And another great character...

is M.C. Beaton's Hamish MacBeth, the lanky Scottish constable serving the people of Lochdubh in the West Scottish Highlands.  I took a short break from Agatha Raisin to get acquainted with Constable MacBeth and his dog, Towser, in Death of a Cad.  It's a fun little romp at a house party on the estate belonging to the parents of the unrequited love of Hamish's life, Priscilla Hallburton-Smythe.  The victim is what the policeman rather accurately refers to as a murderee - someone who was annoying enough to provoke his own murder.  In other words, he had it coming.  I've known quite a few people like that, haven't you?  Still and all, it's MacBeth's job to investigate and his unique talent lies in conducting an investigation without people realizing that he's sizing them all up for motive and opportunity.  Hamish is much more personable than Agatha Raisin, and although he's a bit of a penny-pinching mooch, he's charming enough to get away with it.  There are a great many Hamish MacBeth adventures and I'm looking forwarding to reading them.  But first things first - back to the English countryside and Agatha Raisin...

You can never have too many...

Agathas in your life.  I've been an Agatha Christie fan from the moment I read The Murder of Roger Ackroyd.  I even named my little scottish dog after her.  And now I've discovered Agatha Raisin - the blundering amateur sleuth created by M.C. Beaton.  We are introduced to Agatha in The Quiche of Death, wherein she has just retired from a successful public relations career in London.  She fulfills a lifelong dream of living in a small English village by purchasing a quaint, thatched cottage in the Cotswolds.  She is welcomed to Carseley by the Ladies Society, headed by Mrs. Bloxby, the vicar's wife.  Always competitive in both business and personal matters, Agatha enters a local baking contest at the village fete.  She can't cook, so she travels to London and buys a quiche at her favorite shop, entering it as her own.  Lo, and behold, the philandering judge of the contest dies after eating Agatha's quiche and she's suspected of his much-deserved murder.  And so begins her career as a detective.  Along the way, she makes her first real friend, local police Detective Bill Wong - half English, half Chinese - whose love life is continually sabotaged by his horrible parents with whom he unfortunately resides.  Agatha Raisin isn't terribly likeable at first; she's pushy, petty and suffers from seriously low self-esteem.  About halfway through the story, we begin to understand her a little better and by the end, well, she's become someone it might be interesting to know.  I won't spoil the story if you haven't had the pleasure of reading it - but if you do, you'll want to read the next one and the next...  I'm on the fourteenth Agatha Raisin mystery now with seven more to go.  The books and quirky characters just keep getting better and better!

The Cabot Cove of England...

is the fictional county of Midsomer and its various little villages: Badger's Drift, Martyr Warren, Haddington, and many others -as well as the larger county town, Causton, where DCI Tom Barnaby lives with his wife, Joyce, and daughter, Cully.  As with most shows of the cozy genre, it is ever amazing how many seemingly normal people are willing to commit murder for one odd reason or another.  We watched murder and mayhem for years on Murder, She Wrote and just imagine, it's been going on all along in England, too.  I tell you, I could watch the BBC every day and be perfectly happy.  Having watched every season of MI-5, I've moved on from terrorism to more mundane crimes on Midsomer Murders.  It's available for free on AmazonPrime and I've watched five or six episodes - and so far, it has not disappointed.  It's not so much mysterious, thrilling suspense as it is the mildly humorous business of the classic whodunit.  DCI Barnaby is a good judge of people and does most of his work through observation rather than direct questioning of the suspects.  His assistant, Detective Sergeant Troy, is good sidekick material and provides a good deal of comic relief with his lack of driving skills and brilliant perception of the obvious.  The coroner, George, is almost too good-natured for a man who spends the vast majority of his time with dead bodies.  Mrs. Barnaby cannot cook, much to her husband's chagrin, but is passionately interested in the arts and the theatre.  Their daughter, an actress, appears to be more like her father.  And then there's the oddball cast of what seems like thousands: the victims, suspects and various other individuals who inhabit the fictional jurisdiction of the thoroughly likeable fictional detective.  Midsomer Murders is not only entertaining and funny,  it's lots of fun, too.  Check out the pilot episode, and if you're even remotely a fan of Agatha Christie, you'll be hooked.

Join me in Piney Point...

for the original murder mystery I'm serializing on my new blog, Piney Point, Alabama .  The first mystery in the series is called Dead and Dug Up.  I hope you'll check out the misadventures of my amateur sleuth and her crazy Southern family.  I'd love to hear your feedback!

My very first mystery...

was this sweet little book from the Weekly Reader Book Club called The Case of the Cat's Meow.  I got it on February 22, 1966 - I know because my mother wrote the date inside along with my name.  I guess I had a tendency to lose things back then at the ripe old age of seven.  Lord knows I didn't lend my books out even then - and I still don't.  The only time a book leaves my hands is when I intend to let it go forever.  Isn't that terrible?  I guess I imagine the borrower turning down a page or breaking the spine and well, that would not be good.  But back to my first mystery story - it's about a missing cat and the little boys who investigate her disappearance.  It's not very suspenseful and it has a happy ending, but for a seven-year-old, it was a terrifically spell-binding story and I've hung on to it for forty-six years.  And I've never lent it out so it's still in pretty good condition for an antique.  Like me.

What was your first memorable book as a child?