Agatha Raisin Companion (7 page)

After the show, James and Agatha discover Mary ‘planted’ head down in a flowerpot, with her legs suspended from hooks in the ceiling. Dressed, as she always was, in green, she
resembles a potted plant.

After James confesses to an affair with her, the pair set about trying to find a green-fingered murderer with a reason to kill Mary.

VICTIM

Mary Fortune: glamorous divorcée recently moved into the village. Elegant and attractive, she is an instant hit with the villagers and James. Poisoned with a drugged
brandy and then planted among her prized tropical plants.

Agatha Raisin and the Walkers of Dembley

Agatha returns from her stint in London, working for the PR firm she sold her business to, and finds James running a local ramblers’ club. In order to lose weight, and
get closer to her attractive neighbour, she signs up for the walks. In the nearby town of Dembley, the formidable leader of the local ramblers’ association declares war on local baronet, Sir
Charles Fraith, and vows to cross his land using an ancient right of way. Jessica Tartinck’s body is found, a few days later, in the middle of Sir Charles’s rape field and he is
arrested. Agatha is asked to investigate by Carsely neighbour, Mrs Mason, whose niece, a Dembley rambler, had recently started dating Sir Charles. To find out who the killer is, Agatha and James
pose as man and wife and hole up in a flat in Dembley,
joining the Ramblers’ Association and discovering a whole raft of suspects with a motive to kill Jessica.

Their enforced living arrangements at first drive James and Agatha further apart, but the starchy historian springs a welcome surprise on her at the end of the book.

VICTIMS

Jessica Tartinck: militant leader of the Dembley Walkers and ex-Greenham Common campaigner. Determined to march across the rape field on Sir Charles Fraith’s land,
she took umbrage when the charming aristocrat won over the rest of the group and went alone. Killed by a blow to the back of the head with a spade and then buried in a field.

Jeffrey Benson: Jessica’s lover, fellow rambler and former IRA sympathizer. Murdered with a blow to the head as he cut the padlock on a landowner’s gate.

Agatha Raisin and the Murderous Marriage

At last, Agatha has her man but life is not all rosy in the garden just yet. As she goes about making her wedding plans, she is fully aware that she never divorced her
alcoholic ex, Jimmy Raisin, and has lied to James, telling him that her first husband died of drink
years ago. Aware she has no proof that this is the case, and terrified
to delay the nuptials in case she loses the love of her life, Agatha opts to get married in the registry office instead of the village church, upsetting her friend, Mrs Bloxby as well as many of
the villagers.

In her typically insensitive way, Agatha also manages to upset her young friend Roy, who worked for her in the PR firm she owned and stayed with the company when she sold it. After he is not
given credit for his help in one of her murder enquiries, Roy takes offence and, in a fit of pique, hires a private detective to track down the errant ex. As a blissful Agatha prepares to become
Mrs Lacey, the wedding is halted by local policeman Fred Griggs, who has met Jimmy in the village and discovered that Agatha is about to commit bigamy. Faced with Jimmy, Agatha screams,
‘I’ll kill you, you bastard,’ in front of the gathered guests. A furious James tells her she has disgraced him and he will never forgive her. Devastated, she pays Jimmy to go away
and retires to her empty home to lick her wounds. As dawn breaks the following day, Agatha ventures out, only to be confronted by her drunken ex who she shoves into a ditch, screeching, ‘Why
don’t you die?’

When Jimmy is found dead in the same ditch, less than an hour later, Agatha is charged with his murder. Having sold her house, she has nowhere to go until James returns and offers her his spare
room. Together they set out to find the real murderer and clear their own names as several more victims fall along the
way. And while all roads seem to lead to a Mrs
Serena Gore-Appleton, who had attended a health farm with Jimmy, the mysterious lady seems impossible to track down.

VICTIMS

Jimmy Raisin: Agatha’s drunken ex-husband, strangled with his own tie a short time after Agatha’s assault on him.

Janet Purvey: a local spinster, who had attended the health farm at the same time as Jimmy and the elusive Mrs Gore-Appleton. Claimed Jimmy had ‘come on’ to her.
Strangled by someone she vaguely recognized as she watched
Die Hard
in Mircester’s cinema.

Sir Desmond Derrington: married aristocrat who was being blackmailed by Jimmy over the mistress he had taken to the health farm. Shot himself after a visit from Agatha and
James as he feared his affair would be exposed to his wife.

