Hot to trot

The late Beaton's superb 31st outing for Agatha Raisin (after 2019's Beating About the Bush) finds the witty and irascible Agatha, who runs a private detective agency in the Cotswold village of Carsely, fuming about the upcoming nuptials of her friend and former lover, Sir Charles Fraith, to his "vile fiancée," Mary Brown-Field. No stranger to gate-crashing, Agatha shows up at an extravagant postwedding masked ball held at Charles's grand house, where a shoving match takes place between Agatha and the new lady of the manor. When Mary is later found dead in the estate's stables, both Agatha and Charles come under scrutiny by the police. Agatha's investigations take her into the competitive world of horse show-jumping, as well as on a couple of edifying trips to a château in Bordeaux. This lively entertainment includes an elegantly amusing introduction by Beaton (1936--2019), outlining her road to becoming a writer, as well as an affectionate foreword by longtime friend and journalist Green, who collaborated on this book. Beaton's fans will sorely miss her. Agent: Barbara Lowenstein, Lowenstein Assoc. (Nov.)Correction: An earlier version of this review incorrectly noted this is the author's final book.

A private detective brings her most underhanded skills to her attempted rescue of a longtime lover. The irascible Agatha Raisin and her staff, who've taken on many an odd case, go all out when Agatha's friend and sometime lover Sir Charles Fraith makes a disastrous mistake. Even Charles' devoted servant, Gustav, who despises Agatha, is desperate to keep his boss from marrying the wealthy but all too well-named Mary Brown-Fields. Agatha calls on her publicist friend Roy Silver to tap all his sources and find out what's forcing Charles to agree to marry a woman so awful that only her parents could love her. When, between the wedding and the honeymoon, Gustav tells Charles what he's found out about Mary's nefarious plans for his beloved estate, Charles exclaims, "The bitch! I'll kill her!" Meanwhile, Agatha has a nasty public fight with Mary, who caught her sneaking into the wedding, but that doesn't stop her from crashing a fancy-dress masked ball Mary throws herself for her birthday. As Charles is escorting an unmasked Agatha out of the party, they discover Mary hanging from a beam in the barn. The Chief Inspector, who's always hated Agatha, has her arrested even though she and Charles have the perfect alibi. Of course the arrest makes her even more determined to find the killer. She's gratified to learn that Mary was hated by most of the show jumpers who competed with her in her favorite sport. Roy learns to ride; Agatha is attacked by mean-girl show jumpers; and Charles proves as faithless as ever. The pseudonymous author, who died last year, displays her heroine's finest qualities in a case packed with dark horses. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.