Author: M.C. Beaton
Published: October 3rd 2017 by Minotaur Books
Format: eBook, Hardcover 244 pgs
Genre: Cozy Mystery
Source: My thanks to Netgalley and the Publisher for an opportunity to read an advanced copy of this book.
Series: Agatha Raisin #28
After the last book, ‘Pushing up Daisies’, I had hoped that MC Beaton has turned a corner and her Agatha Raisin series would get back to what they had previous been with multiple story lines that bounced back and forth effortlessly. Unfortunately, this book returned to the usual drivel that has become her norm.
Fifty-three year old Agatha is in her usual depressed mood when there is no man in her life and work is the usual boring assortment of missing pets, marital affairs and wayward teens. Agatha is still the “pet hate” for Wilkes since she tends to solve more crime by “bumbling about” then he does. Thus begins the tale of the Witches’ Tree when the body of Margaret Darby is found hanging from a tree that has a curious past.
The story gets a bit twisted with several dead bodies, a coven, and a will that has gone through several revisions, but when it comes down to it, the village of Sumpton Harcourt has some very odd people not to mention too much affinity for Agatha Christy and romance novels.
Things were touched on in the book, involving the wife of the new vicar, that I did not think belonged in a cozy mystery and I was rather surprised to see it brought up here. There were parts that did not seem to be fully addressed by the end of the book and characters that took up more room than they should have. Overall, if you have read the full series to this point, you would not be able to pass by a new Agatha, but if you are just staring out, I suggest that you start at the beginning and develop you own love for the people of Carsley.
Fifty-three year old Agatha is in her usual depressed mood when there is no man in her life and work is the usual boring assortment of missing pets, marital affairs and wayward teens. Agatha is still the “pet hate” for Wilkes since she tends to solve more crime by “bumbling about” then he does. Thus begins the tale of the Witches’ Tree when the body of Margaret Darby is found hanging from a tree that has a curious past.
The story gets a bit twisted with several dead bodies, a coven, and a will that has gone through several revisions, but when it comes down to it, the village of Sumpton Harcourt has some very odd people not to mention too much affinity for Agatha Christy and romance novels.
Things were touched on in the book, involving the wife of the new vicar, that I did not think belonged in a cozy mystery and I was rather surprised to see it brought up here. There were parts that did not seem to be fully addressed by the end of the book and characters that took up more room than they should have. Overall, if you have read the full series to this point, you would not be able to pass by a new Agatha, but if you are just staring out, I suggest that you start at the beginning and develop you own love for the people of Carsley.
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