Agatha Raisin And The Wizard Of Evesham (1999) - Plot & Excerpts
OK so this is about an unlikeable, whingy, rich white woman and her tendency to hang out with a completely odious, emotionally abusive (in the push-pull sense) richer white male privileged aristocrat. Agatha is a self-pitying, image obsessed, lazy (that part was a bit fun), bored woman who solves murders as a hobby because her life has no more meaningful activity (seemingly) than going to the hairdresser all the time.She feel depressed a lot. I am not surprised. Her cynicism, narcissm, absolute lack of engagement with humanity is trumped only by the horrid meanness of the males she chooses to devote all her mental energy on. She sort of has a female friend, on the periphery of her life but she is ridiculously dependant on her odious friend Charles who takes every opportunity of insulting her intelligence or appearance casually, ignoring or trivialising her emotional needs...oh and occasionally sleeping with her or getting in the way of her other possibilities for love.Agatha is determinedly and desperately heterosexual in a book where all males seem to be emotionally stunted, manipulative, selfish and not even much to look at. If she was the only female character like that I guess you could call it a "character flaw" which can be a sign of well-rounded writing but the whole book is strewn with females who define a "good" husband as one who is only emotionally abusive and only makes them feel incompetent and ugly rather than all out beats them up. You also find bitter divorced women who want the awful husband back because being alone is so awful.I am not saying the lot of them should turn gay (necessarily), I am just saying maybe instead of mooning over awful men they could do something meaningful or fun.The mystery itself was also unsatisfactory. It was predictable, so predictable that I thought what I saw was a clever red herring. No, it was the actual solution (yawn). The murder victim was toxic and you can't help feeling glad he was dead, somehow they managed to make the murderer almost as unlikeable as him which was quite a feat. I shared Agatha's lack of emotional connection with the case but found it hard to believe that sexual frustration and boredom would lead someone to go to those lengths to solve a crime (risking being arrested on numerous occasions and even death).The horribly patronising Charles encourages her "hobby" while undermining any opportunity for her to take any self-esteem from her success. The only slightly redeeming feature here was there were a couple of almost snide sections where Charles' horribleness was maybe portrayed with less than sympathy from the author and that he wasn't correct at the end in any of his know-it-all comments. I had a horrid suspicion about half-way through the book when Charles was being dismissive (as usual) of Agatha's thinking that he was going to be right and she wrong about the murderer at which point I would have thrown the book across the room and given it one star. It gets 2 mainly because Agatha at least solved the crime (then to be humiliated in various ways and the reader deprived of a triumphant finish).If you really hate women you will love this book. If you really hate men you can read it to have your hatred confirmed. If you have any inkling of liking for humanity there are better books out there.Next time I will look for a (female) detective who may be flawed but has some family or friends and a life that is more than hairdressing appointments, smoking and wishing she had a man.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution says about this book: "anyone interested in a few hours' worth of intelligent, amusing reading will want to make the acquaintance of Mrs. agatha Raisin." Amazon.com says Agatha Raisin is an updated Miss Marple. I don't know what book those reviewers read, but it couldn't possibly be the same one I read. What I read was about a very rude, often obnoxious, know-it-all, middle aged woman who has way too much time on her hands, so occasionally she plays at being an amateur sleuth. And what she does of that playing, she does very, very badly. The only reason she gets away with her total lack of sleuthing skills is because M. C. Beaton isn't a good enough writer to keep Raisin from being a cliched, inept fool. Normally I like cozy mysteries. I enjoy the ones that encompass a whole series where the characters develop from one book to the next. I don't care if the mystery part is easy to solve or very baffling. I'm reading to connect with what have become old friends, and I can't wait to see what they do next. For some reason I own more than one book from the Agatha Raisin series, and this is the first one I read. I hope it's just a fluke and that Beaton was simply having a bad day or two while she wrote this hot mess of a book. She seems to have written this book according to some kind of plan as in the first 50 pages or so will be to introduce the characters, the next 50 pages are for messing around and trying for some witty banter which fails miserably, and then the last 50 pages deal with the big reveal as to whodunit. The thing is, I've read better grocery lists that were more creatively written than this book was. As for who I would recommend this book to? No one. There's no one I dislike strongly enough to want to waste their time or money on this nonsense..
What do You think about Agatha Raisin And The Wizard Of Evesham (1999)?
"Tcha!""And ya sucks boo to you to" said Agatha when she and Charles emerged into the pouring rain" p 100.Agatha enlists Sir Charles to query Mrs Friendly, frightened of hairdresser Mr John. But her husband intervenes, rudely swings golf clubs. His and Agatha's retorts are pure Chesney fun.Dining with Roy, Agatha sighs "Oh, James, you were never mean" p 150. "Revenge is mine" when Charles reluctantly loses younger girl. His crush "I'm in love" p 144 ignores him for her age "newcomer" p 150 joining their table. Vicar's wife Mrs Bloxby always lends comfort, comes to sleep over when Agatha has been frightened by killer. Here she even finds "Maggie", surname, address from spreading brief description of appearance to her parish contacts. Why does Aggie always need Charles, Roy, or James to accompany her? James is the only one who would protect her, the other two run away. Mrs Bloxby plays mother role. Aggie blunders her way to confrontation.Typos:p 100 "to you to" is "to you too"p 108 "give her description" is "gave her description"p 115 "I did't even see" is "I didn't"
—An Odd1
Agatha has some strange goings on in this book, she gets involved with a hairdresser and then he is murdered. Agatha is missing her next door neighbor and former lover and investigator James but he is off on his travels again so she teams up with her friend Sir Charles and they get in a lot of trouble before they help solve the murder. Agatha has to go into hiding as a vengeful hairdresser puts stuff on her hair and makes it fall out and she has bald spots on her head so Agatha goes away to a small hotel to hide out. As always an entertaining book
—Ann Boytim
He was a hairdresser to dye for... The local ladies all deem Mr John a wizard, so when Agatha finds a few grey hairs on her head - and the rinse she tries at home turns her hair purple - she makes a beeline for the handsome Evesham hairdresser. And as well as sorting out her hair it soon becomes clear the charming man also has designs on her heart - but thier budding romance is cut short when Mr John is fatally poisoned in his salon. Once again Agatha finds herself embroiled in a murder case. Was it one of Mr John's many lady clients, all of whom divulged to him their darkest secrets? It's time for Agatha to get to the root of this haqir raising mystery!It was light with humour at times with one or two swear words
—Penny
