Agatha Raisin Books In Order
Book links take you to Amazon. As an Amazon Associate I earn money from qualifying purchases.Publication Order of Agatha Raisin Books
| The Quiche of Death | (1992) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
| The Vicious Vet | (1993) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
| The Potted Gardener | (1994) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
| The Walkers of Dembley | (1995) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
| The Murderous Marriage | (1996) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
| The Terrible Tourist | (1997) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
| The Wellspring of Death | (1998) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
| The Wizard of Evesham | (1999) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
| The Witch of Wyckhadden | (1999) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
| The Fairies of Fryfam | (2000) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
| The Love from Hell | (2001) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
| The Day the Floods Came | (2002) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
| The Case of the Curious Curate | (2003) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
| The Haunted House | (2003) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
| The Deadly Dance | (2004) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
| The Perfect Paragon | (2005) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
| Love, Lies and Liquor | (2006) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
| Kissing Christmas Goodbye | (2007) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
| A Spoonful of Poison | (2008) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
| There Goes the Bride | (2009) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
| Busy Body | (2010) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
| As The Pig Turns | (2011) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
| Hiss and Hers | (2012) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
| Christmas Crumble | (2012) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
| Something Borrowed, Someone Dead | (2013) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
| Hell's Bells | (2013) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
| The Blood of an Englishman | (2014) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
| Agatha's First Case | (2015) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
| Dishing the Dirt | (2015) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
| Pushing up Daisies | (2016) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
| The Witches' Tree | (2017) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
| The Dead Ringer | (2018) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
| Beating about the Bush | (2019) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
| Hot to Trot | (2020) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
| Down the Hatch | (2021) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
| Devil’s Delight | (2022) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
| Dead on Target | (2023) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
| Killing Time | (2024) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
| Agatha’s First Case is a prequel novella in the series. | ||
Publication Order of Agatha Raisin Non-Fiction Books
| The Agatha Raisin Companion | (2010) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
The mystery novel series was published by the ‘Constable & Robinson’ publishing house in U.K and by St. Martins Press in U.S.A. Agatha Raisin has been described by the author as a frustrated and endearing public relations agent, who is middle-aged and used to live in London. She has moved to Carsely in the Cotswolds by selling her public relations firm situated in Mayfair and taking an early retirement.
In the earlier books of the series, Agatha Raisin has been depicted as solving murder cases in the city. However, she goes on to set up her own detective agency in the 15th book of the series. Despite her hard work and dedication towards solving the murder cases in the city, some of the police officials, as well as a few of her acquaintances do not tend to believe her. They insist that she is able to solve the criminal activities through her luck and by chance.
Agatha is introduced in the first book of the series, Agatha Raisin and the Quiche of Death, as a 53 year old woman. In this book, her life before becoming a detective is described by the author. Her success in solving the murder cases goes on increasing as the series progresses. Agatha was born to Margaret and Joseph Styles as Agatha Styles in a slum in Birmingham. Her parents were unemployed and used to be drunk all the time.
They used to survive on shoplifting and occasional benefits. Agatha had got the chance of going on a rare family holiday, one that she was not able to forget all through her life. She had spent a glorious week along with her parents in the beauty of the countryside and since then, she never got the chance of going on a similar holiday again. In the beginning, Agatha began working in a biscuit factory. She used to save her wages from the factory in order to collect enough money in order to move to London.
After a few years of hard work, she became successful in doing so. There, she joined an evening secretarial course and began working as a secretary in a public relations firm. Agatha once again began saving her wages for starting her own firm. After gaining enough experience in the public relations work, she was able to start her own firm. Later, she starts her detective agency, Raisin Investigations after moving to Carsely. The agency is situated close to the police headquarters in the town of Mircester.
In Carsely, Agatha got her first case after participating in a quiche competition. She had entered the competition by bringing a spinach quiche from London and showing it to be her own. She becomes furious at not winning the competition, but lands in a greater trouble when the judge of the competition dies after eating her quiche. Agatha becomes even more frustrated and sets out herself with the vow of finding the real poisoner and clearing her name from the murder case.
The first novel of the Agatha Raisin mystery series was published in the year 1992 under the title ‘Agatha Raisin and the Quiche of Death’. The novel was published by the St. Martins Press in America. The plot of the novel revolves around the lives of the main characters, Agatha Raisin, James Lacey, Bill Wong and Roy Silver. The setting of the plot of the novel is done in Cotswolds, England, U. K.
In the opening sequence of the novel, Agatha Raisin is introduced as a successful businesswoman from London. She owns a public relations firm, but decides to move to Carsely by selling her firm. She even sells her apartment in London with the hope of starting a new life in the town of Carsely.
After moving the new place, she finds that the people of the Carsely are too quiet and so she is not able to make friendship with the local residents of the town. Agatha gets a chance to socialize by entering into a quiche competition, even though she is unaware about the process of making a quiche.
However, she brings a ready-made quiche from London and enters into the competition with the hope of winning it. However, the judge of the competition dies after taking a bite of her quiche and she finds herself in trouble by becoming the prime suspect in the murder. She decides to find the real killer and prove herself innocent. The second novel of the series was published in the year 1993 by the St. Martins Press. The novel was titled ‘The Vicious Vet’.
The plot of the novel is set in Cotswolds, England, United Kingdom and deals with a perfect crime in the town. In the opening plot of the novel, Agatha Raisin is described as trying to adjust to the new village life. However, she is greatly unsuccessful in doing so as she is addicted to the city life of London. In the town of Carsely, the only time for an outing in the evening is the Ladies Society meeting.
