Introducing Agatha Raisin: The Quiche of Death/The Vicious Vet - Softcover

Beaton, M. C.

 
9780312544539: Introducing Agatha Raisin: The Quiche of Death/The Vicious Vet
Softcover
ISBN 10: 0312544537 ISBN 13: 9780312544539
Verlag: Minotaur Books, 2008

Inhaltsangabe

Beloved author M. C. Beaton has delighted readers and fans alike with her cozy Agatha Raisin mysteries--now a hit show on Acorn TV and public television. Introducing Agatha Raisin combines The Quiche of Death and The Vicious Vet, the first two books in the series, together for the first time in one volume.

The Quiche of Death
Putting all her eggs in one basket, Agatha Raisin gives up her successful PR firm, sells her London flat, and samples a taste of early retirement in the quiet village of Carsely. Bored, lonely, and used to getting her way, she enters a local baking contest. Despite the fact that Agatha has never baked a thing in her life, she is sure the pie she has secretly bought from an upper-crust London quicherie will make her the toast of the town. But her recipe for social advancement sours when the judge not only snubs her entry―but falls over dead!

The Vicious Vet
Agatha Raisin hasn't quite adjusted to the slow pace of village life, or to the failure of her overtures to her handsome neighbor, James Lacey. Since the new vet in town is young and good looking, Agatha's perfectly healthy tabby endures a nasty physical exam in the name of romance. Unfortunately, his sacrifice is all for naught when the vet is soon found dead. The police call the death a freak accident, but Agatha convinces James that playing amateur detective might be fun. Unfortunately, just as curiosity killed the cat, Agatha's inept snooping is soon a motivation for murder. . . .

Die Inhaltsangabe kann sich auf eine andere Ausgabe dieses Titels beziehen.

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

M. C. Beaton (1936-2019), the “Queen of Crime” (The Globe and Mail), was the author of the New York Times and USA Today bestselling Agatha Raisin novels -- the basis for the hit series on Acorn TV and public television -- as well as the Hamish Macbeth series and the Edwardian Murder Mysteries featuring Lady Rose Summer. Born in Scotland, she started her career writing historical romances under several pseudonyms and her maiden name, Marion Chesney.

In 2006, M.C. was the British guest of honor at Bouchercon.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Introducing Agatha Raisin

