Pushing Up Daisies

July 11, 2016
Agatha Raisin is in top form in bestseller Beaton’s 27th mystery featuring the exasperating, vulnerable, endearing owner of a thriving private detective agency in the Cotswolds village of Carsley (after 2015’s Dishing the Dirt). When the universally despised Lord Bellington is poisoned by a dose of antifreeze in his crème de menthe, his son, Damian, hires Agatha to find his killer—not that Damian is mourning his father’s passing. As heir to the Bellington estate, Damian fears the police consider him the prime suspect. Even as bodies pile up, Agatha’s investigation is constantly sidetracked by red herrings and by her own poor impulse control when it comes to cigarettes, gin, and unsuitable men. Fortunately, the intuitive, opinionated, tart-tongued detective can rely on her loyal crew of friends to help out. Agatha may be disappointed in love once again, but a twisty plot, a familiar cast of eccentric characters, and a charming English country setting mean that lovers of cozy mysteries will be satisfied indeed. Agent: Barbara Lowenstein, Lowenstein Associates.

July 15, 2016
Agatha Raisin continues to struggle, though not very hard, against her predilection for unsuitable men.Agatha is a talented private detective whose gut feelings about cases rarely let her down. The same cannot be said about her ever more desperate search for the right man. Her latest amatory interest, Gerald Devere, is a retired Scotland Yard detective whom Agatha's best friend, Mrs. Bloxby, the vicar's wife, likes well enough to dye her hair and freshen up her wardrobe for. But it's Agatha's best male friend and sometime lover, Sir Charles Fraith, who accompanies Agatha to visit obnoxious Lord Bellington, whose plan to sell the village allotments he owns to a developer has the villagers up in arms. Bellington refuses their pleas in no uncertain way, setting the stage for his sudden demise. Agatha's observation that his death sounds like antifreeze poisoning turns out to be true, much to the annoyance of Inspector Wilkes, who already has reason to dislike her. Bellington's son Damian hires Agatha's agency to find his father's killer even though only his sister Andrea seems to care that their father died. But enough about murder. Agatha's long-running love/hate relationship with her gorgeous assistant, Toni Gilmour, is complicated by her status as the object of desire for Simon Black, another detective. Neither one is happy when Agatha takes on a good-looking but lazy young man as a trainee. As the bodies start to pile up, Agatha refuses to abandon a case that's grown almost as complicated as her love life. Fans of this long-running series will enjoy the continuing drama of the private eye's romances, which, as so often before (Dishing The Dirt, 2016, etc.), overshadow the mystery.

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April 1, 2016

Insufferable Lord Bellington winds up dead after threatening to turn the community garden in Agatha Raisin's Cotswold village into a housing estate, and his son, Damian--in fact the chief suspect--hires Agatha to find the killer. Then police stumble across another body, and Agatha joins forces with handsome newcomer Gerald, conveniently a retired detective, to figure out what's happening. From New York Times best-selling author Beaton.

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

August 1, 2016
It's autumn in the Cotswolds, where Agatha Raisin has retired from public-relations work and established her detective agency. That gin and tonics are not the season's drink doesn't stop Agatha from belting them back, nor does she manage to quit smoking. Her main case this season is finding out who killed Lord Bellington. His son and heir? His daughter, wanting money for a far-fetched animal-rights venture? His jilted mistress? His ex-wife? The tenants of the allotments on his estate, straining under increased rents? Or Agatha herself, who had stopped in to ask him not to sell the tract with the allotments to a developer, incurring his wrath? Hired by Bellington's son, Agatha treks to London and back, into pubs, and across muddy fields in search of answers. Meanwhile, she is dealing with other, more routine investigations involving shoplifting and lost children, as well taking part in an array of romantic interludes of varying intensity. It's fast paced, with lots of twists and turns, hilarity, and quiet moments when you think maybe, just maybe, Agatha will get a grip. Doesn't happen, though, but she does find the killer.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)