Publication: 17th October 2024 – Constable
Life is never, ever dull in Agatha Raisin’s sleepy Cotswolds village!
Agatha Raisin’s private detective agency is working flat out on a series of burglaries which take a violent turn when a friend of Agatha’s is murdered during a raid on his antiques shop. Although determined to nail the villains, Agatha still makes time to help Sir Charles Fraith prepare to stage a massive, hugely glamorous event in the grounds of his ancestral home, Barfield House.
When Agatha begins to receive death threats and narrowly avoids being abducted by kidnappers, she takes advantage of a previously arranged trip to Majorca to lie low for a while. There she meets her partner, former police officer John Glass, who is now working as a dance instructor on a cruise liner. Their relationship founders over John’s apparent closeness to his stage dance partner, Louise. Putting her love life on hold, Agatha heads home, having worked out who has been threatening her life.
Can Agatha track down the would-be killer, nail her friend’s murderers and rescue her romance with John? Everything comes to a climax at the Barfield Extravaganza when on top of everything else, Agatha also manages to solve a 400-year-old Cotswold murder mystery!
This is my first Agatha Raisin’s novel and certainly not the last one. Agatha Raisin: Killing Time is entertaining, witty, and quite immersive and I have already put my hands on a few other books in the series (although, I should probably read them chronologically and not randomly as I do with Agatha Christie’s novels).
Private detective and PR Agatha Raisin is busy on multiple fronts. She’s organizing a massive promotional event for Sir Charles Fraith at his ancestral home, Barfield House. She is also intrigued by a 400 years old local mystery while trying to solve a series of shop burglaries, the last one of which sent the shop owner to the hospital. And she also needs to find time to fly to Mallorca for a romantic break with her partner John Glass, a former police officer turned cruise dance teacher. And then there are murder, death threats written in riddles, attempts of abductions, and an antic clock that has attracted the attention of a few people.
I really liked the character of Agatha Raisin. She is smart, determined, with her own particular way of doing things and a take-charge attitude that makes everyone around her stand up straight. She doesn’t stop until every mystery is solved, even centuries old ones, and she has quite an interesting love life. Agatha Raisin: Killing Time is the 35th book in the series, but it can be easily read as a stand-alone. I loved the mysteries, the setting, and the cast of characters is wonderful, fun, and engaging, from its protagonist to her many friends, always happy to assist her in her investigations. Highly recommended!
A huge thank you to Constable and NetGalley for providing me with a proof of the novel in exchange for my honest review.
M.C. Beaton (1936-2019) was the author of both the Agatha Raisin and Hamish Macbeth series, as well as numerous Regency romances. Her books have been translated into seventeen languages and have sold more than twenty-two million copies worldwide. She is consistently the most borrowed UK adult author in British libraries, and her Agatha Raisin books have been turned into a TV series on Sky.
Book After Book 
Fab review! I’ve read most of the series and they’re good fun, especially in the beginning when she first retires and finds herself in the Cotswolds with nothing to do!
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I can’t wait to read the series from the beginning!
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