Blurb:

Agatha has moved to a picture-book English village and wants to get in the swing. So she buys herself a quiche for the village quiche-making contest and is more than alarmed when it kills a judge. Hot on the trail of the poisoner, Agatha is fearless, all the while unaware, that she’s become the next victim …

 

 

 

 

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In a nutshell:

I read it in: English

I liked it:     Very much

For people who like: Cosy mysteries, the Cotswolds, the English countryside, Miss Marple atmosphere with a tougher touch

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My thoughts: 

This is the first book in the Agatha Raisin series. After reading some of M. C. Beaton Hamish Macbeth books I decided to give Agatha Raisin a try and I was not disappointed.

Agatha Raisin is not a very likeable heroine, at least not at the beginning. She is a tough business woman who usually gets her way by bullying and/or flattering others and that’s about all she can do. Being nice doesn’t come naturally to her. When she – very uncharacteristically – gives all the credit for a local charity event that she organized to a friend, she immediately regrets it when he benefits from her action.

Obviously she also does not learn any lessons from previous events. She buys a quiche to enter it into a competition, someone dies from eating it which gets her into an awkward position. However, a little later she has no scruples to take a cake from a communal freezer to offer it to someone as her own, even though she has no idea whose cake it is and what might be in it. She just does what gets into her mind, not considering any consequences.

This also brings me to another question. Don’t they have to keep retained samples from food at such occasions? That should be standard procedure on occasions like the competition or even the storage freezer! That way the mystery would have been solved a little earlier.

All characters in the village were interesting and entertaining, and the Cotswolds are a great setting for the whole idea of a hardened ex-PR agent trying to ingratiate herself with the locals. The whole story was a pleasure to read; humour, atmosphere and a cosy mystery all combined to a very nice package.

Oh, the cover! Isn’t that a lovely cover?I don’t read chick lit but always like those illustrated covers and fancy fonts. So I am more than pleased with the covers of these Robinson editions.

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Location: The fictional village of Carsely, Cotswolds, England, UK

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Product info and buy link :

Title	Agatha Raisin and the Quiche of Death
Author	M. C. Beaton
Publisher	Robinson Publishing
ISBN	9781849011341
I got this book from	I swapped it
Buy link	Buy Agatha Raisin and the Quiche of Death
More info	The Agatha Raisin series

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Have you read this book? What did you think of it? I would love to hear other opinions.