Sugar and spite

Readers should know that although the publisher gives M. C. Beaton top billing, this Cotswolds cozy is not by Beaton, who died in 2019, but by R. W. Green, who has very ably carried on the franchise since he completed Beaton's Hot to Trot, published posthumously in 2020. In this, the 36th installment in the Agatha Raisin series, Green brings back the snarky, vain, yet insightful Agatha, who heads her own detective agency. He also serves up what every cozy reader loves: tea and sherry at the vicarage; village pubs with low beams and gleaming horse brasses; and honeyed Cotswolds stone cottages. The mystery centers on birding in the countryside, and one irascible farmer's objection to birders on his land. Three enthusiastic, contentious women vie with each other for ascendancy. One of them is found dead, presumably felled by a tree. Then another of the trio's body is discovered in a pond, and Agatha is off and running in her investigation. Fans of the series will enjoy this new volume.

Agatha Raisin continues her duel with choleric DCI Wilkes when he writes off a murder as an accident. Agatha's detective agency is doing well. So is her romance with former DI John Glass, who's soon to leave on a two-week cruise as a dance instructor. Attending a lecture on bird watching given by three local Cotswolds women whose friendship is long but rocky, Agatha watches as they're threatened by Gethin "Guy" Fawkes, a local farmer who doesn't want anyone "trespassing" on his land to look at birds, even though the women say they have a legal "right to roam." On their way out for dinner the next day, Agatha and John come upon a road closure, and her old friend DS Bill Wong tells them that a woman's been killed by a falling tree. The woman is Joan Feldrake, one of the birders, and both Agatha and a reporter think that something's not right with the accident scenario. Joan's brother is dating Mary, another of the birders, and seems in an awful hurry to wrap up her estate. In the meantime, Agatha's flamboyant friend Roy Silver, who's horse riding in the area, tells Agatha that one of the neighbors of the riding stable suspects Fawkes of stealing her sheep, even though they're not actually disappearing. Since two of the birders have been lured to the woods by a message about a rare bird, Agatha and Roy go looking for Joan's missing phone and find another body. The phone opens up new avenues of investigation in a case of multiple murders with many red herrings. Lots of mystery in a package that makes you laugh and cry. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.