Лучшие произведения М. С. Битон

Travel to the Scotland Highlands with this classic Hamish Macbeth cozy mystery where an unladylike gossip columnist meets an untimely and watery death. When society widow and gossip columnist Lady Jane Winters joined the fishing class, she wasted no time in ruffling the feathers--or was it the fins?--of those around her. Among the victims of her sharp tongue and unladylike manner was Lochdubh Constable Hamish Macbeth. Yet not even Hamish thought someone would permanently silence Lady Jane's shrills--until her strangled body is fished out of the river. Now with the help of the lovely Priscilla Halburton-Smythe, Hamish must angle…

Revenge is a dish best served warm... High-flying public relations supremo Agatha Raisin has decided to take early retirement. She's off to make a new life in a picture-perfect Cotswold village. To make friends, she enters the local quiche-making competition - and to make quite sure of first prize she secretly pays a visit to a London deli. Alas, the competition judge succumbs after tasting her perfect quiche, and Agatha is revealed as a cheat and potential poisoner. Definitely not the best start. So Agatha must turn amateur sleuth - she's absolutely got to track down the real killer!

Agatha lets sleeping vets lie... Retired PR boss Agatha Raisin is enjoying life in her pretty Cotswold village of Carsely. It even seems likely that the attractive new vet, Paul Bladen, has taken a shine to her. But before romance can blossom, Paul is killed in an accident with Lord Pendlebury's horse. Only the circumstances are rather suspicious. Agatha decides she must once more play amateur investigator. And this cloud has a silver lining - she can persuade her usually stand-offish neighbour, James Lacey, to become her partner in the quest. As usual, Agatha is quite prepared to rush in, heedless of the lurking menace to both James…

Agatha goes digging where she shouldn't... Agatha is taken aback when she finds a new woman ensconced in the affections of her attractive bachelor neighbour, James Lacey. The beautiful Mary Fortune is superior in every way, especially when it comes to gardening - and with Carsely Garden Open Day looming, Agatha feels this deficiency acutely. So when Mary is discovered murdered, buried upside down in a pot, Agatha seizes the moment and immediately starts yanking up village secrets by their roots and digging the dirt on the hapless victim. But Agatha has an awkward secret too . . .

When Priscilla Halburton-Smythe brings her London playwright fiancé home to Lochdubh, everybody in town is delighted … except for love-smitten Constable Hamish Macbeth. Yet his affairs of the heart will have to wait. Vile, boorish Captain Bartlett, one of the guests at Priscilla’s engagement party, has just been found murdered—shot while on a grouse hunt. Now with many titled party guests as the prime suspects, each with a reason for snuffing out the despicable captain, Hamish must smooth ruffled feathers as he investigates the case. When the hidden culprit strikes again, Hamish will find himself trying to save Priscilla from a miserable…

Christmas is an ancient Roman festival, not to be celebrated by decent folk in the Scottish Highlands. Police Constable Hamish Macbeth has always loved the festivities, but this year he is stuck with the long, lonely Christmas shift in freezing Lochdubh. A cranky old lady kicks off the holidays by reporting her cat missing. Then the Christmas lights and tree in a nearby village disappear soon after the local council voted to allow decorations. As Hamish finds a way to bring Christmas to the Highlands and make a little girls dreams come true, he finds, to his delight, that he has the best Christmas ever.

Hamish Macbeth, the laid-back constable of Lochdubh, Scotland, has a new Land Rover to drive and a Highland summer to savor, but as fast as rain rolls in from the loch, his happy life goes to hell in a handbasket. The trouble begins when his beloved Priscilla Halburton-Smythe returns from London—with a fianc├ on her arm. His miseries multiply when clouds of midges, the diabolical Scottish mosquito, descend on the town. Then a paragon of housewifery named Trixie Thomas moves into Lochdubh with her lapdog husband in tow. The newcomer quickly convinces the local ladies to embrace low-cholesterol meals, ban tobacco, and begin bird-watching.…

Lochdubh constable Hamish Macbeth is more dour than ever after losing both his promotion and his girl, the loyal Priscilla Halbourton-Smythe. A trip to a charming seaside inn with his dog Towser is meant to raise his sagging spirits. Instead, he arrives at “Friendly House” to find the ambiance chilling, the food inedible, and his fellow guests less than neighborly. There’s an amorous spinster, two tarty girls, a retired military man, a secretive London family, and Bob Harris, who so nags his wife, Doris, that everyone wants to kill him. Then somebody does. Soon Macbeth is called upon to act - to dig into the past and deep into the…

Admittedly, there's a touch of black humor in the case. Rich, old practical joker Andrew Trent summons his kin to the remote Arrat House in the dead of winter for a deathbed farewell. They arrive to find him in perfect health and eager to torment them with a new bag of unfunny jokes. But this time the body that falls out of the closet is Andrew Trent's own. And nobody's laughing. Especially not Constable Hamish Macbeth, who is hard put to glean any information from Trent's unappealing nearest and dearest. And when the lanky constable's former flame Priscilla Halburton-Smythe inserts herbeautiful self into the case, Hamish must muster all…

The most hated man in the most dour town in Scotland issleeping with the fishes, or—more accurately—has been dumped into a tank filledwith crustaceans. All that remains of the murdered victim are his bones. Butonce the lobsters have been shipped off to Britain’s best restaurants, the wholeaffair quickly lands on the plate of Constable Hamish Macbeth. Exiled to the dreary outpost of Cnothan, Macbethsorely misses his beloved Lochdubh, but before he can head back home he has tocontend with a detective chief inspector who wants the murder hushed up, adark-haired lassie who is out to seduce him, and a killer who has mademincemeat of his last…

A vengeful ghost comes back to haunt the living? Reports of a haunted house soon have Agatha snooping around, but it turns out the victim of the haunting is a universally disliked old biddy on whom someone is playing a practical joke. And then the old lady is murdered - but for Agatha, solving a crime is much more fun than hunting a ghost! Very soon she's up to her usual tricks, involving the villagers, local police, and, of course, her handsome new neighbour . . .

