Customer Reviews

Agatha Raisin and the Murderous Marriage

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(0)
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This is the fifth book in the Agatha Raisin cozy British mystery series. Fans of Agatha will not be disappointed. Her neighbor, distinguished retired colonel James Lacey, has finally succumbed to Agatha's charms, and they are now about to be married. Just as they are about to tie the knot, however, who should inconveniently turn up at the wedding but Agatha's first husband, Jimmy, who she had presumed to be long dead from alcoholism.

James Lacey promptly calls off the wedding and vows never to marry Agatha. When Jimmy turns up dead shortly thereafter, both James Lacey and Agatha Raisin are the prime suspects. Despite the elephant in the room, James and Agatha join forces to do some amateur sleuthing, much to the chagrin of the local police. Before they know it, the bodies start piling up.

Agatha's friend, Detective Bill Wong has a larger, more involved role that usual, and he is truly a wonderful and funny character. As with all cozy mysteries, the mystery is secondary to the evolvement of the recurring characters and the ordinary discourse of life that binds them. As always, the dialogue moves the plot along at a brisk pace, and the book is peppered with a host of interesting, quirky characters that entertain the reader. This is a highly addictive series that makes the reader race off to get the next volume.

If you haven't read any other Agatha Raisin stories, go back and start with Agatha Raisin and the Quiche of Death. You'll be sure to like that book and your appreciation of this one will be greater if you start with Quiche.

In Agatha Raisin and the Walkers of Wembley, Agatha and her handsome next-door neighbor, James Lacey, went undercover and lived together as man and wife to track down a brutal murderer. Agatha naturally hoped the propinquity would give James ideas, but he was notably unromantic throughout . . . except in the end when he proposed to Agatha and she accepted his proposal.

But you may remember from Agatha Raisin and the Quiche of Death that Agatha was separated and not divorced from her husband, Jimmy Raisin, when she moved to Carsely in the English Cotswolds. Since she had told everyone that, naturally people asked her about her plans to marry James. Concerned that a delay might cause James Lacey to change his mind, Agatha tells one and all that Jimmy had died of drink. But that's only her fond hope. She plans a low-key wedding that won't attract any attention.

But Roy Silver, a former employee from her old PR agency, moves into the information breach by hiring a detective to find Jimmy after Agatha rebuffs Roy's attempts to get her back into PR. The detective finds Jimmy, Roy tells him about the wedding, and Jimmy heads for Carsely on the wedding day.

The wedding doesn't happen, and Agatha barely escapes being charged with attempted bigamy. James Lacey is outraged at Agatha and takes off. Thoroughly annoyed with Jimmy Raisin, when Agatha next encounters him she slaps him hard and pushes him into a ditch. An hour later, the police charged her with Jimmy's murder.

From there, Agatha finds herself interested in clearing her name, regaining the affections of James Lacey, and regaining her cottage (which she had sold in anticipation of the marriage to James.

In the process, Agatha finds out what being married to James might have been like and discovers it's not all good news. The pursuit of James' affections is complicated by someone who seems to be interested in killing Agatha. Others find themselves as risk after Agatha and James visit them. Does Agatha have a death touch?

If this book hadn't had such a strong first chapter, I would have rated it at three stars. Much of the book is taken up with the emotional reticence of James Lacey, a subject that doesn't interest me all that much.

The mystery of who did the murders is fairly easy to solve and doesn't provide enough of a counterbalance to the James Lacey-Agatha Raisin romantic complications.

But if you are committed to the Agatha Raisin series, you can't skip this book: You won't be able to fully appreciate Agatha Raisin and the Terrible Tourist, the next book in the series.

Having started from the beginning of this series at a late date, I have to say that this is one of the best to this point. The situations were more realistic than some of the earlier episodes and usually written with a good blend of humor and real emotions.
Agatha's dream is finally coming true: she is marrying James Lacey. Needless to say, things in Agatha's life cannot go smoothly. Her thought-to-be-dead husband shows up demanding money and then ends up dead. James, furious with Agatha, refuses to consider returning to where their relationship was but the two of the must work together to solve the murder as they are both prime suspects.
A fun book to read, particularly in regards to some new revelations regarding Agatha's childhood and family history. Looking forward to the next in the series.

AGATHA RAISIN AND THE MURDEROUS MARRIAGE begins with Agatha preparing to marry James Lacey, the man of her dreams. Agatha was married when she was very young and since her first husband had not been heard from in years, she preferred to think that he must have died from his alcoholic life style. Unfortunately, Jimmy Raisin was not dead, and showed up at the beginning of Agatha's wedding to James Lacey.

