AGATHA RAISIN AND THE LOVE FROM HELL

Her marriage to next-door neighbor James Lacey has nothing to curb Agatha Raisin’s proclivity for outlandish adventures in and out of the criminal circuit. For one thing, the marriage itself is a rocky affair. The newlyweds continue to live in separate cottages; the bride is still spending time with her old friend Sir Charles Fraith; the bridegroom, for his part, is carrying on an intermittent affair with sexy Melissa Sheppard. It’s only from Melissa, of all people, that Agatha learns James has been diagnosed with brain cancer. Before she can offer her shoulder for his drooping head, he disappears without a trace, and Melissa is discovered murdered in her cottage kitchen. Agatha’s longtime policeman friend Bill Wong (Agatha Raisin and the Wellspring of Death, 1998, etc.) has been instructed to tell her nothing about the investigation, but she and Sir Charles, taking that snub as a challenge, decide to nose around on their own, beginning by interviewing Melissa’s two ex-husbands. Agatha takes an immediate dislike to Megan, Luke Sheppard’s new wife, but that’s just for starters. Before they’re through, Agatha and Charles will have located James in a French monastery and pinpointed the murderer as well.

Sheer absurdity, start to finish, and only for those with a high tolerance for Agatha at her silliest.