fraith attempt to convince Lord Bellington to abandon his...

"The church of St. Ethelred in the village of Thirk Magna is renowned for its team of bell-ringers, the troupe led by identical twins Mavis and Millicent Dupin. Mavis and Millicent are lifelong residents of the remote village--or were, until their home is broken into one night, and Millicent is murdered. But who's the killer? Is it one of their co-workers, sick of being bullied to practice for a big performance? Or perhaps Joseph Kennell, a retired...

When Private Detective Agatha Raisin learns that her friend and one-time lover Charles Fraith is to be married to a mysterious socialite, Miss Mary Brown-Field, she sees it as her duty to find out what she can about the woman. Coming up empty, Agatha-out of selfless concern for Charles, of course-does the only sensible thing she can think of: she crashes their wedding, which ends in a public altercation. Nursing a hangover the next morning, she gets...

"Toni and Agatha are in the car on the way to Officer Bill Wong's long-awaited wedding when, much to their shock, a naked young man bursts through a hedge on the side of the road and comes running toward them. Terrified, he explains that he has just seen a dead body in the woods. Toni lends him an old t-shirt to cover himself, Agatha calls the police, and the young man takes them to the spot where he saw the body, across from a meadow where the Mircester...

"Agatha Raisin's private detective agency is working flat out on a series of shop burglaries. The break-ins seem to have taken a violent turn when a friend of Agatha's is murdered during a raid on his shop. Although determined to nail the villains, Agatha still makes time to help Sir Charles Fraith prepare to stage a massive, hugely glamorous, promotional event in the grounds of his ancestral home, Barfield House. When Agatha begins to receive death...