TITLE: Hiss and Hers
SERIES: Agatha Raisin, Book #23
AUTHOR: M.C. Beaton
NARRATOR: Davina Porter
PUBLISHER: Blackstone Audio, Inc.
PUBLICATION DATE: September 18, 2012
FORMAT: Unabridged audiobook
LENGTH: 6 hrs and 24 mins
GENRE: Mystery/Cozy Mystery
Celebrating the 20th anniversary of everyone's favorite sleuth, M. C. Beaton's Agatha Raisin is as feisty as ever - armed with her famous wit and biting sense of humor. This time, though, there's some biting of a whole other sort going on.
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. Rising to the occasion, Agatha rallies her little detective agency to find the killer, only to learn that George had quite a complicated love life. But murderously complicated? Well, if she can't have George, at least Agatha can have the satisfaction of confronting the other women and solving the crime.
I continue to be amused by Agatha’s antics!
Agatha goes to such great lengths to ingratiate herself to a man once she has him in her sights. In this installment, Agatha’s target is the hunky local gardener and handyman, George Marston. She even ruins her bookshelves (she’s obviously not a book lover) to have an excuse to call George and ask him to fix them. If that doesn’t seem desperate enough, she plans to go on an extended leave of absence so that she has more leisure time to spend with George and doesn’t have to worry about him wining and dining the retired ladies and housewives in the village. When Agatha’s biggest competition, young and beautiful actress Jessica Fordyce, is looking for donations to raise money to refloor the village hall, Agatha offers to pay for the reno so that the charity ball can be held. She fantasizes that she will dance the night away in George’s arms. He did, after all, promise Agatha that the first dance would be all hers! On the big night of the ball, Agatha panics when George fails to appear and is devastated that she might have spent all that money for nothing! She decides to go to his house to find out what is keeping him, and she discovers his body buried in a compost heap.
Oh, Aggie! Just when you take a step forward, you end up going two steps backward! She seems to go through this pattern of being headstrong and independent and feisty, and then behaves like somewhat of a fool when she becomes smitten with a new man! At least it makes for an amusing story!
Much to my dismay, Penelope Keith did not narrate this one! Davina Porter is a fabulous narrator, and I absolutely fell in love with her narration of Diana Gabaldon's Outlander. She truly is a top-notch narrator. However, having said that, she just didn’t fit the Agatha Raisin persona. Porter’s vocalization for Agatha makes her sound a bit whiney. I’ve grown so accustomed to Keith’s version of Agatha that just no one else will do!
MY RATING:
#48 for my 2016 You Read How Many Books? Challenge
#48 for my 2016 Outdo Yourself Reading Challenge
#41 for my 2016 Women Challenge
#35 for my 2016 Prequels & Sequels Challenge
#44 for my Backlist Books Reading Challenge
#36 for my 2016 Audiobook Challenge
#20 for my 2016 I Love Libraries Reading Challenge
#8 for my 2016 The Color Coded Reading Challenge
#15 for my What An Animal IX Reading Challenge 2016
#18 for my 2016 Lady Detectives Reading Challenge
#17 for my Cruisin' thru the Cozies Reading Challenge 2016
#17 for my Craving for Cozies Challenge 2016
#11 for my R.eaders I.mbibing P.eril Reading Challenge
Task #5 for my Goodreads Fall 2016 Scavenger
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I have read the first five in this series and it is one of my favorite. I did try just one on audio and ended up reading it instead. It just didn't work for me. I may of picked up a lousy edition though. I am no expert in audio book shopping.
ReplyDeleteDon't you just love the quirkiness of Agatha and the way she is so brutally honest in some ways and so conniving in others?
Sounds like a fun story. Thanks for sharing your review. ~Aleen
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