M. C. Beaton

A mystery without a murder featuring the series hero, Scottish constable Hamish MacBeth. The Christmas season brings him two cases, in one a woman reports her cat stolen, in another someone has stolen the village Christmas tree.

Unlike quite a number of people, Agatha has not given up on Christmas. To have the perfect Christmas had been a childhood dream while surviving a rough upbringing in a Birmingham slum. Holly berries glistened, snow fell gently outside, and inside, all was Dickensian jollity. And in her dreams, James Lacey kissed her under the mistletoe, and like a middle-aged sleeping beauty, she would awake to passion once more...Agatha Raisin is bored. Her detective...

Can the feisty Agatha Raisin cut it as a private investigator? She soon learns that running her own detective agency in the Cotswolds is not quite like starring in a Raymond Chandler movie. But then in walks wealthy divorcě Catherine Laggat-Brown, and presents Agatha with her first real case. Death threats, blackmail, and worse quickly follow, and once again Agatha is off scouring the countryside for clues and showing friends and enemies alike what...

"The local ladies deemed him a 'wizard.' So when, to Agatha's horror, she finds several coarse gray hairs poking out of her head - and the rinse she tries at home turns her hair a lovely shade of purple - she makes a beeline for Mr. John, the handsome Evesham hairdresser who promises to work his magic on Agatha's coif. And the charming beautician also seems to have designs on Agatha's heart. But their future together is cut short when Mr. John collapses...

When the townspeople of Lochdubh begin receiving poison-pen letters, no one takes them very seriously, even if they are full of wild accusations. But Hamish fears that they might lead to something deadly. His instincts prove correct when the town's postmistress is found hanging from a rope with a poison-pen letter at her feet. Though it appears to be a suicide, Hamish suspects something more sinister. Attempting to trace the letters, the last thing...

Recently married to James Lacey, the witty and fractious Agatha Raisin quickly finds that marriage, and love, are not all they are cracked up to be. Rather than basking in marital bliss, the newlyweds are living in separate cottages and accusing each other of infidelity. After a particularly raucous fight in the local pub, James suddenly vanishes-a bloodstain the only clue to his fate-and Agatha is the prime suspect. Determined to clear her name and...

"Beloved New York Times bestseller M.C. Beaton's cranky, crafty Agatha Raisin-the star of her own hit T.V. series-is back on the case again in Devil's Delight. Toni and Agatha are in the car on the way to Officer Bill Wong's long-awaited wedding when, much to their shock, a naked young man bursts through a hedge on the side of the road and comes running toward them. Terrified, he explains that he has just seen a dead body in the woods. Toni lends...

Scottish sleuth Hamish Macbeth investigates the murder of Fergus Macleod, the tyrannical head of Lochdubh's new recycling center, while coping with the bizarre edicts of a member of the Strathbane Council and his lazy new constable.

The Witches' Tree continues the tradition in M. C. Beaton's beloved Agatha Raisin mystery series--now a hit T.V. show. Cotswolds inhabitants are used to inclement weather, but the night sky is especially foggy as Rory and Molly Devere, the new vicar and his wife, drive slowly home from a dinner party in their village of Sumpton Harcourt. They strain to see the road ahead--and then suddenly brake, screeching to a halt. Right in front of them, aglow...

Agatha Raisin, snug in her Carsley cottage, is overwhelmed by boredom-until a report of a haunted house sends her to investigate. Suddenly, middle-aged Agatha is aglow with romance and excitement.But the glow fades fast. It turns out the victim of the haunting is a universally disliked old biddy, and the ghost is most likely someone playing a practical joke. Then an old lady is murdered, and, for Agatha, solving a homicide is more fun than hunting...