Agatha and the Bell Ringers
Review of the Minotaur paperback edition (July 2019) of the original St. Martin's Press Minotaur hardcover (October 2018)

The Dead Ringer had a promising beginning when it seemed to centre around the subject of bell ringing, which hinted that perhaps it was inspired by Dorothy L. Sayers' classic The Nine Tailors (1934). Unfortunately it went off into all sorts of other directions and became somewhat tiresome and even repellent at times. It may be that Beaton was just tired of the series, but the nastiness seemed to really dominate this time around. Characters yelling "Shut up!" at each other, Agatha grumpy about all her foibles, a subplot of domestic abuse, etc.

These cozies are always somewhat different from the TV-series which I saw first. Agatha is definitely more cranky in the books, but her human faults and foibles make us accept and love her nevertheless. The formula is set in stone now for the series. Agatha finds a new man, is jealous of ex-husband James Lacey and occasional lover/friend Charles Fraith, is jealous and meddling with Toni Gilmour's love life, helps Roy Silver out despite his publicity transgressions, gets sympathy from Mrs. Bloxby, is helped by first village friend Detective Sergeant Bill Wong, etc.

I read the paperback this time, but if you listen to the audiobook edition then the narration of this book #29 is a part of an extended interregnum for books #25 to #29 by narrator Alison Larkin. Series regular Penelope Keith returns for books #30 to #32. Larkin is fine in the role, but I've grown most used to Keith's manner of adding character to the different voices.

Most (28 of 32) of the Agatha Raisin audiobooks are free on Audible Plus. A continuation series Book 32 Down the Hatch is yet to be released, and is expected to be published on October 26, 2021. Down the Hatch is apparently entirely written by continuation writer R.W. Green, whereas #31 Hot to Trot was a collaboration with M.C. Beaton.

Trivia and No Link
The Dead Ringer has not yet been adapted for the currently ongoing Agatha Raisin TV series (2016-). ( )

TW: domestic violence. Beaton blames the female victims of domestic violence and places all responsibility on them to stop their husband's violence. "Helen Toms is the sort of woman who creates murderers".

A murderer chooses to murder. Victims don't make the choice to be murdered.

I finished this in the week a husband chose to douse his former partner and their 3 children all under 10 in petrol, set them slight and burn them to death.

Am so glad beastly Beaton is dead and I never need read her misogynist, smoke filled, climate change denying bile ever again!

Oh bugger! There's at least one more published ( )

This latest installment was not up to MC Beaton's usual standards. I found it difficult to follow exactly where the mystery was going. Romance? Detective agency? Not my favorite and I felt disappointed after finishing it. ( )

The Dead Ringer: An Agatha Raisin Mystery is a good story that held its mood from beginning to end. It took place in modern day England in a Cotswolds village. There was no need to go into depth describing the village. The majority of the book was about the people, murders and who dun it. I highly recommend this book. ( )

The mystery was interesting: Disappearance of a fiancée, clergy liking young girls, clergy using older women for $$$$, a vicar who abuses his wife, bell ringers, Agatha's boyfriend being murdered in her house, Aggie's cats being catnapped...

Charles contemplates marriage to Aggie, Aggie decides to run off w/ her lover (but he's murdered), James marries & divorces, Aggie contemplates proposing to Charles...

The mystery was good, but the story was convoluted and hard to follow.

Both Aggie & Charles need to get over themselves & grow up.... their relationship is tiring. ( )

THE DEAD RINGER is M.C. Beaton’s 29th title in her ‘British Cozy Mystery’ series featuring Agatha Raisin.
This is a great cozy mystery series - very charming; very British (with a setting in the picturesque Cotswolds area). The characters are very eccentric and interesting most of the time. Agatha is very independent, sharp-witted and runs a private detective agency after years of PR work in London. She seems to be quite wealthy - the result of good money management techniques. The cases she solves are pretty local with British ‘twists’. This particular title has to do with bell ringers at a local church. (There is also a slimy bishop and spinster twin sisters living in the local ‘manor house’.) There are also side trips to Bulgaria, Thailand and Marseilles - which don’t make a lot of sense. Agatha continues in her man-crazy romantic episodes and detective instincts. There is a bit more plot this time, but many of the plot points go unresolved and just seem to be forgotten about.
This particular title seemed to lack Agatha’s caustic wit and general self-confidence. It was a little flat, with a spiderweb of murders, illicit affairs, domestic violence and crazed spinsters. I didn’t get the whole Bulgaria twist at all. I also didn’t understand Agatha’s serious brain surgery and leaving the hospital 2 days later. (I am chuckling as I write this.)
But the characters are familiar friends and the book makes for light reading on a frosty autumn day by the fire. ( )

A bit convoluted because Beaton is building more introspection not only into Agatha, but into some of those nearest to her. I liked that part of this latest Cotswolds mystery the best. And the foundation was laid for more ups and downs in the ongoing saga.