Helen Warwick: House of Commons secretary and lover of Sir Desmond. Agatha’s hackles rose when she took a shine to James, but he soon realized she was a gold-digger.
Murdered with her own scarf after turning up in Carsely to see James but not finding him at home.

Agatha Raisin and the Terrible Tourist

After the aborted nuptials, James has fled to Northern Cyprus and Agatha decides to follow him there. Before she tracks him down, however, she takes a boat trip and meets two
parties of holidaymakers – a snooty couple called the Debenhams, with an equally upper-class friend, and the Wilcoxes, a seemingly wealthy, lower-class couple also accompanied by an elderly
family friend.

Finally she tracks James down to the villa he rented for their honeymoon, which is in an appalling state. The following day he rents a new villa and, at the suggestion of the locals showing them
round, Agatha opts to share with him. At dinner that night, they are press-ganged into joining the group from the boat trip, who have now joined forces, and go on to a nightclub. There, a drunken
Rose Wilcox slides under the table and is soon found to have been murdered. Agatha is forced to stay on the island until the murderer is found.

By coincidence, Sir Charles Fraith arrives at the Dome Hotel and takes Agatha out for the evening. Although she is still in love with James, Agatha ends up sleeping with him in his hotel
room.

VICTIMS

Rose Wilcox: blowzy British tourist married to self-made businessman Trevor. Sexy and flirty, but clearly hiding her true intelligence under a dumb exterior. Murdered in
the nightclub in Cyprus with a long, sharp blade in the back.

Harry Tembleton: older friend of upper-class couple, Olivia and George Debenham. Found by Agatha, dead on the beach with his face covered by a newspaper, having been murdered
with a similar weapon to that used on Rose.

Agatha Raisin and the Wellspring of Death

A penitent Roy Silver persuades Agatha back into PR, to represent a local mineral water company. They are keen to exploit a natural spring in the village of Ancombe, next to
Carsely, but the villagers are divided over the scheme. As the debate rages on, Robert Struthers, the chairman of the parish council, is found dead by the spring. Although he was undecided on the
issue, it looks like someone has silenced him before he had a chance to cast the deciding vote. Agatha must now investigate the parish council and solve the murder, while promoting the water
company in the wake of a scandal.

Still smarting from her disastrous relationship with James,
Agatha dates Guy Freemont, who owns Ancombe Water Company with his brother Peter. Meanwhile, James goes for
a radical makeover – dyed-blond hair, three earrings, dirty jeans and boots – to infiltrate an environmental group called Save Our Foxes, determined to carry out his own independent
investigation.

VICTIMS

Robert Struthers: chairman of Ancombe Parish Council, and undecided on the issue of the spring. Hit on the head and left lying at the spring, with blood seeping into the
water. The body is found by Agatha as she walks to Ancombe one evening.

Robina Toynbee: owner of the spring. Received death threats after selling the water to the company, but dismissed them as crank letters from militant environmentalists. Found
hanging upside down from her garden wall, with blood gushing from her head into the spring, during a procession with a marching band organized by Agatha.

Agatha Raisin and the Wizard of Evesham

With James and Charles away, and Bill on holiday, Agatha is depressed and lonely.

Following the horrifying discovery of grey hairs, she attempts
to tint her hair and instead turns it purple. On Mrs Bloxby’s recommendation, she seeks help from a
talented hairdresser called Mr John, who has a salon in Evesham. Flattered by the good-looking crimper, she agrees to a date, but when she sees the frightened face of a lady they bump into in the
restaurant, she becomes suspicious of her new admirer. In an attempt to discover whether he is a blackmailer, she has dinner with him again and begins to fall for his charms. While she is on a
visit to his salon, however, he begins to vomit and dies.

Unwilling to drop the case, Agatha decides to break into his house to find out what he was hiding but, while she searches in the basement, the building is set alight and she narrowly escapes
through a window. But who wanted the popular hairdresser dead?

VICTIMS

John Shawpart: the Wizard of Evesham. Brilliant and attractive hairdresser who preyed on vulnerable women using flattery and then blackmail. Poisoned by a ricin injection
in a vitamin capsule.

Mrs Darry: Carsely villager and incorrigible gossip who was detested by Agatha. Had been blackmailed by John over tax evasion and later killed with a poker in her own home. The
body was found by Agatha and Charles alongside the corpse of her dog.