The Walkers of Dembley (Agatha Raisin Series #4) »

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.

This trail leads to a dead end.

After six months in London, Agatha Raisin returns to her beloved Cotswold village—and her dashing neighbor, James Lacey. Well, sort of. James might not be so interested in Agatha. But soon enough, Agatha becomes consumed by her other passion: crime-solving. A woman has been found dead in a lonely field nearby. Her name is Jessica Tartinck, a hiker who infuriated wealthy landowners by insisting on her hiking club’s right to trek across their properties.

Now it’s up to Agatha, with James’s help, to launch an investigation. Together, they will follow no shortage of leads; many of Jessica’s fellow Dembley walkers seem all too willing and able to commit murder. But the trail of a killer is as easy to lose as your heart—and your life. So Agatha and James had better watch their every step. . .

“Beaton has a winner in the irrepressible, romance-hungry Agatha.”—Chicago Sun-Times

Publishers Weekly

The newest Agatha Raisin adventure is quietly humorous but thin in plot. Finishing up her stint at a London PR firm, which she agreed to in Agatha Raisin and the Potted Gardener (1994), the acerbic 50-something retiree happily returns to her Cotswolds cottage-and her bachelor neighbor and sleuthing partner, James Lacey. Shortly after Agatha's return, Jessica Tartinck, the confrontational leader of a walking group, is murdered in nearby Dembley. When Sir Charles Fraith becomes the chief suspect (he and Jessica had argued about the walkers' right-of-way through his fields), Agatha is asked by a village friend to investigate. Ever eager, Agatha and her cohort James move to Dembley and, posing as man and wife, infiltrate Jessica's walking group. But, as Beaton's readers have learned to expect, Agatha's jubilation is short-lived, and her pseudo-marriage to James doesn't go at all as she hopes. Wending their way through circuitous misadventure, however, the pair solve the murder and forge a deeper relationship than they'd enjoyed before. FYI: Beaton is one of many pen names used by prolific historical romance and mystery writer, Marion Chesney. As Beaton, she also writes the Hamish Macbeth series, starring a young policeman in the Scottish Highlands.