Customer Reviews

As The Pig Turns: An Agatha Raisin Mystery (Agatha Raisin Mysteries)

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I love Agatha Raisin and her character could carry the weakest of stories, but this one is a real corker! A petty police officer is brutally murdered and Agatha is simultaneously a suspect of the police and a target of the real killers. There is danger and intrigue and the usual complement of colorful Cotswold characters, but the best part of the book is Agatha and her blossoming friendships. She is on a real voyage of self-discovery and each book sees her more in touch with herself and more connected to (and dependent on) the people around her. Thankfully she has not lost any of her bad habits, nor her wicked sense of humor, and just when you think she's won control of her hormones, there's a handsome newcomer in the village...

sorry to go against all of the good reviews but i dont think that the three last agatha raisin books are of the same quality of the earlier ones. there seems to be less character development and much less humor in these for some reason. i remember actually laughing out loud in the first few in this series--- the parts with the boggles and the pub bathroom sink fiasco in one of the earlier books--hilarious....the latest ones just dont do it for me. seems to be alot of the same old same old. beaton needs to come up with something fresh for her next one.

I love love love the Agatha Raisin series by M.C. Beaton. There is no better way to while away an afternoon than with Agatha Raisin. Agatha is a loud, brash, overwhelming but endearing middle aged British woman who happens to constantly stumble across murders and mysteries. She lives in the quiet bucolic Cotswold area in a lovely cottage with her two pet cats...who really do love her. She has stumbled across and solved so many mysteries that she opened up her own detective agency.

Agatha thinks she is not loved and her pursuits of love (with all types of unsuitable men of course) always bring about the funniest situations and best laughs. Agatha has actually created a great circle of friends and people that love her in her village and in her detective agency. An outing with some of them to Winter Parva and her discovery that the roast pig is not a pig but a dead male body sets them off on a great adventure.

This adventure of Agatha Raisin is the 22nd in the series. I cannot recommend this entire series enough and I really really recommend that you read it from the beginning. It is in my opinion one of the best cozy mystery series out there. I am already looking forward to the next adventure of Agatha, Charles, Toni, and James.

I enjoyed the book but I was very disappointed in the fact that there was a mjor flaw in Simon's story. IN Busy Body his parents were deceased and in this book they are alive. The rest of the story line was good.

I have been a fan of Agatha Raisin for many years. I found this latest book to be disappointing.
The characterization isn't developed. There are too many flat characters who act with little thought. One of the more enjoyable aspects of the series was Agatha's self-reflections. These insights into her thoughts are now minimal or non-existent. Too much emphasis is given to many minor characters who have no true personalities. Charles and James enter and exit with little reason.

The plot seems very threadbare. For example, why was it even mentioned that Mrs. Bloxby's husband could be cheating? Instead of developing that plot twist a bit, it was solved within two pages. I would think that that idea could have been developed into a full novel.

Agatha Raisin is a wonderful character. She deserves better treatment.

Have never read any Agatha Raisin and picked up this CD set at the local library mainly because I like Penelope Keith who is the reader, and without my glasses and being in a hurry, I thought it was Agatha Christie-ish. The writing is very poor - how many times are Agatha's "bear-like eyes" mentioned? What? She is supposed to be a successful detective but she is often snivelling and hiding out in her cottage, and is otherwise busy smoking, drinking, and being obnoxiously bossy and only her staff actually do any detective work. When she is finally out doing fieldwork and it starts to rain, she complains and wants to go home. She does not come across as being intelligent in any way. A glaring error was Toni, 18-years old and gambling in a Las Vegas casino. A good fact-checker should know that 21 is the minimum casino gambling age in the USA. And just how did Agatha get from the Cotswolds to Vegas in a matter of hours? Just not possible, even with the time difference.
What could have been an entertaining story was just not explored and imagined to the full potential. Maybe I need to have read the rest of this series to appreciate the characters better. Sorry M.C.Beaton fans - I really wanted to like it!

The acerbic Cotswold detective Agatha Raisin has been accused of many things, but they are usually associated with her being short-tempered, sharp-tongued and eccentric. Now she's accused of murder, all because of being served a ticket by the village's most unpopular police officer for blowing her nose in her car in a line of traffic. Officer Gary Beech, whose attitude exceeds Agatha at her worst, had already irked several other local residents, and he confronted Agatha on a bad day. A few days later, he ticketed her a second time for going two miles over the speed limit, which caused her to stomp into a village shop and announce to one and all, "I'd like to kill him! May he roast slowly over a spit in hell!"

The following weekend at the annual village pig roast, Agatha was standing near the barbeque pit when the grill was opened. She did a double take when she saw the main course, slowly roasting on a spit with the tattoo of a heart and the name "Amy" printed on the haunch. It looked less like a pig than a human body, sans head and legs, with a pig's head sewn carefully in place.

And so begins another Agatha Raisin mystery, complete with her quirky house guests, ex-boyfriends and ex-husband, tenuous friendships with neighbors, employees, snooty members of the women's club and the local police force. Most of her income comes from staking out philandering husbands or tracking down minor thieves. When she does snag a bona-fide murder or large theft, she's usually the detective, not the suspect, and glad of the challenge. She quickly proved that although she, along with about half the village, would cheerfully have murdered Officer Beech, she had a perfectly good alibi.

The "Amy" of the tattoo on the murdered man turns out to be the victim's widow, and she hires Agatha to find the killer. Agatha and her team of private investigators set out to solve a crime that becomes much bigger and more serious than anyone, including the local police, had imagined.

M.C. Beaton is as curt and brief on words as her character. She is as to-the-point in her writing as Agatha is in her crime solving, and as an author can be counted on to cut to the chase. No frilly décor descriptions or long, psychological musings on motive or personal appearance. Her characters dress for the weather, not for fashion, and her spare and witty dialogue moves the story along at a page-turning pace.

AS THE PIG TURNS is a quick, lively read. If you haven't yet experienced the prickly and amusing Agatha Raisin, these crisp fall weekends are just the time to curl up with a cozy murder mystery with a kick.

Reviewed by Roz Shea

I love Agatha Raisin, and am always excited when a new book comes out. This is a good one for sure. In it we have Agatha and her crew investigating a series of really gruesome deaths. It takes them all over the place, including Las Vegas. As they bumble along they uncover a sophisticated theft ring, bent coppers and fledgling meth labs. What fun! And through it all we have the intrepid Agatha. She is a wonderful character that I have come to enjoy through Ms. Beaton's many books. She is still truly the Queen of the Village Cozy genre. And I love being along for the ride.

I love all of the Agatha Raisin books. M. C. Beaton is a talented and prolific writer and has her own unique style. I find her books easy to read. My only suggestion would be that Ms. Beaton adjust Agatha's age. I've been reading this series which spans 19 years and Agatha is still in her early 50s. Time moves on in Carsley, but Agatha and the recurring characters never age. Also, the editors need to work a little harder as there were quite a few typos. Having said that, M. C. Beaton never fails to disappoint and I look forward to her next Agatha Raisin book.

definitely one of the better agatha raisin books. funny, and full of agatha at her insecure, cynical and meddling best. if you want an hour or two of sugar-free cozy, set in the cotswalds, you can't beat mc beaton's agatha raisin.