Poor Agatha is humiliated and James is furious with her. Her life is in turmoil. She had already sold her cottage and had started moving her belongings into the house she was to share with James. He agrees to let her stay with him, but tells her that he no longer wants to marry her, ever. When Jimmy Raisin is found murdered, the police suspect Agatha or James. The disgruntled couple form somewhat of a truce and agree to do their own investigating into Jimmy's death. As the story continues, several of Jimmy's associates are also murdered and the search for the killer becomes more complex for Agatha and James. M.C. Beaton does a good job of tying up the story and keeping her readers interested in the perils of Agatha Raisin.

This is the fifth story in the Agatha Raisin mysteries. I highly recommend the entire series.

Agatha was desperate to get married to James unless the bad feeling might be realized before the ceremony. But...she was almost close to commit a bigamy. The damned alchoholic and abusive husband, Jimmy came up alive in the aisle. He deserved to die because he made Agatha's life miserable...even he found to have blackmailed some at the health farm...But, it shouldn't be done by our brave Agatha...

I was touched several timed during reading this book.
One scene is that Bill and Agatha realized the love and friendship toward each other though the horrible Maddie tried to manipulated Bill (but, one thing I didn't like is that the woman in the police should be womanly. Thus Maddie was out from the investigation. I couldn't like her but the reason she was out should be her cruelty abusing the heart of the person who was nice to her..Well, women are sometimes unbelievablely cruel to men who fall for them).
And the second one is that Agatha confessed her miserable youth and the how she got married. I almost empathized, and was moved.
And the third thing was that James and the persons found the Agatha's picture in Jimmy's wallet. Jimmy might thought to use Agatha when he decided to get married. But the only picture he kept in his wallet is not the other girls but only Agatha's. He's a villian, but the one who knew how young Agatha was so sweet with full of dreams.

Wow...from the first moment I got to read the first one of Agatha Raisin series, I got to like her though she was described to be chubby, mean, tough etc. She has attractions. Originally she's a warm-hearted person. The more books out, the more I got to understand her.

Agatha Raisin returns in the 5th book in the series, and is finally going to realize her dream of marrying James Lacey, her next-door neighbor. However, just before they can say "I do", her long-lost husband, Jimmy Raisin, returns to stop the wedding. James is shocked, having thought that Agatha was no longer married, and refuses to speak to her. However, James and Agatha must team up to find a murderer when Jimmy is found dead and they realize that they are the police's prime suspects. When each of the people they question ends up dead, it is a race against time to find the identity of the killer before he/she strikes again.

I adore this series set in the Cotswolds of England, and I cannot get enough of the character of Agatha Raisin! She has charmed me from the first book on, and I personally have felt that she was much too good for James Lacey. It is almost pitiful how Agatha has chased him only to loose him each time...although it is part of the fun of each book to see what antics she will be up to next. As Agatha grows as a character, I feel she only gets better. If you enjoy cozy mysteries, start reading this series today.

The first book in this series is "Agatha Raisin and the Quiche of Death". Enjoy!

I really enjoyed this book. It was a strong entry into the series about Agatha. In this one she is trying to tie the knot with her handsome neighbour, James Lacey, and lo and behold her husband that she thought was dead turns up. The marriage is put off, and then her husband is found dead. Unfortunately, Agatha is a prime suspect in this murder, so her and James need to set out to find out who actually did it. They get into their usual scrapes, and the reader has a good time following them. Can't wait for the next one now.

There are a lot of characters and situations in this novel that are hysterically funny. This is a very well-paced story, with a wider scope than most of the books in this series. The thing that touched me the most, though, was Agatha's persistence in wanting James, while also knwoing, on some level, that she isn't comfortable in his world and can't wait to have her own privacy and spact back. How many of us have to acknowledge having those relationships at some point in our lives--the person we want to have/love so much that we want to ignore how unhappy life with them really makes us?

We learn a lot more about Agatha than in the past, and Bill Wong deepens as a character. James is, as usual, rife with human contradiction, but I warn you that he comes off as quite a cad at the end of this!

I have enjoyed the character development in this series. It helps to read the Agatha Raisin books in sequence although it is not necessary to enjoy each story. Agatha and James are complex characters and M.C. Beaton does an excellent job in their delineation. The villagers in this cozy mystery are lovable and reading the book is like living in a small village.
The plot of this book was interesting and the action well-paced. I couldn't put the book down until I finished it. The relationship of James and Agatha has reached a different level in this story. Being middle-aged, independent and set in their ways, their feelings for each other are bound to be mixed. They are likable and you care what happens to them.

This time there's a lot going on with Agatha Raisin. We learn more about Agatha's background and childhood, her marriage, and her motivation. We also learn more about James. This makes us more sympathetic to Agatha, but do we like James more, or even as much as we did? The mystery's solution was not obvious to me, so it was quite fun. The language and situations are getting raunchier -- more fun there, too! Definitely some surprising moments. Like a British cozy dipped in gin and sprinkled with a dose of "EastEnders." This series just gets better.