Agatha Raisin Companion

by Beaton, M. C.

  After a month, during which Jimmy found a job loading newspapers, Agatha realized that she had merely switched a drunken home life with her parents for an alcoholic husband. The drunkenness soon bred violence, although the feisty Agatha hit back because she was ‘still thin but pretty wiry’. After losing his job, Jimmy drifted in and out of work and drank more and more. After each bout of drinking, he would be contrite and promise to turn their lives around, and Agatha stood by him for two years. By then she had landed a good job in a PR firm and decided to spend her cash on a decent wardrobe rather than keeping Jimmy in drink.

  One evening, Agatha came home from work and found Jimmy in a drunken stupor. She opened the post, found some leaflets from Alcoholics Anonymous that she had sent off for, and made a life-changing decision. She pinned the literature to his chest, packed her bag and walked out.

  Although he knew where she worked, Jimmy never came looking for his missing wife and stayed away for many a year. Agatha was convinced he was dead until the day he turned up to ruin her marriage to James, and ended up a murder victim.

  Carsely

  The nearest station is Moreton-in-Marsh. From there Agatha drives up through Bourton-on-the-Hill on the A44, then turns off the main road to drive into the fictional village of Carsely.

  Moreton is situated on the other side of the Fosse Way (A44) from Blockley, ten miles from Evesham and six miles from Moreton-in-Marsh.

  Mircester

  Agatha’s nearest, fictional, town and the site of the frequently visited police station where her friend Bill Wong is based. An old town with cobbled streets which is dominated by a great medieval abbey, it boasts a few restaurants, pubs and a nightlife which includes the Happy Night Club, in a dingy back street. It was here that murder victim Jessica Bradley enjoyed her last night out before she was found dead in a ditch off the dual carriageway outside the town.

  Agatha finds offices in the town when she sets up her agency in Deadly Dance.

  Ancombe

  The fictional village of Ancombe is Carsely’s closest neighbour and is two miles from Carsely. Ancombe’ was one of those Cotswold villages about the size of Broad Campden that seemed too perfect to be true. Very small, but with an old church in the centre, thatched cottages, beautiful gardens and everything with a manicured air.’ (Murderous Marriage)

  The Carsely Ladies’ Society often socializes with the Ancombe Ladies’ Society and attends their amateur shows and events. Mabel Smedley the wife of victim Robert in Perfect Paragon, is a member who lives in the village.

  Ancombe has a village shop and a church, but little else. The local pub, The Feathers, serves very good food, but is very pricey. Agatha first encounters it in Quiche of Death when the Cummings-Brownes join her for dinner there and she foots the bill.

  It is also the site of the eighteenth-century ancient spring, fashioned in the shape of a skull, which leads to two murders in Wellspring of Death. A Miss Jakes had discovered the water source in her garden and had it channelled through a pipe in her wall and into a fountain, to be used by the ‘weary traveller’. It is still thought to have restorative properties and is well used by passing walkers. After the Ladies’ Society gets heated about a water company’s plans to use the spring there, and Agatha is offered the PR job by the same company, she walks to the village and finds a dead body.

  Dembley

  A fictional market town in Gloucestershire, which provided the setting for the fourth Raisin book, Walkers of Dembley. Agatha and James, posing as a married couple, borrow a flat in Sheep Street belonging to Sir Charles Fraith. The walkers favour a pub called The Grapes, but there is another one called The Fleece. Terry and Peter, both members of the ramblers’ group, work at a restaurant called The Copper Kettle. There is also a primary school where victims Jessica and Jeffrey worked with suspect Deborah.

  Blockley

  This picturesque village is ‘a few miles from Carsely’, across the A44 and then down a hill, and lies between Moreton-in-Marsh and Evesham. The once-thriving mills have been turned into homes and the property prices are sky high. ‘The village is dominated by a square-towered church, and by Georgian terraces of mellow Cotswold stone. The long, straggling main street used to be full of little shops, but only the many-paned shop windows, lovingly preserved, remain to show where they once stood.’ (Love from Hell)

  Although an exceptionally pretty village, it remains off the tourist drag and receives little of the attention that Stow-on-the-Wold and Bourton-on-the-Water attract.

