Agatha Raisin Companion (9 page)

Agatha Raisin and the Deadly Dance

After a dreadful time in Paris, where she is robbed on the Metro and then dismissed by the police, Agatha decides to open her own detective agency. An advert for a secretary
brings in her new neighbour, Mrs Emma Comfrey, who has taken over James’s cottage. She soon passes Agatha’s test by finding a missing cat in record time, and is employed as a detective.
But a lunch date with Sir Charles leads to an unhealthy obsession.

In her first real case, Agatha is hired by upper-class Lady of the Manor, Catherine Laggatt-Brown, who fears for her daughter’s life. Cassandra is about to announce her engagement at a
dinner dance thrown for her twenty-first birthday, but has received a death threat saying that if she marries her boyfriend, Jason, she will die. The occasion is ruined when a sniper takes a
pot-shot at the birthday girl and Agatha pushes her and her mother into the swimming pool to save their lives.

As the case progresses, it appears Cassandra isn’t the only one whose life is in danger.

VICTIMS

Harrison Peterson: groom-to-be Jason’s father, an ex-con. He is found dead in his lodgings by Agatha and Patrick, who want to ask him questions about the gunshot.
After finding an empty
bottle of pills and a bottle of vodka, police assume it is suicide but it is later discovered to be murder.

The hitman: a trained assassin sent to dispatch Agatha. Instead, he picks a night when she is in Paris with Charles, drinks poisoned coffee intended for Agatha, and is found
dead in her kitchen with a gun still in his hands.

Emma Comfrey: Agatha’s neighbour and colleague in the detective agency. Shot in the head by the murderer who mistakes her for Agatha in the kitchen of the latter’s
Carsely cottage.

Agatha Raisin and the Perfect Paragon

With the detective agency booming, Agatha is persuaded by Mrs Bloxby to take on ageing local photographer Phil. The seventy-six-year-old camera expert promises to bring her a
new case, and introduces her to Robert Smedley who believes his wife Mabel is cheating. Finding little evidence of that, Agatha switches her attention to the case of missing teenager Jessica
Bradley, who disappeared after leaving a Mircester nightclub without her two pals, Trixie and Fairy. With excellent powers of deduction, Phil helps his new boss find the body of the murdered
sixteen-year-old, dumped in the woods near a road. Wallowing in the
publicity, Agatha promises to find the murderer for free. She soon uncovers the seedy secret of the
three teenage girls and when Smedley is murdered, followed by Jessica’s much older boyfriend, it begins to look as if the three are connected.

Meanwhile, Agatha employs bright eighteen-year-old goth Harry Beam and persuades ex-policeman Patrick, who is already divorcing the flighty Miss Simms, to return to the agency. She also comes to
the rescue of her old friend Roy, sacked for giving an ill-advised interview about a rock band’s drug habit to the
Daily Mail.
Her obsession with James Lacey is forgotten when she
meets Charles’s handsome pal Freddy, but will he get round to telling her he is married?

VICTIMS

Jessica Bradley: sixteen-year-old student murdered on her way home from the Happy Night Club. Possibly picked up by a car, she was stabbed and her body was dumped by the
side of the dual carriageway. Her clothing was removed to make it look like rape, but the police examination reveals she was a virgin.

Robert Smedley: Ancombe businessman who runs an electronics company owned by his wife. He hires Agatha to find out if Mabel was cheating but, after withdrawing his case, is
found poisoned in his office. He was having an affair with his secretary, Joyce, who is now a suspect.

Burt Haviland: Jessica’s much older boyfriend, who worked for Smedley at the electronics firm. He has a conviction for armed robbery and is
behind the soft porn website which showed intimate films of Jessica, Trixie and Fairy. Stabbed in his own flat.

Agatha Raisin and Love, Lies and Liquor

Having made a surprise return in
Perfect Paragon,
James moves back into the cottage next to Agatha’s and invites her to a barbecue. Snubbed by the guests and
ignored by James, Agatha storms out and vows never to have anything more to do with him. Eventually, a chastened James wins her round with the promise of a mystery holiday, but Agatha’s
dreams of Mediterranean sunshine are dashed when they end up in the wet and windy seaside town of Snoth-on-Sea.

The holiday goes from bad to worse when a honeymooning guest, who Agatha and James had argued with in the dining room, is found strangled on the beach – and Agatha’s scarf is
identified as the murder weapon. Agatha is keen to get to the bottom of the mystery but, after another quarrel, James flees to France.

Agency employees Patrick and Harry join Agatha in the hotel to help out and Sir Charles also sails to her side after yet another broken romance.

VICTIMS

Geraldine Jankers: newly wed to the cowed Fred, her fourth husband, and honeymooning with her yobby son Wayne and his wife Chelsea, as well as family friends Cyril and Dawn
Hammond. Strangled with Agatha’s scarf in the middle of the night after slipping out while her husband slept.

Wayne and Chelsea Weldon: chavvy son from Geraldine’s first marriage and his young wife. Wayne picked a fight with James on their first night, but came off worse. Found
in their hotel room with shotgun wounds after Chelsea showed off a diamond necklace at the resort.

