M. C Beaton

When a fortune teller from a previous case informs Agatha Raisin that her destiny-and true love-lies in Norfolk, she promptly rents a cottage in the quaint village of Fryfam. No sooner does she arrive than strange things start happening. Random objects go missing from people's homes and odd little lights are seen dancing in the villagers' gardens and yards. Stories soon begin circulating about the presence of fairies. But when a prominent village...

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...

When private detective Agatha Raisin comes across a severed leg in a roadside hedge, it looks like she is about to become involved in a particularly gruesome murder. Looks, however, can be deceiving, as Agatha discovers when she is employed to investigate a case of industrial espionage at a factory where nothing is quite what it seems. The factory mystery soon turns to murder and a bad-tempered donkey turns Agatha into a national celebrity, before...

Lochdubh's dustman, Fergus Macleod, a sour little man given to domestic violence and drinking, gets by with a one-day work week collecting the village's trash. But when Mrs. Freda Fleming, wrath of the Strathbane Council, decides to make an environmental example out of Lochdubh, Fergus is promoted (at double his usual salary) to man the new and elaborate recycling center. Now a bullying tyrant with a neat uniform and a new truck, he issues harsh fines...

"Sergeant Hamish Macbeth faces a string of mysterious robberies that are only the beginning of an international threat to his sleepy Scottish village of Lochudch in the latest mystery in M.C. Beaton's beloved, New York Times bestselling series. Sergeant Hamish Macbeth has some major problems to deal with--crimes and criminals, even law enforcement agents, that he doesn't want anywhere near his beloved Highland village in Lochdubh. Hamish is worried...

Travel to the Scotland Highlands with this classic Hamish Macbeth cozy mystery from the author of the Agatha Raisin series.
Death of a Bore: A Hamish Macbeth Mystery
Minor writer John Heppel has a problem—he's a consummate bore. When he's found dead in his cottage, there are plenty of suspects. But surely boredom shouldn't be cause for murder, or so thinks Constable Hamish Macbeth.

An impoverished widow opens a hotel serving the society she has fallen from in this regency romance featuring characters who “leap off the pages” (Publishers Weekly).
 
After her husband’s death, Lady Fortescue knows she must work, even though the thought will appal her society relatives. So she decides to transform her once-grand Bond Street home into a hotel, the Poor Relation, offering society guests...

In this “entertaining comedy of errors” from a New York Times bestseller, a runaway bride is ransomed to collect on her father’s debts in Regency England (Publishers Weekly).
 
Due to a bad wager by one of its founders, the popular Poor Relation hotel is in financial trouble. Fortunately, founder Colonel Sandhurst has a plan. Offering the hotel as a sanctuary to a bride running from her...

With “spirited characters,” a New York Times bestseller blends the tales of a besotted elderly nobleman and a debutante whose mother refuses her a season (Library Journal).
 
Sir Philip has fallen in love. But has the old man lost his mind? His colleagues at the popular hotel, the Poor Relation, have to wonder. The smitten nobleman has installed his paramour at the hotel—and he’s the only...

"When Police Sergeant Hamish Macbeth hears reports of a haunted castle near Drim, he assumes the eerie noises and lights reported by the villagers are just local teenagers going there to smoke pot or, worse, inject themselves with drugs. Still, Hamish decides that he and his policeman, Charlie "Clumsy" Carson, will spend the night at the ruined castle to get to the bottom of the rumors once and for all. There's no sign of any ghost...but then Charlie...