M.C Beaton

When private detective Agatha Raisin comes across a severed leg in a roadside hedge, it looks like she is about to become involved in a particularly gruesome murder. Looks, however, can be deceiving, as Agatha discovers when she is employed to investigate a case of industrial espionage at a factory where nothing is quite what it seems. The factory mystery soon turns to murder and a bad-tempered donkey turns Agatha into a national celebrity, before...

Will anyone be cosying up to Agatha under the mistletoe this Christmas? As December dawns, she is intent on planning traditional Dickensian celebrations, hopefully reanimating the spark between her & her ex, James Lacey. But when a murder occurs at the local manor house, Agatha sets forth on the trail of the killer.

No one in Lochdubh expects Dorothy to stay for long ? She is, after all, entirely unsuitable. She?s an uptown girl, used to a fancy lifestyle in the big city of Glasgow. She?ll never fit in. And how is that work-shy rogue Hamish Macbeth supposed to get anything done when his new assistant is such a distraction? The village needs a police sergeant who can get on with his job, not one who?s constantly swooning over his pretty young constable. Yet PC...

Even though Agatha Raisin loathes Christmas panto, her friend Mrs Bloxby, the vicar's wife, has persuaded her to support the local amateur dramatic society in their festive offering. Stifling a yawn at the production of 'Babes in the Wood', Agatha watches the baker playing an ogre strut and threaten on stage until a trapdoor opens. followed by a scream and silence! Surely this wasn't the way the scene was rehearsed? When it turns out the local baker...

When society widow and gossip columnist Lady Jane Winters joins the local fishing class, she wastes no time in ruffling the feathers - or should that be fins? - of those around her. Among the victims of her sharp tongue is Lochdubh constable Hamish Macbeth, yet not even Hamish thinks someone would seriously want to silence Lady Jane's shrill voice permanently - until her strangled body is fished out of the river. Now with the help of the lovely Priscilla...

The most hated man in the most dour town in Scotland is sleeping with the fishes, or, more accurately, has been dumped into a tank filled with crustaceans. All that remains of the victim are his bones. But once the lobsters have been shipped off to Britain's best restaurants, the whole affair quickly lands on the plate of Hamish Macbeth.

What do you do if you are of noble stock - but impoverished, and living in London with a certain style to maintain? One has to work - but one's relatives will be appalled when one turns one's hand to trade - and opens a hotel, The Poor Rrelation, offering employment to others of the same social standing and in the same awkward situation. This is precisely what Mrs Fortescue decides upon and, together with friend Colonel Sandhurst, transforms her decrepit...

One cannot live of dignity alone!The poor relations banded together some time ago to run The Poor Relation Hotel in the hope their embarrassed relatives would buy them out, but as the hotel prospered, so they began to enjoy the fruit of their labour.But once again they need money to go on and so poor, faded Miss Tonks is dispatched to her rich sister to steal something valuable from her in order to keep the hotel on its feet. All the other poor relations...