The Potted Gardener (Agatha Raisin Series #3) » (Reprint)

M. C. Beaton has been hailed as “the new Queen of Crime” (The Globe and Mail). Born in Scotland, she currently divides her time between Paris and a village in the English Cotswolds, where she writes mysteries featuring Agatha Raisin and Hamish Macbeth, as well as an Edwardian detective series published under the name Marion Chesney. Her novels Death of a Dreamer; Love, Lies, and Liquor; and A Spoonful of Poison were New York Times bestsellers, and she was chosen as the British Guest of Honor for Bouchercon 2006.

Loathe Thy Neighbor

When Agatha Raisin comes home to cozy Carsely and finds that a new woman has piqued the interest of her handsome bachelor neighbor, James Lacey, she’s less than thrilled. The beautiful newcomer to the Cotswolds, Mary Fortune, is superior in every way—especially when it comes to gardening—and Agatha is suddenly seeing nothing but green. If only a nice juicy murder would come along to remind James of Agatha’s genius for investigation. When a series of mysterious assaults on the town’s finest gardens is followed by a shocking murder, Agatha gets her wish. Seizing the moment, she immediately starts yanking up village secrets by their roots and digging up details about the victim—who, as it turns out, may just have some hidden dirt of her own…

"From the author’s sure-fire plot comes this fail-safe moral: It takes an outsider to open people’s eyes to the beauty—and the evil—within.”—The New York Times Book Review

BookList

That intrepid British sleuth-by-default Agatha Raisin returns in a third adventure that's even more cozy, charming, and witty than her previous two. With a name like Agatha Raisin and a tendency toward pugnacious pudginess, Agatha may not seem a likely sort of detective, but when a crime is committed in her adopted village of Carseley, she's first on the scene. Mary Fortune, an attractive divorcée newly arrived in Carseley, has raised local eyebrows with her on-again, off-again friendliness, nasty remarks, sharp tongue, and--worst of all--her very public affair with the love of Agatha's life, James Lacey. When several local gardens are destroyed, the villagers believe Mary is involved--until she's found murdered in a particularly nasty manner. The local coppers move too slowly for Agatha's taste, so she dons her detective hat and, through a combination of tenaciousness and curiosity, discovers the identity of the killer. Beaton captures perfectly the tenor of life in a quiet, quaint English village; the Miss Marple-like Raisin is a refreshingly sensible, wonderfully eccentric, thoroughly likable heroine; and the latest Raisin escapade is lively, funny, and entertaining. A must for cozy fans.