  There is a post-office-cum-general store, which Agatha and Charles visit to find the whereabouts of the ex-husband of murder victim Melissa Sheppard in Love from Hell. Charles bemoans the fact that the road into the attractive village is ruined by trucks going to a nearby industrial estate.

  Moreton-in-Marsh

  A beautiful market town with the tree-lined Fosse Way, an old Roman military road, running through it. ‘Ever since the Abbot of Westminster, who owned the land, decided to make use of the transport on the Fosse Way and a new Moreton was built in 1222, it has been a favourite shopping place for travellers, the wool merchants of medieval times being replaced with tourists.’

  King Charles I granted a charter for the market in 1638 and later stayed at the large pub, The White Hart, in the centre of the town.

  Moreton-in-Marsh was used as a coaching station before the coming of the Oxford to Worcester railway in 1853 and now has a mainline train station, connecting to Paddington, which is the nearest to Carsely. Hence it was the gateway to the Cotswolds when Agatha first arrived, as well as the station Roy usually arrives at. Agatha enjoys shopping at the Tuesday market and has the occasional lamb stew in The White Hart.

  Ashton-Le-Walls

  Ten miles outside Mircester, this small, fictional village is the site of the health farm, Hunters Field, where Jimmy Raisin stayed before wrecking Agatha’s wedding to James in Murderous Marriage.

  Hebberden

  A tiny, fictional village on the other side of Ancombe from Carsely. Nestling in a valley, the picturesque huddle of cottages is served by one pub and no shops. Agatha and Paul Chatterton investigate a reported haunting at Ivy Cottage, a large thatched cottage in the village before the owner, a Mrs Witherspoon, dies.

  Stow-on-the-Wold

  A historic market town of mellow Cotswold stone, set high on a hill in Gloucestershire, four miles from Moreton-in-Marsh. Most of the houses date back to the sixteenth century and it boasts one of the oldest pubs in England, the Royalist Inn, which incorporates the original building of the Eagle and Child, dating from the year 947.

  The town is very touristy and its tiny central parking area is the scene of many a small victory over the visitors for Agatha. Her beloved masseur, Richard Rasdall, practises above the sweet shop, The Honey Pot, which is run by his ‘pretty wife’, Lyn. Richard and Lyn are real people and The Honey Pot is a real sweet shop in Church Street.

  Evesham

  ‘Cynics say Evesham is famous for dole and asparagus.’The River Avon runs through the town, famous for its fruit and vegetable trade, which nestles in the Vale of Evesham and boasts many ancient churches and historical buildings. But it also has a sadder air and can present itself as a ‘down-at-heel town. Despite the increasing population, shops keep closing up and the boards over the windows are decorated with old Evesham scenes by local artists, so that sometimes it seems a town of pictures and thrift shops.’ Agatha observes that the town seems to be full of ‘enormous, fecund women’ with pushchairs and leggings.

  In Wizard of Evesham, Agatha and Charles visit the Almonry, a rambling fourteenth-century building which now houses the museum. Hairdresser Mr John runs a salon in the high street and lives in a villa in Cheltenham Road, where Agatha is almost burned to death after his murder.

  Kylie Stokes is found, by Agatha, floating in the swollen river there in Day the Floods Came. Her boyfriend runs the Hollywood Nights club in the town with his father. Harrison Peterson is also killed while staying in the tow
n in Deadly Dance.

  Herris Cum Magna

  A tiny fictional village off the Stow-Burford road, where the Laggatt-Browns live in the manor house in Deadly Dance. ‘The manor house itself was one of those low, rambling Cotswold stone buildings that are much larger inside than they seem from the outside.’

  Comfrey Magna

  ‘An odd, secretive-looking fictional village,’ built along a drove road near Carsely. All the houses are old and on the one thoroughfare, and most of the inhabitants are almost as ancient as their homes. A Norman church, which Cromwell’s followers robbed of its stained-glass windows, and a large, grey vicarage dominate the village, which also has one small pub, called The Grunty Man. In Spoonful of Poison, Agatha helps the vicar by getting an A-list star to open the fête, but the jam-tasting leads to chaos when the preserves are laced with a hallucinogenic drug.

  Carsely is a beautiful village which ‘nestles in a fold of the Cotswold hills’ just off the A44. The route into the village passes through a tunnel of trees which always signal homecoming to Agatha when she returns from her travels.

