Showing results by author "C. A.A." in All Categories

Abandoned by new husband, James, Agatha Raisin hops on a plane to the South Pacific in the hope that an idyllic holiday will bring some consolation. There, she befriends a honeymooning couple but, tragically, the young bride is accidentally drowned. Returning home to the Cotswolds, Agatha finds herself involved in a strangely similar situation - a woman, dressed in a wedding gown, is found floating in the river. The police say suicide, but Agatha sets out to prove them wrong.

Agatha has fallen head over heels in love - again. This time, she has her eye on the local gardener, George Marston, but so do other women in their little Cotswold village. Shamelessly determined, Agatha will do anything to get her man - including footing the bill for a charity ball just for the chance to dance with him. And then George doesn't even show up. Only partly deterred, Agatha goes looking for him, and finds his dead body in a compost heap. Murder is definitely afoot, but this killer chose no ordinary weapon: A poisonous snake delivered the fatal strike.

With the lovely Priscilla Halburton-Smythe away in London, Hamish Macbeth, the constable of the small Scottish town of Lochdubh, pines for company during the long Scottish winter. He gets his wish - and more - when a troupe of flashy, urbane filmmakers clamors into the nearby town of Drim. Before long bedlam erupts around their make-believe mystery - and culminates in the sudden appearance of one very real corpse.

Can the feisty Agatha Raisin cut it as a private investigator? She soon learns that running her own detective agency in the Cotswolds is not quite like starring in a Raymond Chandler movie. But then in walks wealthy divorcée Catherine Laggat-Brown, and presents Agatha with her first real case. Death threats, blackmail, and worse quickly follow, and once again Agatha is off scouring the countryside for clues and showing friends and enemies alike what Raisin Investigations can do!

Feeling jilted and cross, Agatha follows a fortune-teller's advice and rents a cottage in the pretty village of Fryfam, where she hopes good fortune and true love will come chasing after her. Unfortunately, her romantic notions are soon dispelled by the strange goings-on in the village. What are those strange lights in Agatha's back garden? Who is stealing paintings and pottery? And who murdered the local squire? Agatha's nose for trouble leads her into a maelstrom of jealousy, blackmail, and dangerous liaisons....

Suffering from bald patches thanks to a hair conditioner spiked with depilatory cream - supplied by the murderess in her last investigation - Agatha escapes to the coastal resort of Wyckhadden to allow her crowning glory to recover in privacy. A local witch provides her with hair tonic and Agatha’s lost locks begin to grow - but then the witch is found bludgeoned to death. The elderly residents at Agatha’s faded hotel seem innocuous enough, if a little odd. But, as she enquires into the murder she turns up an alarming number of secrets....

They were called Easy Company, but their mission was never easy. Immortalized as the Band of Brothers, they suffered huge casualties while liberating Europe in an unparalleled record of bravery under fire. Dick Winters led them through the Battle of the Bulge, the attack on Foy, where Easy Company reached its breaking point, and finally into Germany, by which time each member had been wounded. Outside Munich, they liberated an S.S. death camp and captured Berchtesgaden, Hitler's alpine retreat.

Agatha Raisin has never been one for forced holiday cheer, but her friendly little village of Carsely has always prided itself on its traditional Christmas festivities. But this year the bells will not be ringing out, as Mr. John Sunday, an officer with the Cotswold Health and Safety Board, has chosen Christmas as the time to crack down on safety hazards. But Mr. Sunday is soon found face down in the petunias, very much dead.

They met in the most unlikely place, where death and destruction were just as pronounced as the desert heat that surrounded them. Her voice lured him in, but it was her kind heart and understanding soul that anchored his broken one. She was the light to his dark. Together, they forged an unbreakable bond. But one fateful night destroyed it all and thrust them into a week of hell, leaving them both scarred inside and out. Now two years later, Faith returns to Cade's life unexpectedly, and neither of them can deny the fire that still burns between them.

Disorder and chaos ravage London when thousands are contaminated by the accidental discharge of an experimental bioweapon. The disease robs its hosts of rational thought, giving them a singular desire - find more living flesh to infect.

