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M.C. Beaton Message Board 1/16/2013 7:57:20 PM
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Author Beaton's Book Reviews

A Governess of Distinction
Percy, Viscount Hunterdon, is left a large legacy in a will but there are conditions attached which include ‘bringing out' two young girls into society and finding them husbands. Viscount Hunterdon is a carefree man about town, enjoying his gaming and drinking, without any real responsibility or plans to marry in the near future. Then he receives a legacy from a relative which has conditions attached. He can choose not to take the legacy, but if he does ...
A Highland Christmas
Hamish Macbeth is in the Christmas spirit! However, someone has nipped all the Christmas lights, and so the Scottish village of Lochdubh may have to do without! But Macbeth is good at solving crimes and this laid-back constable takes up the challenge. As it turns out, there is more at stake than mere stolen Christmas lights and the story turns into a complicated drug bust. Before the story has ended, readers are really given a holiday treat, as auth...
A Marriage of Inconvenience
Isabella does not want to get married, and frustrates he parents by turning down every proposal until they insist on arranging a marriage for her. Isabella developed a disgust of men in general and sex in particular when she witnessed a drunken orgy in a post house as a young girl, and this has made her determined not to marry. She is beautiful and well brought up, so has a lot of proposals at each of the seasons she attends, but always turns them down, ...
Agatha Raisin and the Case of the Curious Curate
St. Martin's, March 2003, 24.95, 224 pp. ISBN 0313207689 Her husband divorced her because he decided to become a monk. When she writes to the monastery where he is supposed to be praying, the abbot replies that he left and never returned. Now Agatha Raisin realizes that was just his clever way of dumping her. Adding to her despondency is that her next door neighbor only wants to have a fling with her, making her feel even more unloved and lone...

Beaton booklist

Agatha Raisin and the Day the Floods Came
Agatha Raisin finds herself still at loose ends and needs one more vacation to get away from her failed marriage and love affairs. She sees mystery in everything and in fact guesses at a murder that hasn't happen yet. Agatha is actually turning into a good detective and her courage and abilities prompt a former skeptic to consider urging her to go professional. Unfortuantely her low self-esteem gets in her way both personally and with her cases once more...
Agatha Raisin and the Fairies of Fryfam
Agatha Raisin has retreated to a rented cottage in the Norfolk village of Fryfam to lick her wounds after another disappointment in love. She finds the cottage tiresomely old-fashioned with no central heating or microwave, and is exasperated that the village pub does not serve meals. She is bothered by strange dancing lights at the bottom of the garden which disappear when she tries to track them down. Discovering that the locals attribute the lights to ...
Agatha Raisin and the Haunted House
St. Martin's, Oct 2002, 23.95, 256 pp. ISBN 0312207697 After working a free lance public relations job in London for over a month, Agatha Raisin is glad to return to her quaint college in Carsley in England. Still hurting from her divorce, she doesn't even try to get acquainted with her new handsome neighbor Paul Chatterton. One day while she is relaxing in her garden with her two cats, Paul approaches her about investigating a house the owner ...
Agatha Raisin and the Murderous Marriage
Agatha Raisin has finally won over James Lacey when her husband, Jimmy Raisin breaks up their wedding and later Jimmy is murdered with Agatha arrested for his murder. After a long period of chasing James Lacey, Agatha is finally going to marry the most eligible bachelor until her husband breaks it up. Agatha is certain Jimmy was dead and continued on with the wedding without getting any solid proof. Her ex co-worker, Roy Silver decided to find him, which...
Agatha Raisin and the Terrible Tourist
Agatha Raisin is a hard-boiled retired public relations executive who chases after James Lacey, her ex-fiancee, to northern Cyprus. Agatha, while tough on the surface, is actually very insecure and sensitive to the criticism of others. While in Cyprus, Agatha and James become enbroiled in a murder mystery involving a fellow British tourist. Thinking that investigating and sovling a mystery together will help reconcile her and James, Agatha becomes inv...
Agatha Raisin and the Vicious Vet
A retired business from London, Agatha Raisin, is constantly looking for romance. Now living in a small village in the English Cotsworlds, Agatha meets the new vet and is thrilled to be asked out by him. However, while handsome on the outside, the vet seems to harbor a deep dislike of cats and dogs. He also seems to have inspired strong emotions both positive and negative from several other local women. When he's found dead, Agatha decides to investi...

