Yes, you’ve guessed it – another Agatha Raisin has hit the bookstands – temporarily because they’re already flying right off again.

 

So it is celebration time in the Frost office, and much unseemly elbowing to be the first to read it, and I WON.

 

Agatha Raisin and the Dead Ringer:  The team of bells at St. Ethelred church is the pride and glory of the idyllic Cotswold village of Thirk Magna, together with the most dedicated bell ringers in the whole of England: the twins Mavis and Millicent Dupin.

 

As the village gets ready for the Bishop’s visit, the twins get over-excited at the prospect of ringing the special peal of bells created for the occasion and start bullying the other bell ringers, forcing them to rehearse and rehearse… until Joseph Kennell, a retired lawyer does the inevitable – snaps and shrieks that he feels like killing them.

 

But does he? Well…

 

Someone broke into the twins home one night, and delivered a hammer blow onto Millicent’s bonce, so was it Joseph? Huh, do you really think I’m going to tell you.

 

Get yourself a glass of champagne, settle yourself down to the treat of the month, or year, and read the glorious happenings that always somehow whirl around the wonderfully politically incorrect Agatha Raisin as she digs, delves and trips over the truth. Agatha our hero, our star, our treat of the year is back. Yay, whoopee, hallelujah.

 

So has the fabulous M.C. Beaton pulled it off again? You darned well better believe it.

 

M.C. Beaton is the New York Times bestselling author of both the Agatha Raisin and the Hamish Macbeth series, as well as numerous Regency romances. Her Agatha Raisin books have been turned into a TV series on Sky, starring Ashley Jensen as Agatha. A second series will be filmed in Spring 2018. She lives in Paris and in a Cotswold village that is very much like Agatha’s beloved Carsely.

 

And… and… we can hardly breathe with excitement – Angela, are you listening, (she’s the latest devotee we have enrolled into the Frost’s Aggy Fan Club ). This winter 2018 the aforementioned second  series of three – yes three 90 minute episodes will be airing based on Agatha Raisin and the Fairies of Fryfam, Curious Curate and Wizard of Evesham, featuring the original cast with Ashley Jensen starring as Agatha.

 

What could be better? Well, we could have been in it, of course, tottering about on similar high heels couldn’t we? Is that really too much to ask? Nonetheless, we’ll be there in front of the TV, choc in one hand, champagne in the other, having a ball with our Agatha.

 

Agatha Raisin and the Dead Ringer by M.C. Beaton hb £17.99

 

(Milly Adams’  latest novel is the last in the Waterways Girls – Hope on the Waterways.’