Author: M. C. Beaton
Published: August 11th 2015 by Minotaur Books
Format: eBook
Genre: Short Story
Series: Agatha Raisin
Well, that was frustrating. I was settling in to read a short story that evolved around Agatha Raisin’s beginnings and just when I thought that I was going to get a full glimpse of her life before “The Quiche of Death”, when she arrived in the Cotswold’s, the story is over and I come to realize that this was just a marketing ploy to introduce the first two chapter of the book “Dishing the Dirt”.
This book begins when Agatha is twenty-six and still sensitive. Having fled the Birmingham slum where she was raised and the life of her drunken parents; she is currently employed by a horrible woman in a Mayfair public relations office. Jimmy Raisin, her first husband is out of the picture and quite by chance, Agatha stumbles onto the life changing moment that she has been hoping for.
The overall story is bumbling and choppy. Parts do not make sense, sensationalism is thrown in and conclusions are reached without enough story building. What does come across are Agatha’s dreams for the future – her own agency and a cottage in the Cotswold’s.
There are parts of the series that will never change such as Agatha’s way of “solving cases by apparently blundering about like some demented wasp” and Agatha’s way of ferreting out people’s weak spots and ruthlessly gaining inside information.
Agatha is one of those characters that you either love or hate and since I am well vested in this series, I find myself reading whatever comes out with her as a main character. I do not know what the future plans are for this series, but I do hope that M. C. Beaton steps up her game.
This book begins when Agatha is twenty-six and still sensitive. Having fled the Birmingham slum where she was raised and the life of her drunken parents; she is currently employed by a horrible woman in a Mayfair public relations office. Jimmy Raisin, her first husband is out of the picture and quite by chance, Agatha stumbles onto the life changing moment that she has been hoping for.
The overall story is bumbling and choppy. Parts do not make sense, sensationalism is thrown in and conclusions are reached without enough story building. What does come across are Agatha’s dreams for the future – her own agency and a cottage in the Cotswold’s.
There are parts of the series that will never change such as Agatha’s way of “solving cases by apparently blundering about like some demented wasp” and Agatha’s way of ferreting out people’s weak spots and ruthlessly gaining inside information.
Agatha is one of those characters that you either love or hate and since I am well vested in this series, I find myself reading whatever comes out with her as a main character. I do not know what the future plans are for this series, but I do hope that M. C. Beaton steps up her game.
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