Flautopiccolo

After watching the first series of Agatha Raisin, I put a hold on the first book at Minuteman, and The Quiche of Death: The First Agatha Raisin Mystery, by M. C. Beaton, become available after 9 weeks on hold.

One major difference from the television series is that in the book, the reader finds out right away that Agatha lost track of her husband: Agatha had never filed for divorce. She assumed he was dead. She had never wanted to marry again.

Highlights:

• No one asked her to tea. No one showed any curiosity about her whatsoever. The vicar did not even call. In an Agatha Christie book the vicar would have called, not to mention some retired colonel and his wife.
• She went to Harvey’s, the general store-cum-post-office, and ferreted around in the deep freeze wondering if she could face curry again when her eye was caught by a poster pinned up on the wall.
• A surprisingly good village band was playing selections from My Fair Lady, ages of the musicians ranging from eight to eighty.
• Agatha had only been used to three lines of conversation: either ordering her staff about, pressuring the media for publicity, or being oily to clients. A faint idea was stirring somewhere in her brain that Agatha Raisin was not a very lovable person.
• Mrs. Cummings-Browne was preparing to go out to a rehearsal of Blithe Spirit at the church hall. She was producing it for the Carsely Dramatic Society and trying unsuccessfully to iron out their Gloucestershire accents.
• Agatha’s new security system: The news that all the lights outside Agatha’s cottage went on when anyone passed on the road quickly spread amongst the village children, who ran up and down with happy swooping screams like giant swallows until the local policeman turned up to drive them away.
• I thought this was foolish in the television series, too. Mrs. Cummings-Browne: Yes, the tea, Mrs. Raisin. Think you’re so bloody clever, don’t you? Well, only a crass fool would drop in to accuse a poisoner and drink tea.
• Bill Wong, about all the flowers Agatha received in the hospital: The big one is from the Carsely Ladies’ Society, the small bunch of roses is from Doris and Bert Simpson, the elegant gladioli from Mrs. Bloxby, the giant bouquet from the landlord of the Red Lion and the regulars, and that weedy bunch is from me.

I find Agatha to be unpleasant, though as in the television series, she does evolve during the course of the book. I’m not in any hurry to read the later books in the series, but maybe eventually.