Killing Time by MC Beaton & RW Green ~ a Review

by Donna Huber

Agatha Raisin’s private detective agency is working flat out on a series of shop burglaries. The break-ins seem to have taken a violent turn when a friend of Agatha’s is murdered during a raid on his shop. Although determined to nail the villains, Agatha still makes time to help Sir Charles Fraith prepare to stage a massive, hugely glamorous, promotional event on the grounds of his ancestral home, Barfield House. When Agatha begins to receive death threats and narrowly avoids being abducted by kidnappers, she takes advantage of a previously arranged trip to Mallorca to lie low for a while.

Amazon affiliate links are used on this site. A free book was provided for an honest review.

October 2024; Minotaur Books; 978-1250898708
audio, ebook, print (256 pages); cozy mystery

I discovered the Agatha Raisin series a few years ago and was a casual reader of the series. I've recently started at the beginning and I'm up to book 8, but that's not keeping me from skipping ahead to read the newest book. Killing Time is book 35 but you can read it as a stand alone.

I liked the story a lot. While it isn't a Halloween story it would make a great book to read for those that don't want anything too scary. There's a scene that is worthy of a Halloween horror movie.

I'm not sure I actually like Agatha. Her preoccupation with her looks has always irked me but I've been able to overlook it some. I actually started to like her in this book - she's been pretty unlucky in love but she seems happy with her ex-policeman-turned-dancer and then there were the death threats (I'm a sucker for the underdog) but then the way she treated people rubbed me the wrong way. It's like if you are in her inner circle you aren't worth her time and she is hardly nice to them. With all the hate in today's world, I don't want to see it in the fictional worlds I read.

With that said, I loved the other characters and it seemed that they played a bigger role than in the previous books (or maybe that's just my perception given that I've been reading the older books in the series). 

I like the Forward that Rod Green includes. I enjoy reading about the tidbits that M.C. Beaton shared with him as well as giving background on other things in the story. In case you didn't know, Rod Green took over writing the Agatha Raisin series (and the Hamish Macbeth series) in 2020 after Beaton died in 2019. 

If you are a fan of the series, you won't be disappointed and new readers will enjoy it as well. The mystery is a good one - there's more than one mystery. If you love riddles, then you will really want to read this book. It's just a fun, quick read.

Buy Killing Time at Amazon

Donna Huber is an avid reader and natural encourager. She is the founder of Girl Who Reads and the author of how-to marketing book Secrets to a Successful Blog Tour.

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