Busy Body

I thought from the cover when I picked up M.C. Beaton's Busy Body (#257), an Agatha Raisin mystery from 2010, that it would be the last of my Christmas reads .  And while it's true that the book begins with John Sunday's campaign as the local Health and Safety Officer for the Mircester region to single-handedly forbid the Cotswold villages in his purview from putting up any Christmas decorations as being too dangerous, most of the events in this book take place over the course of a year after he's murdered, and don't end until the following Christmas season.

In fact, in this book quite a few people come to untimely ends, in some cases deservedly so, as John Sunday's murder seems to set off a chain reaction of events in the normally quiet village of Odely Cruesis.  No one liked the man, but no one's talking to any outsider about who might be responsible.  Agatha's friends and employees seem to be targets when they won't drop an investigation that the police consider solved.  The death of one her former employees changes the equation in the office as Agatha becomes concerned about the emotional state of her promising young detective, Toni.  And since this is Agatha Raisin, you know that there are going to be complications with her own love life.  Is there a possibility of romance with her handsome new client, Tom Courtnay?  Or is Sir Charles Fraith finally becoming serious?  Ex-husband James Lacey turns up at a critical junction; is he regretting the divorce?

With Agatha Raisin, it's always something; a good mystery, impossible romantic situations and the pesky police (with the exception of her friend on the force Detective Sergeant Bill Wong) always trying to discredit the leads she hands them on silver platters.  Busy Body is holiday fare that can be enjoyed year round.