  Built around a Cotswold-stone high street, it consists of two long lines of houses, interspersed with shops, ‘some low and thatched, some warm gold brick with slate roofs’. The village post-office-cum-general store, where Agatha buys most of her microwave meals and cat food, is called Harveys. The other shops include an old-fashioned haberdasher’s, a butcher’s and ‘a shop that seemed to sell nothing other than dried flowers and to be hardly ever open.’ The pretty cottages ‘leaned together as if for support in their old age. The gardens were bright with cherry blossom, forsythia and daffodils.’

  The warm, traditional pub, the Red Lion, stands at one end of the high street and the church and vicarage, home to Mr and Mrs Bloxby, at the other end. A few tiny streets ramble off the main drag, providing space for the odd cottage or two.

  Outside the village, and barely visible from the high street, is a council estate. A police station, a primary school and a library are placed in between the two.

  Agatha’s Cottage

  Agatha’s home is a thatched, detached cottage of golden Cotswold stone at the end of Lilac Lane, just off the high street. ‘It looked like a cottage in one of those calendars she used to treasure as a girl.’ Low, recently rethatched with Norfolk reed, with a small garden at the front and a long, narrow one at the back, it is separated from the only other cottage in the lane by a narrow path. Although it had no official name, it was originally known to the locals as Budgen’s Cottage, after a villager who had lived there some fifteen years before. Agatha soon makes it her own and has a sign made declaring its new name, Raisin’s Cottage.

  The house consists of a small hall, a dining room, a living room and a large, square kitchen, where Agatha spends most of her time. Upstairs are two beam-ceilinged bedrooms and a bathroom. Agatha had the entire house decorated by an interior designer but quickly scrapped the fake horse brasses and other twee country clichés after moving in. From the kitchen she enjoys a view of the Cotswold hills.

  James Lacey’s Cottage

  The cottage next door, the only other dwelling in Lilac Lane, is separated from Agatha’s cottage by a hedge and a narrow path. There is a small front garden and a back garden similar in size to Agatha’s. The cottages are almost the same, except that Agatha’s is thatched and the neighbouring home is tiled.

  The Church of St Jude, at one end of the high street, is a small, fourteenth-century building with stained-glass windows and long, wooden pews. Vicar Alf Bloxby presides over traditional Anglican services here and in two other local churches, meaning the Sunday communion in Carsely is unusually early, at 8.30 a.m.

  Vicarage

  An old house next to the church which has sloping floors, laid with floorboards ‘polished like black glass’. The living room, where Mrs Bloxby entertains Agatha when it is too cold to sit in the garden, has an open wood fire, a large Persian rug and worn feather-cushioned chairs. The scent of lavender and woodsmoke hangs in the air and there is ‘an air of comfort and goodness about the place’. To the oft-troubled Agatha, the building is a welcome port in a storm.

  Pub

  The Red Lion is at the opposite end of the high street from the church. ‘A jolly, low-raftered, chintzy sort of place’, it is run by John (originally Joe) Fletcher who is an amiable landlord, although he is loath to come to Agatha’s aid when she is abandoned by James and left homeless in Murderous Marriage, claiming there is no room at the inn.

  On arrival in the village, Agatha finds the regulars chat to her with the ‘sort of open friendliness that never went any further’, which made her feel like an outsider.

  Plumtrees Cottage

  The home of Major Cummings-Browne and his wife and the scene of the first crime. On the main street of Carsely opposite the church in a row of four, the ancient stone cottage fronts on to a cobbled, diamond-shaped area.

  Rose Cottage

  Phil Witherspoon’s home is next to the primary school and, despite its old-fashioned name, is a modern building devoid of roses. It is built from red brick, with a tarmac-covered front garden, so that he can park his car off the main street. Phil keeps it impeccably tidy and, despite the appearance of the front, spends a lot of time on his back garden, which he enjoys.

  Other Houses

  Murder victim Mrs Josephs lived in an ‘undistinguished terrace of Victorian cottages at the top of the village’ and Mary Fortune, also destined to become a victim, bought the same house.

  Like all good amateur sleuths, trouble seems to follow Agatha around. Even if she escapes the murder-ridden hills of the Cotswolds, a mystery is sure to be lurking at her new destination.