The worst was a throw-away idea of Aggie's about Charles being as inscrutable as "an Oriental". Really? That racist remark was completely unneeded.

Still pondering what Beaton really meant about two of the more unsavory characters and their relationship. ( )

Agatha Raisin has changed, and not for the better. She seems to be perpetually unhappy, and lacks the drive that had made her so delightful. Perhaps she is unhappy with her creator, because author M. C. Beaton seems to have lost her touch in writing Agatha’s stories. This book, like others late in the series, lacks focus. Bodies are dropping like flies, with little connection. Agatha’s and Charles’s relationship comes and goes with the wind. Aggie falls in love, but it’s over almost immediately when her lover turns up dead. There are so many twists and turns in this story, there should be a disclaimer warning those prone to motion sickness! Not one of Beaton’s best efforts by a long shot, this story was a disappointment. By the time I finished it, I could hardly remember why people died or who was suspected, and and I didn’t care. ( )

The Agatha Raisin series has been around for some time. The Dead Ringer is about the death/murder of a bell ringer and a few other characters (I don’t want to give a spoiler) in the quiet little town of Thirk Magnay England. This is book #29 in the series.

It’s been a while since I read an Agatha Raisin mystery and by getting this publication, I realized I missed a few things going on in her life. The first book in the series depicts her as a cranky, middle-aged publicist, supposedly 53 years of age. I’m guessing she doesn’t age in real time as years later, she’s still a middle-aged lady and described as attractive if not abrasive. My bookish friend Angry Grey Cat renewed my interest in the series.

Agatha has her own detective agency set up now, a change from books in the past where she was more like a Jessica Fletcher character in Murder, She Wrote. What I liked about this book was the familiarity of the little town in the Cotswolds. The picturesque setting and scenery are inviting. Thirk Magna has an ancient church called St. Ethelred and it’s the pride and joy of the community.

There are adult twin sisters who are part of the bell ringers group and very involved in the church. Apparently bell ringing is like no other type of music and isn’t written on a standard score. The six bell ringers change their order and each time they strike it’s done from memory. Quite an art of memory and dedication. It most certainly wouldn’t be for me.

The twins are swooning on about the visit of a bishop who is reputed to be very handsome and they are determined to take charge of the visit, arranging which “song” they will play on bells and generally being pains in the butt. This bishop has some scandal following him as his rich ex-fiancé has disappeared. That’s what interests Agatha very much. Now the bodies start piling up, as you would expect from one of her novels.

The mention of Detective Sargent Bill Wong was a familiar character as I remember him from all the previous books. I wondered why he hasn’t been promoted to a higher rank than D.S. in all the years (29 years!) of being on the police force. But I have to remind myself that this isn’t written in real time as DCI Alan Banks novels. Also, it has been well established that Bill is half Chinese and half British so when I read that again I thought – yeah, yeah…we all know Bill if half Chinese and Brit. That could have been left out.

Food: There are mentions of Greek food, pub meals, gin and tonics, tea and cakes. I am on board with any of those things!

Overall, this isn’t the edgy sort of mystery I love but a milder mystery, not quite a cozy. Clear as mud? It’s fun to follow a character through a long series so if you are looking for a light mystery series, you may want to give Agatha Raisin a chance.

Much thanks to NetGalley for this advanced copy. Opinions are mine and I was not compensated for the review. ( )

This is the 29th book in the Agatha Raisin series.

In this outing, set in the Cotswolds specifically in and around the village of Thirk Magna. The village, which is known for its medieval church, St. Ethelred and its bells. The village is all atwitter because the handsome Bishop is coming for a visit, and the bell ringers must decide on what to ring. Agatha becomes convinced that the Bishop must have killed his fiancé and decides to use her detecting skills to find out the truth, even though she isn’t being paid to do so. In the meantime, Agatha is questioning the benefits, or lack thereof, of being alone. She is momentarily distracted from those thoughts by three murders, one in her own sitting room.

