DISHING THE DIRT

A private detective continues her search for love in all the wrong places.

Her hunches pan out so very often that Agatha Raisin may well be the cleverest detective in the Cotswolds. But her taste in men leaves a lot to be desired. This time, however, trouble comes from an unexpected source. The newest arrival in Carsely, Jill Davent, who’s set up a counseling practice, makes an enemy of Agatha when she discovers the poverty-stricken background the sleuth has worked so hard to conceal. Soon after Agatha visits Jill in her office and declares "leave me alone or I’ll kill you," Mrs. Bloxby, Agatha’s good friend and wife of the local vicar, finds Jill dead, and Agatha is the prime suspect. Agatha would like the killer to be the lovely Gwen Simple, the mother of the murderer in her last case (The Blood of an Englishman, 2014), but Jill had plenty of other clients with something to hide—and it turns out that she was a blackmailer. As more bodies are added to the count, Agatha, Sir Charles Fraith, her friend and sometime lover, and the rest of her regular team continue to investigate. At least one of the victims was poisoned by monkshood, and Agatha’s search for that poisonous plant leads to a number of attempts on her life.

As usual, Agatha attracts and forfeits the attentions of a number of eligible bachelors while hunting a clever killer; a basket full of red herrings makes this one of her more interesting cases.