It's 2552. Having barely escaped the final battle for Reach against the vast alien alliance known as the Covenant, the crew of the Pillar of Autumn, including Spartan John-117 - the Master Chief - and his AI companion Cortana, is forced to make a desperate escape into slipspace. But their destination brings them to an ancient mystery and an even greater struggle.

After being nearly killed by both a hired hit man and her former secretary, Agatha Raisin could use some low-key cases. So when Robert Smedley walks through the door of her detective agency, determined to prove that his wife is cheating on him, Raisin Investigations immediately offers to help. Unfortunately for Agatha, Mabel Smedley appears to be the perfect wife: young, pretty, and a regular volunteer at church. But just as Agatha is ready to give up, Smedley is poisoned with weed killer, leaving Mabel, the prime suspect, poised to inherit a fortune.

The picturesque Cotwsold village of Winter Parva has decided to warm the post-Christmas season by roasting a pig in the town square. Agatha, always one for a good roasting, organizes an outing to enjoy the merriment. But as the rotary spit is placed over a bed of fiery charcoals and the pig is carried toward its final resting place, Agatha realizes that things are not as they seem... Stop!" she screams suddenly. The "pig," in fact, is Gary Beech, a policeman not exactly beloved by the good people of the village. Although Agatha has every intention of leaving matters to the police....

Believing that someone is trying to murder her, gorgeous Jane Wetherby asks Hamish Macbeth to spend Christmas with her and an exclusive group of friends at her Scottish island health farm. With a cold in his head and no place to go for the holidays, Hamish accepts her invitation. He thinks the lady is a bit daft, but, arriving on the lonely isle of Eileencraig, he feels a prickle of foreboding. The locals are openly threatening; the other guests, especially a terrible snob named Heather Todd, are barely civil.

Even though Agatha Raisin loathes amateur dramatics, her friend Mrs. Bloxby, the vicar's wife, has persuaded her to support the local pantomime. Stifling a yawn at the production of Babes in the Woods, Agatha watches as the baker, playing an ogre, struts and threatens on the stage. Then a trapdoor opens… followed by a scream and then silence. Surely, this isn't the way the scene was rehearsed?

After nearly four years, the zombie epidemic has almost burned itself out. Once a lone survivor on the brink of insanity, Gus Berry has a new life on a communal farm, his daily routine of policing the fields only rarely disrupted by straying undead. Gus’s drinking binges are over, and the dark days of Annapolis are soon to be a distant memory. But his troubles are far from over . . .

After killer Shelia Eddy pled guilty to first-degree murder and was sentenced to life in prison and Rachel Shoaf was sentenced to thirty years for second-degree murder, family, friends, investigators, and other key sources reveal the facts you would have learned if the case had gone to trial.

Bossy, impulsive, yet hopelessly romantic, Agatha is dreading the upcoming marriage of her ex-husband, James Lacey. Although she has set her sights on a handsome and beguiling new Frenchman, she can't quite stop obsessing about James. Her best intentions to move on with her life are put on hold when James's young bride is shot to death just minutes before saying "I do" and Agatha is named the prime suspect.

When Agatha Raisin left behind her public-relations business in London, she fulfilled her dream of settling in the cozy British Cotswolds, where she began a successful private detective agency. Unfortunately the village she lives in is about to get a little less cozy. Lord Bellington, a wealthy land developer, wants to turn the community garden into a housing estate. When Agatha and her friend, Sir Charles Fraith, attempt to convince Lord Bellington to abandon his plans, he scoffs.

Hamish Macbeth, the laid-back constable of Lochdubh, Scotland, has a new Land Rover to drive and a Highland summer to savor, but as fast as rain rolls in from the loch, his happy life goes to hell in a hand basket. The trouble begins when his beloved Priscilla Halburton-Smythe returns from London - with a fiancé on her arm. His miseries multiply when clouds of midges, the diabolical Scottish mosquito, descend on the town. Then a paragon of housewifery named Trixie Thomas moves into Lochdubh with her lapdog husband in tow.