M. C. Beaton (1936–2019)
Teoksen Agatha Raisin and the Quiche of Death tekijä
About the Author
M. C. Beaton's real name is Marion Chesney. She was born in Glasgow, Scotland, in 1936. She has written over a hundred books under her own name and other pseudonyms: Ann Fairfax, Helen Crampton, Jennie Tremaine, Charlotte Ward, and Sarah Chester. She started her writing career while working as a näytä lisää fiction buyer for a bookstore in Glasgow. Working at one time or another as a theater critic, newspaper reporter, and editor, she used her British background to write a series of regency romances set in England and Scotland. Some of her regency romances include The Folly, Colonel Sandhurst to the Rescue, and Regency Gold. In 1986, she was awarded the Romantic Times Award for Outstanding Regency Series Writer. She has also written two mystery series under the pseudonym M. C. Beaton: The Hamish Macbeth Series, which became the inspiration for a television show in England, and The Agatha Raisin Series, about a retired advertising executive. Her title His and Hers made The New York Times Best Seller List for 2012. Marion Chesney passed away on December 31, 2019 at the age of 83. (Bowker Author Biography) näytä vähemmän
Disambiguation Notice:
(eng) Marion Chesney also writes under the pseudonyms of Ann Fairfax, Jennie Tremaine, Helen Crampton, Charlotte Ward, M. C. Beaton, and Sarah Chester. More of her books are being reedited as Marion Chesney or M. C. Beaton.
Image credit: M.C. Beaton by David Shankbone. 25 September 2006. New York City.
Sarjat
Tekijän teokset
Agatha Raisin: The Wizard of Evesham / The Murderous Marriage (BBC Dramatization) (2009) 19 kappaletta
Agatha Raisin: The Terrible Tourist / The Fairies of Fryfam (BBC Dramatization) (2010) 18 kappaletta
Death of a Gossip / Death of a Cad / Death of an Outsider / Death of a Perfect Wife (2012) 15 kappaletta
Agatha Raisin: The Potted Gardener / The Walkers of Dembley (BBC Dramatization) (2007) 13 kappaletta
Introducing Hamish Macbeth: Mysteries #1-3: Death of a Gossip, Death of a Cad, and Death of an Outsider Omnibus (2016) 5 kappaletta
Agatha Raisin and the Quiche of Death / and the Vicious Vet / and the Potted Gardener (2004) 4 kappaletta
The Royal Ambition Series: The Dreadful Debutante, The Savage Marquess, Miss Fiona's Fancy, The Viscount's Revenge, The… (2018) 3 kappaletta
M. C. Beaton 2 kappaletta
Hamish Macbeth Books 1-10 (Death of a Gossip, Death of a Cad, Death of an Outsider, Death of a Perfect Wife, Death of a… (2018) 2 kappaletta
Hamish Macbeth Ten Books (Death of a Gentle Lady / Death of a Poison Pen / Death of a Village / Death of a Celebrity /… (2010) 2 kappaletta
Agatha Raisin & the Quiche of Death; the Potted Gardner; the Walkers of Dembley; the Murderous Marriage; the Wellspring… (2000) 1 kappale
Agatha Raisin. I Camminatori di Dembley 1 kappale
Hamish Macbeth Murder Mystery Collection (Death of a Nag, Death of a Macho Man, Death of a Dentist, Death of a… (2011) 1 kappale
Zlý veterinář (Agatha Raisinová #2) 1 kappale
Associated Works
Books to Die For: The World's Greatest Mystery Writers on the World's Greatest Mystery Novels (2012) 240 kappaletta
Agatha Raisin and the quiche of death : a mystery/comedy in two acts (2004) — Original author — 2 kappaletta
Agatha Raisin, Series 1-3 — Original Books — 1 kappale
Hamish Macbeth - Series 1 & 2 [Videorecording] — Original Books — 1 kappale
Hamish MacBeth: The Big Freeze, Wee Jock's Lament and a Bit of an Epic — Original Books — 1 kappale
Merkitty avainsanalla
Yleistieto
- Virallinen nimi
- Chesney Gibbons, Marion
- Muut nimet
- Fairfax, Ann (pseudonym)
Tremaine, Jennie (pseudonym)
Crampton, Helen (pseudonym)
Chesney, Marion (maiden name and pseudonym)
Ward, Charlotte (pseudonym)
Beaton, M. C. (pseudonym) (näytä kaikki 7)
Chester, Sarah (pseudonym) - Syntymäaika
- 1936-06-10
- Kuolinaika
- 2019-12-30
- Sukupuoli
- female
- Kansalaisuus
- UK
- Syntymäpaikka
- Glasgow, Scotland, UK
- Kuolinpaikka
- Gloucester, Gloucestershire, England, UK
- Asuinpaikat
- Cotswolds, England, UK
Paris, France - Ammatit
- buyer (for bookshop)
theater critic
reporter (newspaper)
editor
novelist - Suhteet
