The Crime Warp

Nosey people get shot. Well, perhaps not all the time, but certainly in the case of Benedicta ‘Ben’ O’Keeffe, an Irish solicitor, who investigates unsavoury mysteries and turns up unresolved issues from the past for her clients. Now you can probably think of several reasons why some people might want to go around shooting solicitors, but Ben is actually quite nice and helpful. She has set up a practice in small town Ireland, a place full of the motley characters you might expect in small town anywhere. Only in this case they are the inhabitants of the fictional town of Glendara on the atmospheric peninsula of Inishowen in Donegal. When an old deconsecrated church is to be redeveloped, Ben is asked to do some conveyancing. However, this will not be a straightforward sale, as during a site inspection a skeleton wrapped in a blanket turns up in the crypt. Are these the bones of Conor Devitt, a local man who had gone missing six years previously? The police side of things is hand...

Sometimes when an author writes a long series of books with the same protagonist, the energy gradually fizzles out. Not in this case, not even after 25 books! M.C. Beaton is as wickedly funny as ever.  Anyone who has ever lived in an English village will recognise the ensemble of characters, the eligible bachelor who is mean to a fault, the nosey, bitchy older woman who loves to hurt people, the kindly put upon vicar’s wife, the siren who leaves men reeling in her wake… This satire on English village life demonstrates why Agatha Raisin is such a popular character.