M. C Beaton
Agatha Raisin thinks she's in for a treat when her ex-husband, James Lacey, invites her on a holiday. But to her horror, his idea of an exotic destination is a small, rundown resort in Snoth-on-Sea. Needless to say, the break doesn't go as planned. When a fellow guest in their hotel is found murdered, Agatha herself becomes a suspect—and it looks as if she will be solving this particular case from the confines of a prison cell.
Can the feisty Agatha Raisin cut it as a private investigator? She soon learns that running her own detective agency in the Cotswolds is not quite like starring in a Raymond Chandler movie. But then in walks wealthy divorc├®e Catherine Laggat-Brown, who presents Agatha with her first real case. Death threats, blackmail, and worse quickly follow, and once again Agatha is off scouring the countryside for clues and showing friends and enemies
...84) Our Lady of Pain
Lady Rose Summer, the wayward Edwardian debutante who keeps getting mixed up in disreputable adventures, would swear she is not a jealous woman. After all, she knows her engagement to private detective Captain Harry Cathcart is only a ploy to keep her parents from shipping her off to India. But then Harry's latest client, Dolores Duval—a vision of curves with a seductive French accent—starts appearing everywhere at his side. In a fit
...85) Sick of Shadows
Captain Harry Cathcart and Lady Rose Summer have entered into an engagement of convenience so Rose can avoid being sent to India with all the other failed debutantes. Her sharp intellect and radical ideas have served to repel her would-be suitors. Rose's parents are hardly thrilled that their only child is marrying a man in trade, but Harry comes from a good family, and at the very least, they hope he will keep their troublesome daughter out of
...86) Hasty Death
Eager to join the working classes, Lady Rose Summer has abandoned the comforts of her parents' home to become self-supporting. But life as a working woman isn't quite what Rose had imagined—long hours as a typist and nights spent in a dreary women's hostel are not very empowering when you're poor, cold, and tired. Luckily for Rose, her drudgery comes to a merciful end when she learns of the untimely death of an acquaintance.
Freddy
...What clever woman would want a man like Lord Harry Desire? Why, he is clearly a lummox—languid, vain, and bland. Not even his beautiful face could redeem him. But he stands to inherit a vast fortune, and that's good enough for Deirdre's father, a spendthrift vicar who arranges the match to rescue himself from imminent financial collapse.
Leave it to Deirdre to contrive an escape, a quick elopement with her one true love, the dashing
...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
...After six months in London, Agatha Raisin returns to her beloved Cotswold village—and her dashing neighbor, James Lacey. Well, sort of. James might not be so interested in Agatha. But soon enough, Agatha becomes consumed by her other passion: crime solving. A woman has been found dead in a lonely field nearby. Her name is Jessica Tartinck, a hiker who infuriated wealthy landowners by insisting on her hiking club's right to trek across their
...When society widow and gossip columnist Lady Jane Winters joined the fishing class, she wasted no time in ruffling the feathers—or was it the fins?—of those around her. Among the victims of her sharp tongue and unladylike manner was Lochdubh...
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
...93) Death of a spy
Death of a Gossip
When society widow and gossip columnist Lady Jane Winters joined the fishing class, she wasted no time in ruffling the feathers—or was it the fins?—of those around her. Among the victims of her sharp tongue and unladylike manner was Lochdubh Constable Hamish Macbeth. Yet not even Hamish thought someone would permanently silence Lady Jane's shrills—until her strangled body is fished out of
..."I do not think I want to be married at all. I want to be rich. Very rich..."
When Henrietta Bascombe opens a confectionary shop in order to turn her pittance of an inheritance into a fortune, her friends are shocked to hear of such a well-bred lady going into trade. The Earl of Carrisdown is both drawn to and repelled by her shopgirl status. Undaunted, Henrietta proceeds to hang out the traditional confectioners' sign of a golden
...96) Daphne
Daphne, the fourth daughter of the Reverend Charles Armitage, is beautiful—dazzlingly beautiful—but she is utterly wrapped up in her own appearance. It seems fitting when she decides to marry the exquisite Cyril Archer, who is as empty-headed and vain as she is; after all, once she is safely married, she can hide her true nature behind her beauty, never expected by anyone (least of all her husband) to do or say anything clever. Moreover,
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