- Gibbons, Harry Scott (husband)
- Lyhyt elämäkerta
- Marion Chesney was a very prolific author, born in 1936 in Glasgow, Scotland. She started her first job as a bookseller in charge of the fiction department in John Smith & Sons Ltd. While bookselling, by chance, she got an offer from the Scottish Daily Mail to review variety shows and quickly rose to be their theatre critic. She left Smith’s to join Scottish Field magazine as a secretary in the advertising department, without any knowledge of shorthand or typing. She quickly got the job of fashion editor instead. She later moved to the Scottish Daily Express, where she reported mostly on crime. This was followed by a move to Fleet Street to the Daily Express where she became chief woman reporter. She married Harry Scott Gibbons, the paper's Middle East Correspondent and had a son, Charles. The family later moved to the United States where Harry had been offered the job of editor of the Oyster Bay Guardian. When that didn’t work out, they went to Virginia, where Marion worked as a waitress in a greasy spoon on the Jefferson Davies in Alexandria while Harry washed the dishes. Both then got jobs on Rupert Murdoch’s new tabloid, The Star, and moved to New York. Anxious to spend more time at home with her small son, Marion began to write historical romances in 1977. Marion wrote over 100 of these historical romances under her maiden name Marion Chesney, and under the pseudonyms: Ann Fairfax, Jennie Tremaine, Helen Crampton, Charlotte Ward, and Sarah Chester. Finally becoming fed up with all eras from 1714 to 1910, she began to write contemporary detectives stories in 1985 under the pseudonym of M. C. Beaton. A trip to Sutherland on holiday and a course at a fishing school inspired the first Constable Hamish Macbeth story. The family later returned to Britain and bought a croft in Sutherland where Harry reared a flock of black sheep and Charles went to school in London. When Charles finished school, they moved to the Cotswolds where Agatha Raisin was created.
- Erotteluhuomautus
- Marion Chesney also writes under the pseudonyms of Ann Fairfax, Jennie Tremaine, Helen Crampton, Charlotte Ward, M. C. Beaton, and Sarah Chester. More of her books are being reedited as Marion Chesney or M. C. Beaton.
Jäseniä
Kirja-arvosteluja
Number 6 in the Agatha Raisin series. In this, it seems that Agatha's husband turned up in the previous book in time to prevent her marriage to James - after reading book 2, I can't imagine why he agreed to marry her - and although he was subsequently murdered, James has gone to North Cyprus where the couple were due to honeymoon. Needy Agatha follows him and traipses round until she finds him. The place he was booked into by a long term friend turns out to be a complete dive, so he takes a villa and reluctantly invites her to stay.
Before this, she had been staying at a hotel along with other British tourists and ended up going on a boat trip with two couples, each of whom have a wealthy older man tagging along with them. One couple is posh, the other are stereotypical Essex types. We are told that the Essex woman, Rose, occasionally betrays the fact that she is well read, though we don't see this in conversation and in fact, that is the style with these books, to tell things as info dumps rather than showing them. In fact this book has loads of info dumps about the various historical sites the characters end up going round, in some cases Agatha's 'dialogue' being her reading things out from guidebooks.
James and Agatha end up going along with these people to a disco where Rose is stabbed using a long thin blade of some kind. Subsequently, the two couples and their men friends, plus Agatha and James, are repeatedly grilled by the police. Agatha starts poking her nose in and antagonising some of the British and the local police chief, especially as she has a tendency to blurt out embarrassing questions. James is cold and appears annoyed with her a lot, not helped when she runs into Charles, a baronet who apparently was introduced in a book a couple before this one, where Agatha solved a murder among walkers using his land.