Deborah Fanshawe: attractive Carsely divorcee who was chasing James and then Charles. Mistaken for Agatha and shot in the head as she waited in her love rival’s hotel
room.

Agatha Raisin and Kissing Christmas Goodbye

With James abroad and the detective agency turning over a steady stream of missing pets and divorce cases, Agatha is so bored that she starts
^
dreaming of Christmas
– in October.

To break the monotony, she accepts the case of a wealthy
woman who believes she will soon be murdered. Phyllis Tamworthy lives in a stately manor house in the village
of Lower Tapor, which she also owns. Preparing to celebrate her birthday with her four children and other family members, she tells Agatha she is about to change her will and very little of her
vast wealth will be going to her offspring. As a result she reveals that she expects someone has murder in mind and asks Agatha to attend the party The detective’s presence, with Sir Charles,
is not enough to prevent her hostess being poisoned and Agatha is soon investigating which of the money-grabbing siblings is most likely to have done the deed. When her latest recruit,
seventeen-year-old Toni, stumbles upon a witchcraft meeting in the village, the case takes on a spookier side.

VICTIMS

Phyllis Tamworthy: rich but common lady of the manor and graceless mother, grandmother and great-grandmother. After serving up her own special salad at the family gathering
she collapses and later dies, poisoned by hemlock. All four children stood to lose their inheritance when she changed her will the following week.

Fred Instick: ancient gardener on the Tamworthy estate who lives in a rundown cottage on the land. Poisoned with hemlock in a bottle of wine stolen from
the kitchen of the house after he told the family he knew who murdered Phyllis.

Paul Chambers: pub landlord in Lower Tapor who attempted to rape Toni. Pushed into a quarry by furious girlfriend Elsie, after he refused to marry her during a naked witchcraft
ritual. Death seemingly unconnected to the original murders.

Susan Mason: work colleague and lover of Phyllis’s late husband, disappeared fifty-eight years ago in the Tamworthys’ old home village of Pirdey, near Stoke on
Trent, shortly after Hugh had said he wanted to marry her. Toni finds the body buried underneath the outhouse at the couple’s former home after acting on a hunch.

Jimmy Tamworthy: originally thought to have been murdered in an occult ceremony, but it soon emerges that he hanged himself.

Agatha Raisin and a Spoonful of Poison

Our heroine is asked, by her close friend Mrs Bloxby, to use her PR skills to help a vicar in a neighbouring village raise money at the annual fête. Agatha is reluctant
until she meets the vicar, and his extremely attractive widowed friend George Selby. To impress, she cajoles a singing superstar into opening the fête and
raises
£30,000. But in the jam-tasting tent, the local preserves have been laced with LSD and the resulting chaos results in the untimely deaths of two of the parishioners.

Hired by the vicar to investigate the crime, Agatha is only too pleased to help – especially if it means spending more time with gorgeous George.

VICTIMS

Mrs Andrews: elderly lady from the village of Comfrey Magna. After sampling the jam, she jumps from the bell tower of the church, believing she could fly, and is killed on
the tombstone below.

Mrs Jessop: another local victim of the poisoned preserves. As the fête is still going on, she jumps in the river and drowns.

Sarah Selby: George’s pretty wife, who was found dead at their home long before the jam incident, having fallen down the stone stairs. Local toff Sybilla, who was
infatuated with George, was there at the time and local gossips link her to the death.

Sybilla Triast-Perkins: local lady of the manor, who apparently hanged herself in her hallway and was found by Agatha and Roy. Her suicide note mentioned her guilt over
‘a death, but was she referring to the LSD disaster or the death of Sarah Selby?

Arnold Birntweather: church accountant who was charged with looking after the cash from the successful fête. Murdered with a savage blow to the
head after taking the cash out of the bank, seemingly under pressure.

Agatha Raisin: There Goes the Bride

Smarting from James’s engagement to the stunning Felicity, Agatha has thrown herself into work and, suffering from stress and exhaustion, taken a tumble on the stairs.
Her friends urge her to have a break and she chooses a trip to Istanbul, incorporating some excursions to historic battle sites, so that she can later impress James with her knowledge. When James
and his fiancée turn up in the same place as her, twice, he is convinced she is stalking him.

On the day of the wedding, the bride is murdered and Agatha and James are chief suspects. But the family, believing her to be innocent, employ her to find the real killer – until she
begins to discover a past they would rather keep hidden.

VICTIMS

Felicity Bross-Tilkington: James’s bride-to-be, only daughter of a rich
couple who made their money in Spanish property. A reputed
nymphomaniac, engaged twice before, she gave regular peep shows to the local lads but played the virgin with her fiancé. Shot on the morning of the wedding as she dressed in the bedroom.

Sean Fitzpatrick: Irish boatsman and odd job man who helped out the Bross-Tilkingtons occasionally. Agatha finds him dead on his boat when she goes to talk to him. He has been
shot. Police uncover links with the IRA.