The glorious M.C. Beaton has done it again with Beating About the Bush  – a blisteringly funny teasing mystery, with the redoubtable Agatha Raisin blundering around, offending willy nilly and not caring. I adore this woman, and as always, as I read, I know I have met my disgruntled soul mate, or has Beaton has been peeping through my curtains?

Listen a moment: you know you buy those Christmas presents that you wish you’d bought for yourself? Well, buy this and a second for that sensible person who – Snakes and b…….s – adores our Aggie too.

Agatha is known for her repetitions, as am I. One of Agatha’s is to shout every time she passes woodland in a car. ‘That’s a good place to dump a body.’ It drives everyone mad, as it drives my family mad when I say, ‘Should we have taken that turning? Just asking.’

Agatha is not alone in her predilection, for the police find elderly Mrs Dunwiddy in the woodland next to the road leading out of Mircester.

Of course our Cotswold resident, Agatha, runs her own investigation, digging deep, heeldless of bosses, Russians, and the sensitivities of those around her.  And let us not forget her complicated love life.. And what is going to happen between her and Sir Charles Frith?

Oh lord, what a treat, what a fabulous read, what laughs, what larks, what charm, what naughtiness. I love this woman. Read it, give it, let others share in this crazy Agatha Raisin world.

Beating About the Bush by M.C. Beaton hb £18.99  pub Constable.

Annie Clarke’s latest novel Heroes on the Home Front is out now.