Showing results by author "M. C. Beaton" in All Categories

Agatha is taken aback when she finds a new woman ensconced in the affections of her attractive bachelor neighbour, James Lacey. The beautiful Mary Fortune is superior in every way, especially when it comes to gardening - and with Carsely Garden Open Day looming, Agatha feels this deficiency acutely.

After a lifetime spent in public relations, one-woman dynamo Agatha Raisin struggles to adapt to life in a quiet country village - but she soon finds that there is murder and mayhem aplenty to keep her busy. Among the cases she has to deal with are a poisoned quiche; a vet who has been ‘put to sleep’; a hanged horticulturist; a murdered rambler and a curate who meets his Maker somewhat sooner than expected.

When society widow and gossip columnist Lady Jane Winters joins the local fishing class she wastes no time in ruffling feathers of those around her. Among the victims of her sharp tongue is Lochdubh constable Hamish Macbeth, yet not even Hamish thinks someone would seriously want to silence Lady Jane’s shrill voice permanently – until her strangled body is fished out of the river.

Feeling jilted and cross, Agatha follows a fortune-teller's advice and rents a cottage in the pretty village of Fryfam, where she hopes good fortune and true love will come chasing after her for a change. Unfortunately, her romantic notions are soon dispelled by the strange goings-on in the village. What are those strange lights in Agatha's back garden? Who is stealing paintings and pottery? And who murdered the local squire?

Private Detective Agatha Raisin immerses herself in the glittering lifestyle of the fabulously wealthy when Sir Charles Fraith is accused of murder - and Agatha is named as his accomplice! A high-society wedding, a glitzy masked ball and an introduction to the world of international show-jumping, where the riders are glamorous, the horses are beautiful and intrigue runs deep, leave Agatha with a list of suspects as long as a stallion's tail.

Patricia Martyn-Broyd, now in her seventies, has retired to the Highlands. She hasn't written a word in years and her books are out of print. But now a television company is about to film her last detective story, featuring the aristocratic Scottish detective Lady Harriet Vare. Even better, a London publisher is bringing the book into print. Even though the snobbish Miss Martyn-Broyd doesn't care to mix with the locals she can't help but share her excitement with local policeman Hamish Macbeth.

In this sixth entertaining outing Agatha leaves the sleepy Cotswold village of Carsely to pursue love - and finds a murderer. Spurned at the altar, she follows her fleeing fiancé James Lacey to Cyprus, where, instead of enjoying the honeymoon they'd planned, they witness the killing of an obnoxious tourist in a disco. Intrigue and a string of murders surround the unlikely couple, in a plot as scorching as the Cypriot sun!

In the south of Scotland, residents get their chimneys vacuum-cleaned. But in the isolated villages in the very north of Scotland, the villagers rely on the services of the itinerant sweep, Pete Ray, and his old-fashioned brushes. Pete is always able to find work in the Scottish highlands, until one day when Police Constable Hamish Macbeth notices blood dripping onto the floor of a villager's fireplace, and a dead body stuffed inside the chimney.

Recovering addict Tommy Jarret has rented a chalet to check out reports of a sea monster near the village of Drim. Then he turns up dead, apparently from a drug overdose, and constable Hamish Macbeth finds the lad's demise particularly fishy. Deciding to go undercover, Hamish infiltrates the local drug dealing trade. But his plans looks doomed when he's teamed up with a tough Glaswegian detective inspector named Olivia Chater, aka Concrete Knickers. For the Lochdubh lawman it would be equally dangerous to flounder...or fall in love.

Mrs. Gillespie is famous around the northwest of Sutherland for being the best charwoman ever. Of course, if anyone has any social pretensions one does not say charwoman, one talks about "my maid". Hamish Macbeth wins Mrs. Gillespie's services in a church raffle but spends most of the day trying to avoid her. She is a malicious gossip and she bangs around the furniture and clanks pots--he wonders how on earth she managed to get such a good reputation.

High-flying public relations supremo Agatha Raisin has decided to take early retirement. She's off to make a new life in a picture-perfect Cotswold village. To make friends, she enters the local quiche-making competition - and to make quite sure of first prize she secretly pays a visit to a London deli. Alas, the competition judge succumbs after tasting her perfect quiche, and Agatha is revealed as a cheat and potential poisoner. Definitely not the best start. So Agatha must turn amateur sleuth - she's absolutely got to track down the real killer!

Just when Hamish most needs him - the dentist turns up dead... In Scotland, where thrift and a 'nice set of dentures' are generally admired, dental surgeon Dr Frederick Gilchrist's cheap rates and penchant for pulling teeth have gained him a clientele. However, wiser Highlanders (like Hamish Macbeth) opt to steer clear of this reputed womanizer's all-too-busy hands. Only jaw-throbbing agony drives Hamish to Gilchrist's surgery, but what he finds is the dentist's dead body - putting several angry husbands in the frame for murder...

All Sergeant Hamish Macbeth ever wants is a quiet life in the tranquil surroundings of Lochdubh, his home village in the Scottish Highlands. Although the area he polices is vast, he's happiest when he's working alone, yet the police authorities insist he has an assistant. In the past, they have supplied a variety of problematic misfits, but they surpass themselves with their latest effort - an American named James Bland.

Amazing news is spreading like wildfire across the Scottish countryside: the most famous of all Highland bachelors, police sergeant Hamish Macbeth, is planning to marry at last! Everyone in the village of Lochdubh adores Josie McSween, Hamish's newest constable and blushing bride-to-be. While locals think she is quite a catch, Hamish has a severe case of pre-nuptial jitters... after all, if it wasn't for the recent murder of a beautiful woman in a neighbouring village there wouldn't be a wedding in the first place.

PC Dorothy McIver quickly shows how determined she is to win over the locals, and she certainly seems to bring out the best in Macbeth. Then comes a brutal murder, and the pair find themselves plunged into a tangled web of conspiracy that acquires a sinister strand when the chilling shadow of Glasgow's underworld creeps to the Highlands and the peaceful village of Lochdubh.

Agatha has fallen in love - again. This time it's the local gardener, George Marston, she has her eye on. But competition for his attention abounds. With her shameless determination Agatha will do anything to get her man - including footing the bill for a charity ball in town just for the chance to dance with him. But when George is a no-show Agatha goes looking for him - and finds he has been murdered, having been bitten by a poisonous snake and buried in a compost heap.

When Fergus Macleod, Lochdubh's abusive, drunk dustman is put in charge of the local recycling centre and is dubbed the 'Environment Officer', Hamish Macbeth smells trouble. Sure enough, Fergus, imbued with his new powers, becomes a bullying tyrant and when his body is found stuffed in a recycling bin, no one is sorry - including his long-suffering family.

The unconventional Hamish Macbeth finds that his own impetuousness places him at the center of a murder investigation. Everyone in the Scottish Highlands village of Lochdubh called Randy Duggan 'the Macho Man'. Duggan went around the village and bragged about everything he had done and said he once was a wrestler in America and an explorer in the Middle East. At first his outrageous stories drew an admiring crowd at the local pub, but soon his bullying ways lead to anger and violence.