M.C. Beaton list of books

Agatha Raisin and the Wellspring of Death
Agatha Raisin, a retired public relations executive, decides to take a free lance public relations job working for a local bottled water company. However, not everyone in the small English village is pleased with the idea of mineral water being taken from the village's historic spring. In fact, the local city council was heatedly divided over the issue when the council chairman with the deciding vote is found dead at the spring. Agatha decides to inve...
As the Pig Turns
When Agatha comes across an overly zealous police officer that has become a hinder to everyone as he handed out the most outrageous fines, but things change when this pig is found roasted over a fire. Agatha Raisin comes across Officer Gary Beech for a ridiculous fines and leaves her giving out an idle threat to kill him. Thinking nothing of it, she goes on with her normal routine of coming into her office for detective business and coming home to her tw...
Busy Body
Agatha comes home from a bad vacation to find Carsley without Christmas decoration and the man who is responsible for this dead. When Agatha experiences a terrible vacation, she comes home to a plain Carsley without the Christmas spirit spread all over the village. She finds out from Mrs. Bloxby, the vicar's wife, who is responsible for the lack of Christmas decorations. The culprit is Mr. John Sunday or Grudge Sunday was what the people called this Mirc...
Deadly Dance
St. Martin's, Nov 2004, 22.95, 224 pp. ISBN: 0312304366 After years of solving homicides for the fun of it, Agatha Raisin opens up her own detective agency in Mirceaster, England following being mugged while vacationing in France. She hires her new neighbor Emma Coffrey to serve as her secretary. Business is booming as people hire Agatha to get evidence in divorce cases and finding missing people and pets. Wealthy socialite Mrs. Laggat-Brow...
Death of a Celebrity
Mysteries, Jan 2002, 23.95, 259 pp. ISBN 0892966769 Hamish Macbeth is the village bobby in Lochdubh in the Scottish Highlands. It is an isolated quaint little place where everyone knows everyone else and crime is kept to a minimum. Hamish's home is part of the village jail because major crimes occur so infrequently. He resents newcomers who make more work for him. If it were up to the local bobby, there would be a gate preventing any outs...
Death of a Dentist
The serenity in the village of Lochdubh has been disconcerted once again! The local dentist has been found murdered and the list of suspects is quite long! It seems that Dr. Gilchrist, in addition to being a practicing dentist, is a skilled womanizer, as well; one whose death will find no shortage of suspects! M.C. Beaton, in this 13th of the Hamish Macbeth series, is once again, well, M.C. Beaton. Predictable as summer heat in Texas, each of th...

M.C. Beaton novels

Death of a Hussy
In “Death of a Hussy,” M.C. Beaton returns to her formula for success. Her Hamish Macbeth series is popular one and a delight to read. Maggie is a hussy--there's no doubt about it! What a middle age tart she is! However, things aren't so funny when her car catches fire--with Maggie in it! As usual, there are lots of suspects, and the local bobby (Macbeth) naturally is on hand to investigate. And, as usual, it takes Macbeth, with his ...
Death of a Kingfisher
Sergeant Hamish Macbeth, and his Constable, Dick Fraser, solve the murder of Mrs. Colchester and her family in the idyllic setting near The Fairy Glen. In Death of a Kingfisher [ISBN 978-0-446-54736-9] Police Sergeant Hamish Macbeth, of the small police station in Lochdubh, solves the murder of a rich, crotchety, offensive, widow, Mrs. Colchester, who has recently moved to the area. Mrs. Colchester has bought a small, old house, called a hunting box,...
Death of a Poison Pen
Mysterious, Feb 2004, 23.95, 256 pp. ISBN 0892967889 Someone in the small Highland town of Braikie has instituted a poison pen letter writing campaign going so far as to accuse Police Constable Hamish Macbeth of having an affair with the minister's wife. Although nobody is taking it seriously, Hamish knows it is just a matter of time before someone gets very angry and violence could be the result. When the post mistress Miss Beatie dies with a p...
Death of a Script Writer
Hamish Macbeth (not the "dread Scot" of old) is a Scottish constable who would rather poach salmon than solve crimes, but solve crimes he does, and he's very good at it. This unassuming M.C. Beaton creation is a delight in the police procedural genre. Macbeth's common sense always triumphs! In "Death of a Script Writer," Hamish finds just that--a script writer for a local TV production crew is found dead--amid the usual mysterious circumstances, and ...
Death of a Snob
Constable Hamish MacBeth is asked to act as bodyguard to wealthy Jane Weathersby. A series of accidents and an ominous fortune telling has Jane fearing for her life. When the wrong woman is killed, Hamish is at a loss to solve the crime....
Death Of A Village
Mysterious Press, Feb 2003, 23.95, 256 pp. ISBN 0892966777 Police constable Hamish Macbeth loves living in the small Scottish Highland village of Lochdubh because he knows and likes most of the residents who in turn trusts him. He's regarded as a maverick at headquarters and his superiors would like to get him transferred to a bigger place where his talents could be better utilized. Hamish is very comfortable being a constable and does not want...

M.C. Beaton information

Death of an Addict
Hamish Macbeth, M.C. Beaton's low-keyed constable of Lochdubh, Scotland, thinks he finally has some moments to call his own; after all, things have been very quiet up in the Highlands. As he's busy tending his hens and sheep, a newcomer arrives in the village--alas,however, he is soon found dead, with few apparent clues as to the cause. In this Beaton episode of the Macbeth series, we find Hamish dealing with drugs and the ramifications they present. ...
Regency Gold
Jean has grown up under the mean and miserly care of her uncle and so when she attends her first season as an heiress she is not prepared for the rigid rules of London, or to fall in love with the dashing Marquess of Fleetwater. Jeans parents were killed when she was quite young, and she enters the care of a nasty uncle, assuming she has no money as her parents frittered it all away. She is from a good family, so attends lessons with the daughters of a l...
There Goes The Bride
Agatha Raisin comes home from a horrible trip to find James Lacey, her ex-husband engaged to marry Felicity Bross-Tilkington except she is found murderered before they can make it down the aisle. Agatha Raisin was off on a holiday when she sees her ex-husband James Lacey from a distance at the same place. She was afraid of him thinking she was stocking him, so she left and tried to stay away. Although, she had a soft spot for this confirmed bachelor and ...