I’ve shelved M. C. Beaton’s books countless times over my years working in libraries, and I always assumed that they were stodgy and boring. Over the past year, though, my interest in mystery and crime fiction has grown, and I decided to give the Agatha Raisin series a try. What I found was a funny fish-out-of-water story with a delightfully crotchety heroine who, in the way of many a cozy, stumbles into solving a murder soon after retiring (very early, Agatha would stress) to a cottage in the Cotswolds. This is a not-so-cozy cozy, and Agatha isn’t shy about telling her new neighbors to bugger off when she’s annoyed, which makes this a good pick for readers who might lack patience for the perhaps unrealistically likable sleuths in some other series. Before I’d even finished this one, I checked the next four out from the library, and with plenty more to go I’m looking forward to a long stay in the world of Agatha Raisin.