Agatha goes digging where she shouldn't...Agatha is taken aback when she finds a new woman ensconced in the affections of her attractive bachelor neighbour, James Lacey. The beautiful Mary Fortune is superior in every way, especially when it comes to gardening - and with Carsely Garden Open Day looming, Agatha feels this deficiency acutely. So when Mary is discovered murdered, buried upside down in a pot, Agatha seizes the moment and immediately starts yanking up village secrets by their roots and digging the dirt on the hapless victim. But Agatha has an awkward secret too ...Praise for the "Agatha Raisin" series: 'Sharp, witty, hugely intelligent, unfailingly entertaining ...M. C. Beaton has created a national treasure' - Anne Robinson, "The Times". 'The Miss Marple-like Raisin is a refreshingly sensible, wonderfully eccentric, thoroughly likeable heroine' - "Booklist".

About the Author

M C Beaton worked as a Fleet Street journalist. She is the author of now 20 Agatha Raisin novels, the Hamish Macbeth series, which Constable & Robinson also publish, and an Edwardian murder-mystery series. She divides her time between Paris and the Cotswolds, where she lives in a village very much like Agatha's beloved Carsely.

Prizes

Agatha Raisin's third adventure complete with brand new cover design.

Reviews

Agatha (Agatha Raisin and the Vicious Vet, LJ 7/93) returns to quiet Carsely after a lengthy tour to find that a newcomer has supplanted her in the affections of James Lacey, her sleuthing partner and next-door neighbor. This newcomer, a very attractive woman of means, has wriggled her way into the good graces of the villagers. But an upcoming gardening competition reveals hidden animosities and leads to the woman's murder. A simple plot embellished with horticultural manipulations provides the perfect background for the lovelorn Agatha and her unique brand of humor. For series fans and others.

Stocky, middle-aged Agatha Raisin returns from a long vacation abroad to find the other residents of her Cotswolds village dazzled by a beautiful newcomer. The divorced Mary Fortune has particularly captivated Agatha's neighbor and love interest, James Lacey, sharing, it seems, his passion for gardening. Not to be outdone, Agatha takes up a trowel and, in her determined fashion, wastes no time in buying seedlings while digging for information about Mary. Against Mary's advice, Agatha plants too early; a late frost leaves her with no prospects for the upcoming garden show. A former associate in her London PR firm, desperate to have her back, promises to have her garden secretly replanted if she'll agree to return to work for six months in the fall. As the time for the garden show approaches, malicious pranks wreck the gardens of neighbors who have had run-ins with Mary. Then Agatha finds the newcomer strung up by her heels, her head ``planted'' in a large pot, and she and James are plunged into another murder investigation. Beaton's dry sense of humor and her unflattering but affectionate portrait of gruff, often adolescent-acting Agatha, make this third tale, following Agatha Raisin and the Vicious Vet , a bloom worth plucking. (Aug.)