On the rebound from one of many fallings out with James, she is put up by Charles in the spare bed in his hotel room, but they have both been drinking and when he climbs into bed with her, she doesn't repulse him. She subsequently feels guilty and lies to James about what happened, but the police eventually tell him she slept with Charles, at which point James leaves for the Turkish mainland in pursuit of the old friend who had rented him the awful accommodation and who he now suspects of drug running. This is despite the fact that attempts are being made on her life, and should convince her that he cares absolutely nothing for her.
After that she tours various places with Charles, trying half heartedly to solve the murder, mainly because the police have refused permission for them to leave (which James defied) until the culprit is apprehended.
There is a lot of mooning about James and a lot of the character being tearful etc about him and obsessing and hoping he will come back, despite his cold and rejecting behaviour. At one point, Charles says he felt like this about a girl once, and it was called a teenage crush. This seems exactly what it is but in a 50 something woman is grotesque. The story is really mostly about this obsession with the odd bit of detecting if you can call it that shoehorned in, plus driving around and having dinner in restaurants. The most interesting thing was the description of a couple of historical sites visited, and a little bit of the atmosphere of North Cyprus.
The book does show something of the character and emotions and reads less like a synopsis than one I read late in the series (number 22) so it scrapes a 2 star rating.
… (lisätietoja)
Before this, she had been staying at a hotel along with other British tourists and ended up going on a boat trip with two couples, each of whom have a wealthy older man tagging along with them. One couple is posh, the other are stereotypical Essex types. We are told that the Essex woman, Rose, occasionally betrays the fact that she is well read, though we don't see this in conversation and in fact, that is the style with these books, to tell things as info dumps rather than showing them. In fact this book has loads of info dumps about the various historical sites the characters end up going round, in some cases Agatha's 'dialogue' being her reading things out from guidebooks.
James and Agatha end up going along with these people to a disco where Rose is stabbed using a long thin blade of some kind. Subsequently, the two couples and their men friends, plus Agatha and James, are repeatedly grilled by the police. Agatha starts poking her nose in and antagonising some of the British and the local police chief, especially as she has a tendency to blurt out embarrassing questions. James is cold and appears annoyed with her a lot, not helped when she runs into Charles, a baronet who apparently was introduced in a book a couple before this one, where Agatha solved a murder among walkers using his land.
On the rebound from one of many fallings out with James, she is put up by Charles in the spare bed in his hotel room, but they have both been drinking and when he climbs into bed with her, she doesn't repulse him. She subsequently feels guilty and lies to James about what happened, but the police eventually tell him she slept with Charles, at which point James leaves for the Turkish mainland in pursuit of the old friend who had rented him the awful accommodation and who he now suspects of drug running. This is despite the fact that attempts are being made on her life, and should convince her that he cares absolutely nothing for her.
After that she tours various places with Charles, trying half heartedly to solve the murder, mainly because the police have refused permission for them to leave (which James defied) until the culprit is apprehended.
There is a lot of mooning about James and a lot of the character being tearful etc about him and obsessing and hoping he will come back, despite his cold and rejecting behaviour. At one point, Charles says he felt like this about a girl once, and it was called a teenage crush. This seems exactly what it is but in a 50 something woman is grotesque. The story is really mostly about this obsession with the odd bit of detecting if you can call it that shoehorned in, plus driving around and having dinner in restaurants. The most interesting thing was the description of a couple of historical sites visited, and a little bit of the atmosphere of North Cyprus.
The book does show something of the character and emotions and reads less like a synopsis than one I read late in the series (number 22) so it scrapes a 2 star rating.
… (lisätietoja)
A quick read and with some mildly amusing moments. Agatha is what I think these days is referred to as a cougar, a 50s woman in pursuit of men, or at least one man in particular, her neighbour James. The story opens with her returning from a miserable holiday where she anticipated meeting up with him but didn't because he promptly changed his destination when he heard she was going there too. Agatha subsequently tries to play it cool and make him think he imagined her obsessive interest, though she occasionally forgets.
As part of this tactic, she nearly gets involved with the newly arrived vet but chickens out about staying there for the night and is subsequently relieved when, after he dies in a seeming accident, it comes out that he was a conman preying on a lot of local women. She sets out to prove he was murdered, not so much because she wants justice to prevail, but mostly because James is keen to solve the mystery and it gives her an excuse to spend time with him, so contrary to back cover blurb, she is nothing at all like Miss Marple.