  Here, for the seasoned reader, is a recap of Mrs Raisin’s adventures to date but, be warned, there may be one or two spoilers if you haven’t yet read them all.

  Book 1:

  Agatha Raisin and the Quiche of Death

  Retiring from a successful career in PR, Agatha has achieved a childhood dream and bought a cottage in the Cotswolds. But moving into the pretty village of Carsely is not the easy transition she assumes. She misses London, feels a real sense of loneliness and finds it hard to fit in with the locals.

  In order to impress, she enters the annual Great Quiche Competition. Never having cooked a quiche in her life, she cheats by buying one from a swanky store in London. But when the competition judge drops dead, Agatha’s lie is exposed and her status in the village sinks even lower. She decides she must turn amateur sleuth to save her name.

  VICTIMS

  Major Cummings-Browne: retired army type and a boorish freeloader. After he and his wife rip Agatha off by accepting an expensive meal, he is found dead, poisoned by a deadly plant called cowbane which is hidden in Agatha’s quiche.

  BOOK 2:

  Agatha Raisin and the Vicious Vet

  Agatha’s flirtation with the good-looking new vet in the village is cut short by his untimely demise, prompting her to take up her second case as an amateur detective. Paul Bladen was murdered with his own syringe of horse tranquillizer as he prepared to perform an operation on Lord Pendlebury’s prize racehorse. The police are keen to write it off as a tragic accident, but Agatha and neighbour James Lacey suspect foul play.

  Their investigations lead them to the discovery that the vet was busy romancing half the women in the village with the aim of extracting money from them, apparently to feed his gambling habit. After a local villager summons Agatha to tell her what she knows about the murder, she is also found dead.

  After her cats are kidnapped, Agatha puts her own life at risk to rescue them and nail the murderer.

  VICTIMS

  Paul Bladen: dishy vet, womanizer and extortionist, murdered with an injection of horse medication after being hit over the head while operating on Lord Pendlebury’s racehorse.

  Mrs Josephs: a pleasant librarian and member of Carsely Ladies’ Society who was heartbroken when her ancient cat was put down by the vet without consultat
ion. Found dead in her bathroom, killed by an injection of adrenalin.

  BOOK 3:

  Agatha Raisin and the Potted Gardener

  Jealous of James Lacey’s new love interest, divorcée and wizard gardener Mary Fortune, Agatha calls in Roy to provide an instant garden, pretending that her own hard work and aptitude have created the vision. She erects a huge fence around her bare garden and plans to unveil the magnificent transformation on the village open day. In return for Roy’s help, she agrees to go back to PR on a temporary basis.

  As the horticultural show approaches, a series of petty crimes are committed against the contenders, including the trampling of Mrs Mason’s prize dahlias, a hole dug in Miss Simms’ lawn and James’s roses being torched. Mary comes under suspicion.

  After the show, James and Agatha discover Mary ‘planted’ head down in a flowerpot, with her legs suspended from hooks in the ceiling. Dressed, as she always was, in green, she resembles a potted plant.

  After James confesses to an affair with her, the pair set about trying to find a green-fingered murderer with a reason to kill Mary.

  VICTIM

  Mary Fortune: glamorous divorcée recently moved into the village. Elegant and attractive, she is an instant hit with the villagers and James. Poisoned with a drugged brandy and then planted among her prized tropical plants.

  BOOK 4:

  Agatha Raisin and the Walkers of Dembley

  Agatha returns from her stint in London, working for the PR firm she sold her business to, and finds James running a local ramblers’ club. In order to lose weight, and get closer to her attractive neighbour, she signs up for the walks. In the nearby town of Dembley, the formidable leader of the local ramblers’ association declares war on local baronet, Sir Charles Fraith, and vows to cross his land using an ancient right of way. Jessica Tartinck’s body is found, a few days later, in the middle of Sir Charles’s rape field and he is arrested. Agatha is asked to investigate by Carsely neighbour, Mrs Mason, whose niece, a Dembley rambler, had recently started dating Sir Charles. To find out who the killer is, Agatha and James pose as man and wife and hole up in a flat in Dembley, joining the Ramblers’ Association and discovering a whole raft of suspects with a motive to kill Jessica.