In the beginning, Agatha gets attracted towards James Lacey, who is a retired military man and lives in her neighborhood. She fails to impress him and tries her hand at attracting the vet of the town, whom she finds both good-looking and smart. She asks her tabby Hodge to visit the vet regularly in order acquire some information about him. However, the vet is soon found dead near a high-strung horse.
Although the police think of the death of the vet as a freak accident, Agatha believes that he has been murdered. She convinces James Lacey to join her as an amateur detective in order to get over his boring life. He also thinks that the opportunity to work with Agatha as a detective might be a fun experience. However, Agatha is unaware of the grave danger that lies ahead. She is about to become a victim of the killer because of her attempts to solve the case.
Hence, she is required to catch the killer as soon as possible before the killer makes her his next victim. The character of Agatha Raisin has been portrayed by the actress Penelope Keith on the BBC Radio 4 and also by Ashley Jensen in the television film of the same name as the first novel of the series.
Book Series In Order » Characters »
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Love reading (or listening to) the Agatha Raisin stories. Sadly over the 20 years, she has been almost married as well as married to her neighbour James Lacey, as well as other changes and ongoings in her life. Sadly she is still referred to be “early 50’s” – I would rather appreciate if she actually went with the time and got gradually older
Love this series’s. I just started reading it not very long ago. Now I found that Ms Beaton has passed away. Is R. W. Green going to continue with the series?
I love all mc Beaton books, but I thought the new author did a great job and would continue to listen to the books if he did any more.
I also listen to Agatha Raisin stories on U Tube, at night, some nights though I listen to them all night because I’m retired, it’s ok I can sleep during the day.
I DID NOT KNOW THAT Marion Chesney HAS PASSED AWAY. I CAN NOT TELL YOU HOW TERRIBLE I FEEL. I AM SO SORRY. I THOUGHT THE LAST FEW BOOKS WERE A LITTLE DIFFERENT, BUT THEY ARE STILL GOOD ENOUGH FOR ME.I LOVE THIS CRAZY LADY. PLEEASE KEEP HER BOOKS GOING. AND ,YES.. PUT A WOMAN WRITER THERE AND KEEP HER THE SAME OLD AGATHA. PLEASE!!!!!!
I agree with you and was saddened to hear of her passing. I do hope the new books will keep to the spirit of Agatha.
I LOVE THE AGATHA RAISEN. WAIT FOR EACH BOOK. HOWEVER, THE AGATHA ON TV IS NOT AGATHA. WATCHED THE FIRST EPISODE AND QUIT. IT IS PROBABLY A GOOD SHOW BUT NOT ONE FOR THOSE WHO HAVE BEEN READING HER SINCE THE BEGINNING. KEEP WRITING THE BOOKS…. PLEASE!!!!
I do agree with you. I watched the first episode and was amazed at the changes made from the books. Not sure why perhaps it is wokeness. However, I was sick with Covid and needed some streaming shows so went back with a view that it is not our Agatha but still it was a different version of the books. I did watch them all with that change in mind. It was the same with The Bill. When they made such drastic changes I had to think of it as a brand new show.
Agatha Raisin is a both a parody of and a paen to bygone values. The author often gently pokes fun at her character for her utter LACK of social concern (i. e., “wokeness.). I think it is a mistake to attribute the failure of the show to “wokeness,” a jumble of progressive social movements that Republican demagogues exaggerate and exploit to frighten and divide America. The problem is that Beaton’s acid satire cannot easily be translated to the screen.
Very well-said, Jess Lang!
Love all the stories, when can we expect the 2022 release of Agatha Raisin in the US?
Don’t like the new writer of Agatha Raison. He is not a woman and will not give us the woman’s tough that M C Beaton did.
Marion Chesney Beaton started writing Hot to Trot, but couldn’t finish it due to failing health. Rod Green (a Scot, like Marion) had discussions with her about plot, characters and resolution before he finished it. He gave her the final typescript to read two weeks before she died, and she gave it her full approval. So I don’t think that Marion would agree with you if she were still alive.
He has just written a second Agatha Raison book (‘Down the Hatch’) and is now working on a Hamish Macbeth book.
I read all Agatha raisin series as well as hamish macbeth and I love the style of the new writer.
I too have spent many happy hours listening the Agatha Raisin novels. I especially liked the development of Agatha and Sir Charles’s relationship in The Witches’ Tree I was hoping this unrequited love would persist but it appears to have unfortunately diminished in this relationship.
I came to Agatha via a collection of books purchased as part of an offer in a bookshop
here in Ireland about six weeks ago.
The books include four of the most recent as well as a spoonful of poison from 2009. I was sorry to hear that the author passed away but happy to discover there are very many books featuring Agatha dating back to 1992.
I really enjoy the humour and the fact that Agatha is anything but a Saint who is susceptible to all the good and bad emotions which we all have.
As a straight man I find the author is able to realistically portray the men in Agatha’s life particularly Bill Charles and James. The author realises that we can’t rely on Agatha’s perception
with very good reason.
These books are very enjoyable and I glad I found them.
Best……Sean
Thank you so much for your description of the Agatha Raison books,I have just found your helpful suggestions, can you if possible, recommend audio books, I cannot hold books for very long, thank you very much, keep safe, happy reading, Mary.
I was introduced to ‘Agatha’ via CHIRP, a free audio book subscription, and the older books have been very inexpensive and thoroughly enjoyable!
I’m currently listening to Agatha Raisin on Utube free. Read by Penelope Keith.
YouTube is my source for listening to the Agatha Raisin novels. I listen to the narration as I fall asleep at night. It’s the best part of the day- I feel like everything in the world is wonderful!
Really heartbroken right now. I just discovered that MC Beaton has passed away. I guess we’ll never know Agatha’s happy ever after…