The Quiche of Death/The Vicious VetBy M. C. Beaton

Minotaur Books

Copyright © 2008 M. C. Beaton
All right reserved.
ISBN: 9780312544539
 
THE QUICHE OF DEATH
ONE



MRS. Agatha Raisin sat behind her newly cleared desk in her office in South Molton Street in London’s Mayfair. From the outer office came the hum of voices and the clink of glasses as the staff prepared to say farewell to her.
For Agatha was taking early retirement. She had built up the public-relations firm over long hard years of work. She had come a long way from her working-class background in Birmingham. She had survived an unfortunate marriage and had come out of it, divorced and battered in spirit, but determined to succeed in life. All her business efforts were to one end, the realization of a dream—a cottage in the Cotswolds.
The Cotswolds in the Midlands are surely one of the few man-made beauties in the world: quaint villages of golden stone houses, pretty gardens, winding green lanes and ancient churches. Agatha had been taken to the Cotswolds as a child for one brief magical holiday. Her parents had hated it and had said that they should have gone to Butlin’s Holiday Camp as usual, but to Agatha the Cotswolds represented everything she wanted in life: beauty, tranquillity and security. So even as a child, she had become determined that one day she would live in one of those pretty cottages in a quiet peaceful village, far from the noise and smells of the city.
During all her time in London, she had, until just recently, never gone back to the Cotswolds, preferring to keep the dream intact. Now she had purchased that dream cottage in the village of Carsely. It was a pity, thought Agatha, that the village was called plain Carsely and not Chipping Campden or Aston Magna or Lower Slaughter or one of those intriguing Cotswold names, but the cottage was perfect and the village not on the tourist route, which meant freedom from craft shops, tea-rooms and daily bus parties.
Agatha was aged fifty-three, with plain brown hair and a plain square face and a stocky figure. Her accent was as Mayfair as could be except in moments of distress or excitement, when the old nasal Birmingham voice of her youth crept through. It helps in public relations to have a certain amount of charm and Agatha had none. She got results by being a sort of one-woman soft-cop/hard-cop combination; alternately bullying and wheedling on behalf of her clients. Journalists often gave space to her clients just to get rid of her. She was also an expert at emotional blackmail and anyone unwise enough to accept a present or a free lunch from Agatha was pursued shamelessly until they paid back in kind.
She was popular with her staff because they were a rather weak, frivolous lot, the kind of people who build up legends about anyone of whom they are frightened. Agatha was described as “a real character,” and like all real characters who speak their mind, she did not have any real friends. Her work had been her social life as well.
As she rose to go through and join the party, a small cloud crossed the horizon of Agatha’s usually uncomplicated mind. Before her lay days of nothing: no work from morning till night, no bustle or noise. How would she cope?
She shrugged the thought away and crossed the Rubicon into the outer office to say her farewells.
“Here she comes!” screeched Roy, one of her assistants. “Made some special champagne punch, Aggie. Real knickerrotter.”
Agatha accepted a glass of punch. Her secretary, Lulu, approached and handed her a gift-wrapped parcel and then the others crowded around with their offerings. Agatha felt a lump rising in her throat. A little insistent voice was chattering in her head, “What have you done? What have you done?” There was a bottle of scent from Lulu and, predictably, a pair of crotchless panties from Roy; there was a book on gardening from one, a vase from another, and so it went on. “Speech!” cried Roy.
“Thank you all,” said Agatha gruffly. “I’m not going to China, you know. You’ll all be able to come and see me. Your new bosses, Pedmans, have promised not to change anything, so I suppose life will go on for all of you much the same. Thank you for my presents. I will treasure them, except for yours, Roy. I doubt if at my age I’ll find any use for them.”
“You never know your luck,” said Roy. “Some horny farmer’ll probably be chasing you through the shrubbery.”
Agatha drank more punch and ate smoked-salmon sandwiches and then, with her presents packed by Lulu into two carrier bags, she made her way down the stairs of Raisin Promotions for the last time.
In Bond Street, she elbowed a thin, nervous business man aside who had just flagged down a cab, said unrepentantly, “I saw it first,” and ordered the driver to take her to Paddington Station.
She caught the 15:20 train to Oxford and sank back into the corner seat of a first-class carriage. Everything was ready and waiting for her in the Cotswolds. An interior decorator had “done over” the cottage, her car was waiting for her at Moreton-in-Marsh station for the short drive to Carsely, a removal firm had taken all her belongings from her London flat, now sold. She was free. She could relax. No temperamental pop stars to handle, no prima-donnaish couture firms to launch. All she had to do from now on was to please herself.
Agatha drifted off to sleep and awoke with a start at the guard’s cry of “Oxford. This is Oxford. The train terminates here.”
Not for the first time, Agatha wondered about British Rail’s use of the word “terminate.” One expected the train to blow apart. Why not just say “stops here”? She looked up at the screen, like a dingy television set, which hung over Platform 2. It informed her that the train to Charlbury, Kingham, Moreton-in-Marsh and all further points to Hereford was on Platform 3, and lugging her carrier bags, she walked over the bridge. The day was cold and grey. The euphoria produced by freedom from work and Roy’s punch was slowly beginning to evaporate.
The train moved slowly out of the station. Glimpses of barges on one side and straggly allotments on the other and then flat fields flooded from the recent rain lay gloomily in front of her increasingly jaundiced view.
This is ridiculous, thought Agatha. I’ve got what I always wanted. I’m tired, that’s all.
The train stopped somewhere outside Charlbury, gliding to a stop and sitting there placidly in the inexplicable way that British Rail trains often do. The passengers sat stoically, listening to the rising wind whining over the bleak fields. Why are we like sheep that have gone astray? wondered Agatha. Why are the British so cowed and placid? Why does no one shout for the guard and demand to know the reason? Other, more voluble, races would not stand for it. She debated whether to go and see the guard herself. Then she remembered she was no longer in a hurry to get anywhere. She took out a copy of the Evening Standard, which she had bought at the station, and settled down to read it.
After twenty minutes the train creaked slowly into life. Another twenty minutes after Charlbury and it slid...

„Über diesen Titel“ kann sich auf eine andere Ausgabe dieses Titels beziehen.

Verlag
Minotaur Books
Erscheinungsdatum
2008
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0312544537
ISBN 13 
9780312544539
Einband
Taschenbuch
Auflage
1
Anzahl der Seiten
416
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
Nicht verfügbar

Weitere beliebte Ausgaben desselben Titels

9781607512462: Introducing Agatha Raisin: The Quiche of Death/The Vicious Vet (Agatha Raisin Mysteries)

Vorgestellte Ausgabe

ISBN 10:  1607512467 ISBN 13:  9781607512462
Verlag: Minotaur Books, 2008
Softcover