Agatha Raisin will never win the Miss Congeniality Award for personal relationships, as fans will attest. Our favorite surly Cotswolds private eye is no closer to luring a suitable male companion as she runs her successful detective agency. Her calendar is filled only with divorce investigations and searches for lost pets, while her social life is a depressingly blank page. Sir Charles Fraith, perhaps the closest contender for her heart, can be seen leaving her house early in the morning after raiding her liquor cabinet and spending the night asleep on her living room couch. Gossips may muse, but we readers know the truth. Agatha is beginning to wonder why she stays in business. What kind of life is this? She’s ready for a tasty murder --- anything to break the monotony.

Molly Devere and her husband Rory, the new vicar in town, are driving home through dense fog following a welcoming dinner party. They are horrified to see a body hanging from an old tree on the edge of town. Molly, far from the typical spouse of a man of the cloth, promptly directs her husband to go for the police (no wireless reception in this God-forsaken corner of England) while she climbs the tree to see if she can save this wretched soul. She recognizes the woman, who is clearly beyond help, as the elderly lady who tidies up the church and arranges the flowers. It is clear that she hanged herself. But why?

"M. C. Beaton is a grand master of introducing fascinating and unconventional characters, not the least of whom are Agatha and the men who come and go in her life."

When forensics determine that the dead woman did not commit suicide but was strangled, and then dangled from what has always been known as the Witches’ Tree, Agatha is itching to get in on the action before the police muddle things up.

Molly and Rory have serious misgivings about the rude Police Constable Turret, who arrives at the vicarage to question them. Turret views them as prime suspects, and after his sexist remarks affront Molly, the couple turns to their new parishioners for advice. Upon learning of Agatha’s detective skills, they hire her to investigate why anyone would want to murder their faithful vicarage assistant.

Agatha is back in business, especially gleeful that she may be able to foil the annoying Turret, aka “the ferret,” and solve the crime before he does. When two more bodies are found, the plot thickens. Mysterious evidence is uncovered, and rumors are circulated that a coven of witches who gather for dancing and suspicious ceremonies around the tree may be involved.

M. C. Beaton is a grand master of introducing fascinating and unconventional characters, not the least of whom are Agatha and the men who come and go in her life. The tale of this hapless vicar, sent to what amounts to an ecclesiastical Siberia after being rescued from a remote African village assignment because of misplaced paperwork, creates a story almost as entertaining as the obligatory murder investigation.

Mix a harmless group of bored village ladies who dabble in mysticism with Agatha’s never-ending search for the right man as she approaches middle age, add the ever-present, mysterious and handsome stranger who turns the head of our lady detective to apply her most alluring wiles, and sprinkle a pinch of Cotswolds charm, and you have a tasty little cozy with which to curl up by a crackling fire. Bon appétit!