Wealthy Maggie Baird is neither nice nor kind nor generous. Once she was beautiful, but now, although middle-aged, she retains the appetites of a beautiful woman. When Maggie's car catches fire with her inside it, suspicion focuses on the five houseguests staying at Maggie's luxurious Highlands cottage: her timid niece and four former lovers, once of whom Maggie had intended to pick for a husband. All five are impecunious. All five had ample opportunity to monkey with Maggie's car. So finding who did it requires all Police Constable Hamish Macbeth's extraordinary common sense and insight into human nature. And lazy lout though he may be,…

Hamish MacBeth is a stubborn, silent, gloomy Scotsman who's also kindhearted, intelligent, and intuitive. A Lochdubh native, he knows his village, the surrounding countryside, and the local folk like the back of his hand. His life is satisfyingly settled - he's engaged to the lovely Priscilla Halburton-Smythe, and there have been no serious crimes in Lochdubh for months. Then incredibly handsome Peter Hynd comes to town, charms all the women, antagonizes all the men, and generally turns the town on its ear. Hamish senses trouble brewing, but when a body is discovered, it's not Hynd after all - at least, the first body isn't. Other…

With a cold in his head and no place to go for Christmas, Hamish snaps up the invitation of drop-dead gorgeous Jane Wetherby to spend the holiday at her Scottish island health farm -- and figure out who is trying to kill her. When Hamish arrives on the island of Eileencraig, he finds threatening locals and fellow guests barely more civil, especially a terrible snob named Heather Todd. It seems like everyone on the island has a grudge against Jane. How to choose among so many suspects? But then one suspect is eliminated. Heather Todd is murdered. And suddenly Hamish's Christmas is looking very black indeed . . .

Amazing news has spread across the Scottish countryside. The most famous of highland bachelors, police sergeant Hamish Macbeth, will be married at last. Everyone in the village of Lochdubh adores Josie McSween, Macbeth’s newest constable and blushing bride-to-be. While locals think Josie is quite a catch, Hamish has a case of prenuptial jitters. After all, if it weren't for the recent murder of a beautiful woman in a neighboring village, there wouldn’t be a wedding at all. For it was a mysterious Valentine’s Day package—delivered to the victim before her death—that initially drew Hamish and Josie together on the investigation. As they…

The morning of Agatha's marriage to James Lacey dawns bright and clear. But her luck runs out in the church when Jimmy, the husband she had believed long dead, turns up large as life and twice as ugly. Agatha has a go at strangling him. James breaks off the engagement. So when Jimmy is found murdered next day, Agatha and James are both the prime suspects. And they'll have to work together in order to clear their names . . .

Sea, sand - and the slammer for Agatha! Agatha Raisin thinks she's in for a treat when her ex-husband James Lacey invites her on holiday but - horrors! - his idea of an idyllic break is the small, run-down resort of Burryhill-on-Sea. And from there on things go from bad to worse, so when a fellow guest in their hotel is found murdered, Agatha herself is chief suspect - and has to solve this case from a locked police cell!

Agatha Raisin's detective agency has become so successful that she decides to take time off for rest and relaxation. But as soon as she does, she remembers that when she does have time on her hands, she doesn't know what to do with it. So it doesn't take much for the vicar of a nearby village to persuade her to help publicize the church fete - especially when the event organizer, George Selby, turns out to be a handsome widower. Agatha brings out the crowds for the fete all right, but there's more going on than innocent village fun. Several of the offerings in the jam-tasting booth turn out to be poisoned and the festive entertainment…

There's not a cloud in Constable Hamish Macbeth's sky.... Just plenty of warm sunshine and not quite enough of beautiful Priscilla Halburton-Smythe. But as eight hopeful members of the Checkmate Singles Club converge on Tommel Castle Hotel for a week of serious matchmaking, the clouds roll in. The four couples, carefully matched by dating director Maria Worth, immediately dislike each other. The arrival of Maria's gross, greedy partner, Peta, kills the last vestige of romance. And as love goes out the window, murder comes in the door. Peta soon slurps up her last meal, and Hamish is left with a baffling puzzle: who shared the fateful…

Cold-blooded murder heats up Agatha's summer holiday! Agatha travels to Cyprus, only to contend with her estranged fiance, an egregious group of truly terrible tourists, and a string of murders. . . In this sixth entertaining outing Agatha leaves the sleepy Cotswold village of Carsely to pursue love - and finds a murderer. Spurned at the altar, she follows her fleeing fiancé James Lacey to Cyprus, where, instead of enjoying the honeymoon they'd planned, they witness the killing of an obnoxious tourist in a disco. Intrigue and a string of murders surround the unlikely couple, in a plot as scorching as the Cypriot sun!