The story is set in a village and there is some sense of the community and nosiness associated with such, but there is no evocation of the Cotswolds where it supposedly is set. The constant head hopping and omniscient author style is also old fashioned in contrast with the close third person narrative of most books these days, possibly as it was written in the 1990s.… (lisätietoja)
As part of this tactic, she nearly gets involved with the newly arrived vet but chickens out about staying there for the night and is subsequently relieved when, after he dies in a seeming accident, it comes out that he was a conman preying on a lot of local women. She sets out to prove he was murdered, not so much because she wants justice to prevail, but mostly because James is keen to solve the mystery and it gives her an excuse to spend time with him, so contrary to back cover blurb, she is nothing at all like Miss Marple.
The story is set in a village and there is some sense of the community and nosiness associated with such, but there is no evocation of the Cotswolds where it supposedly is set. The constant head hopping and omniscient author style is also old fashioned in contrast with the close third person narrative of most books these days, possibly as it was written in the 1990s.… (lisätietoja)
In this number 17 of the series, Agatha is taken on a surprise holiday by ex-husband James, suspending her critical judgement after their apparently awful marriage, as she is still obsessed with her romantic idea of him. The biggest surprise to me, having read book 2 previously where she was desperately pursuing him and he was running away except when she played it cool and helped him solve a murder, is that they were actually married at some point between the two books.
The seaside town where James takes her is a big disappointment even to him because it has declined severely in the intervening 40 years. The formerly grand hotel is rundown and with worsening sea erosion, in danger of being swept away, a peril that worsens as time goes on. On their first night, over a dreadful dinner, Agatha gets into a slanging match with a thoroughly unpleasant guest who is murdered that night with Agatha's mislaid scarf, and she has to prove her innocence. Soon Agatha is embroiled in a convoluted web as the dead woman turns out to have been a gold digger who married men for money and was involved with criminals. A number of her family and friends are in the frame for her murder and bodies begin to pile up, with Agatha's own life being endangered more than once. And the local police are inept and resentful of her involvement and that of her staff. To make matters worse, James clears off abroad although he later returns, and Agatha is riven with jealousy over his apparent involvement with an attractive divorced woman who has recently arrived in their village.
As I have observed before, these books have a cartoon like quality. You couldn't be involved in this much whistlestop action, with money launderers, hitmen, armed robbers and more, in anything resembling ordinary fiction. Plus Agatha is woefully inept in her chosen career, discussing details of the case in public places and putting others' lives in danger in the process.
The book is a little better than number 22 which I also finished today, as there is quite a well developed sense of place, with the dingy seaside location, crumbling seawall and lashing spray against the hotel and houses. It has the strongest sense of place I've seen so far in this series, and in fact the place is a stronger character than any of the people who are cardboard characters apart from Agatha who is merely irritating and unlikeable.… (lisätietoja)
The seaside town where James takes her is a big disappointment even to him because it has declined severely in the intervening 40 years. The formerly grand hotel is rundown and with worsening sea erosion, in danger of being swept away, a peril that worsens as time goes on. On their first night, over a dreadful dinner, Agatha gets into a slanging match with a thoroughly unpleasant guest who is murdered that night with Agatha's mislaid scarf, and she has to prove her innocence. Soon Agatha is embroiled in a convoluted web as the dead woman turns out to have been a gold digger who married men for money and was involved with criminals. A number of her family and friends are in the frame for her murder and bodies begin to pile up, with Agatha's own life being endangered more than once. And the local police are inept and resentful of her involvement and that of her staff. To make matters worse, James clears off abroad although he later returns, and Agatha is riven with jealousy over his apparent involvement with an attractive divorced woman who has recently arrived in their village.
As I have observed before, these books have a cartoon like quality. You couldn't be involved in this much whistlestop action, with money launderers, hitmen, armed robbers and more, in anything resembling ordinary fiction. Plus Agatha is woefully inept in her chosen career, discussing details of the case in public places and putting others' lives in danger in the process.
The book is a little better than number 22 which I also finished today, as there is quite a well developed sense of place, with the dingy seaside location, crumbling seawall and lashing spray against the hotel and houses. It has the strongest sense of place I've seen so far in this series, and in fact the place is a stronger character than any of the people who are cardboard characters apart from Agatha who is merely irritating and unlikeable.… (lisätietoja)
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It was a light pre-Christmas read and at least didn't have the ghastly Agatha Raisin of the author's other series who screams instead of speaking. So an OK 2-star read for me.… (lisätietoja)