This is a very busy book. Not only are there three murders to solve, but Agatha must continue to earn money. However, she can’t keep her focus on the murders because she’s busy falling in love again…and again. But not to worry, Agatha come through at the end.

Even though there is a lot going on, Beaton manages to keep all the strings in hand and begins to untangle them so that by the end each of the many plotlines is satisfactorily resolved.

If you are new to the Agatha Raisin series, (the first, “The Quiche of Death” was published in 1992), this book may be difficult to read because of all the storylines and a couple of the secondary characters are hard to tell apart. It can, however, be read as a standalone since, for the most part, Beaton gives enough detail about the ongoing series characters so you know why they are in Agatha’s life. ( )

For me, this was a 2.5 star read, but I am rounding it up to 3 because I am normally a huge Agatha Raisin fan. I was really, really looking forward to reading this, but it just didn’t do it for me. Has the series run too long? I don’t know, but I do know that this book didn’t deliver the sharp-tongued, intuitive, self-possessed, abrasive Agatha that we normally get. Instead, we have an unfocused, grumpy, incompetent, whiny woman who is desperate for a man and marriage at any cost. Instead of investigating she was daydreaming or moping and her supporting cast of characters weren’t much better at investigating.

The story was disjointed and almost incoherent – things popping up out of left field. These stories are always very, very busy, but they always make sense in the end. This one didn’t. There were murders that nobody seemed to care about. The first victim was actually a policeman but there didn’t seem to be any real action to find out who murdered him or why. There were two young women who went missing – one was missing for quite some time and the other just went missing. The resolution to that is just out of the blue and doesn’t make sense. Then, you have an abused wife that nobody seems to worry about except to basically criticize her for putting up with it.

There was a surprise at the end of the book and I will read the next book to see what happens with that. However, if that book is like this one, it will be the last one I read in the series.

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"I requested and received this e-book at no cost to me and volunteered to read it; my review is my honest opinion and given without any influence by the author or publisher." ( )

Agatha Raisin goes to the village of Thirk Magna with her friend Mrs. Bloxby and sees a magnificent figure of a man in the form of Bishop Peter Salver-Hinkley and decides she'd like to know him better. She also makes the acquaintance of Julian Brody, who dislikes the Bishop and asks her to look into the disappearance of his ex-fiancée Jennifer Toynby, who disappeared without a trace. But as Agatha starts looking into the matter she discovers that the Bishop is unlikable (at least to her) and that not only is Jennifer's disappearance unsolved, but others in this village are soon found murdered: Larry Jensen, a local policeman; Millicent Dupin, half of a horrible pair of middle-aged twins; and Terry Fletcher, an Australian journalist that Agatha fell immediately in love with - but ended the affair - leaving her with a broken heart.

But the newspapers aren't so kind and label her a home wrecker, and she can't find any trace of Jennifer; and these things, along with several others, lead her into a depression she isn't able to pull herself from. But it is when she decides that she must no longer feel sorry for herself and get back to the job of detecting that she is able to discover the truth...only in doing so, this time she may have gone too far and the killer might just want to silence her forever...

I have always enjoyed the books of Ms. Beaton and this one is no different. Our Agatha, who considers herself a good detective relying on her intuition, is once again looking for a case that is more exciting than finding one's missing pet. But in doing so, she discovers that she doesn't care for the village of Thirk Magna nor any of its inhabitants, considering them all crazy. She may not be far from the truth, but still she has a job to do and tries her best - at least until she is once again disappointed in love.

It doesn't last forever, but at least she has a staff that is reliable and can get things done while she is in her funk; and there is always Charles, faithful to her in his own way and his desire to snap her out of it and bring her back to reality heartens me each time. I truly like this man, with all his quirks and even his habit of "forgetting his wallet" at opportune times. This time out, he's more of a 'partner in crime' as it were, and while he's not happy about it, he's willing to help his Aggie along.

We are given more to Charles in this book than I think we have seen in any of the others and his devotion to Agatha is at once apparent, even if she doesn't see it herself. It's probably because she spends her time wondering why she can't find her soul mate. I would expect more from Agatha.

However, she does manage to get herself mired in a couple of harrowing situations (which we would expect no less of her) by not thinking things through completely; still, it is interesting to see how she extricates herself (with help) and quite fun to read about.

In the end, the book came together quite nicely while still leaving me at odds, as I found that while the plot is decent as always and the writing is indeed good; I am torn by the ending, which, I am sure is not an ending at all; and I will have to wait (impatiently) for the next in the series. ( )