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Agatha Raisin and the Quiche of Death (Hardcover)

by M.C. Beaton (Author)
4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (25 customer reviews)

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Product details

  • Hardcover: 224 pages
  • Publisher: Constable (27 Jun 2002)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 1841195235
  • ISBN-13: 978-1841195230
  • Product Dimensions: 21.6 x 14.2 x 2.2 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (25 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 219,447 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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    #57 in  Books > Crime, Thrillers & Mystery > Authors, A-Z > B > Beaton, M.C.

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Product Description

Review

"- 'Beaton's dry sense of humour and her unflattering but affectionate portrait of gruff, often adolescent acting Agatha make this... tale a bloom worth picking.' - Publishers Weekly - 'Engaging' - Booklist


Product Description

Meet Agatha Raisin, high-flying public relations boss turned village sleuth. After Agatha's many stressful years of bullying and cajoling others her early retirement to a picture-perfect village in the Costwolds is a dream come true. And how better to start making friends than by entering the village quiche-making competition? However, Agatha is not used to being an also-ran, so to ensure first prize, she buys her entry from a London delicatessen. Alas, Agatha's perfect product is soon exposed - as not only store-bought but poisoned! The contest judge, rumoured to be connoisseur of women as well as food, succumbs soon after eating it, and with him go Agatha's chances of rural bliss - unless she can expose the real murderer...
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Customer Reviews

25 Reviews
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Average Customer Review
4.0 out of 5 stars (25 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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25 of 26 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Entertaining and very funny, 1 Sep 2000
By A Customer
This review is from: Agatha Raisin and the Quiche of Death (Agatha Raisin Mysteries) (Mass Market Paperback)
This is a entertaining and very funny "whodunnit". The characters are very well drawn for a crime novel. The "detective", Agatha Raisin, is someone you can both like and dislike at the same time, and the other characters cover a good range from the normal to the farcical. There are some very funny, moments, and some observant swipes at small-town life. The "whodunnit" element of the story is almost incidental: it serves to carry the story forward and introduce us to the characters, but at times it verges on getting in the way of the good fun!

If you like hard-boiled, mean streets, police-procedurals, you'll hate this. If you just want a good, easy, comfortable read, you'll love it.

This is the first book in the Agatha Raisin series.

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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars You won't be able to take your face out of it, 6 April 2006
This review is from: Agatha Raisin and the Quiche of Death (Paperback)
Agatha Raisin is an awful woman but I promise that by the time you finish this book you will love her, warts and all.

A self-made woman who sells her business and retires early to her dream-cottage in the Cotswolds (furnished by an expensive interior decortator, naturally).

Agatha suddenly finds herself in a completely alien environment.

In a effort to make her mark on the village and announce her arrival, she plots to win the village Quiche baking contest. Her plan is simple - she will enter, as her own work, a quiche bought from a top-class delicatessan in London. Unfortunatly for Agatha, the judge dies after eating it and her deception is uncovered. Worse she finds herself being held responsible for his death.

And this is when you start finding your self falling for her.
From the moment the plot is hatched the reader can't fail to know the outcome, but rather than feeling righteous indignation on the part of the other contestants you can only feel sympathetic embarrasment for the situation you know Agatha is going to find herself in.

Convinced that she can redeem herself in the eyes of those around her Agatha sets off to solve a crime the police insist hasn't happened.
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19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Miss Marple - on steroids!, 13 Feb 2006
By Karl (England, Great Britain) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   
This review is from: Agatha Raisin and the Quiche of Death (Paperback)
Agatha Raisin couldn't be more different from the author's other well-known leading character - Hamish McBeth - if she tried.

Descending on a Cotswold village in seach of some kind of idealised retirement, after selling off her London PR agency for a substantial sum, Agatha quite quickly finds that the scenario she has dreamed up is just that - a dream - and village life is far more prosaic and easy going than anything she had prepared herself for.
Right up to the moment when she unwittingly becomes the instrument of a murderer's malicious plans.

As previous reviewers have mentioned, quite a lot of the book is spent familiarising us with Agatha, her past history, the village and so on. Given that the series now runs to more than a dozen books, is looks like the author could have spent a little less time on the background details, and a little more on the plot. Still, this book is completely representative of the series, and if you like this one you'll almost certainly like the rest.

To be frank, this isn't great literature, in fact it isn't really even comparable with Agatha Christie's stories. The village setting is there, and a bunch of village "characters", but Agatha has little of the insight into how other people tick than does Miss Marple, and her successes usually owe a lot more to brute force than skilful sleuthing. Though Agatha (Raisin, that is) does have her moments.

I get the feeling that these books are more about providing an easy, entertaining read than trying to join the band of detective fiction "immortals". And as such they work very well, indeed better than most of the current crop of "cozys", in my opinion.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars The first in a long and exciting series
The first Agatha Raisin novel is one of my favourites. MC Beaton does well in building and establishing the character of Agatha Raisin, something which she continues to do in... Read more
Published 5 months ago by Robbie Reid

4.0 out of 5 stars Quiche of Death
I was recommended this series of books by a friend. It is a very easy book to read with a good story line, some humour but quite predictable stories once you have read one of the... Read more
Published 7 months ago by Mrs. C. T. Singleton

1.0 out of 5 stars One of the worst books I have ever read
Packed with stereotypes, cliches and generalisations that were stale and old-fashioned when I was a child in the sixties, this book stinks of cheap pokes at outdated notions of a... Read more
Published 9 months ago by Book Worm

2.0 out of 5 stars Undemanding nonsense
I picked up this book after having read a number of quite heavy tomes, so in a way this came as quite a pleasant escapist read. Read more
Published 11 months ago by hiljean

4.0 out of 5 stars Baked to Kill
The humble detective comes in all shapes and sizes and in the case of Agatha Raisin we have something a bit different from the norm. Read more
Published 11 months ago by Sam

5.0 out of 5 stars I am addicted!
Having listened to the radio 4 production starring Penelope Keith (absolutely fantastic in its own right) I just had to give the written version a go. Read more
Published 13 months ago by Mrs. M. Widdowson

2.0 out of 5 stars Don't bother
To be fair to this book, the story is nice and interesting. But it is a shame that it is spoiled by the poor writing style. Read more
Published 16 months ago by Roger Harisson

3.0 out of 5 stars Sunday Night tv in book form.
This is the first of the series and sets the tone pretty well for the other books I have read so far. This is the sort of book you can whip through in a day or so. Read more
Published 18 months ago by Lady of Leisure

3.0 out of 5 stars An undemanding but enjoyable read
Nothing much in the way of real 'whodunnit' territory here - as another reviewer has already commented, much of the book just sets the scene and fills in the background. Read more
Published 21 months ago by MIddlestitch

4.0 out of 5 stars THE PERFECT RECIPIE!
If you haven`t read any Agatha Raisin your`e in for a treat - this is the first in the ever expanding series that celebrates the life and times of one of the rudest and most... Read more
Published 22 months ago by M. Drake

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