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Index Interviews: Peter Lance Lyn Hamilton Co-writing Committee-itis The Power of Repetition, Part II Before You Write Return to This Issue's Index Return to Homepage Subscribe
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Mystery/Thriller Book ReviewsPage One of ThreeAgatha Raisin and the Case of the Curious Curate by M.C. BeatonSt. Martin's Minotaur, March, 2003Hardcover, 224 pages ISBN: 0312301154 Ordering information: Amazon.com | Amazon.co.uk 
Agatha Raisin, former London PR executive and current
resident of the tiny Cotswalds village of Carsely, is bored --
much to the dismay of her friend Mrs. Bloxby, the vicar's wife,
who tells Agatha: "I hate it when you get bored….
It seems to me that every time you get bored, a murder
happens somewhere." And so it does.
For it's not long afterwards that the village's gorgeous,
young new curate is found murdered -- and Alf Bloxby is
the chief suspect. Agatha begins to investigate and finds
that the beautiful curate actually had dark secrets in
his past -- and quite a few people who might want to kill him.
Agatha Raisin continues to fascinate in this defty-executed village cozy with a twist. Her dreadfully pompous ex-husband James Lacey is mercifully absent from the story and Agatha (in addition to investigating the murder) actually begins to do nice things for other people, such as offering to play chess with an elderly resident of the village. Her single neighbor, author John Armitage, turns out to be a bit of a jerk, but by the end of the story a new single computer programmer has moved to the village -- which should lead to some interesting developments in the next installment of this reliably excellent series. Click Here for Murder by Donna AndrewsBerkley Prime Crime, May, 2003Hardcover, 295 pages ISBN: 0425188566 Ordering information: Amazon.com | Amazon.co.uk 
Hopper Turing is not your ordinary sleuth.
She's an "Artificial Intelligence Personality"
created by a gifted computer programmer (see,
You've Got Murder). When Turing's friend,
systems engineer Ray Santiago, is found murdered Hopper and
her human friends, Maude and Tim, search for their
friend's killer. It seems that Ray spent a lot of time
participating in LARP (live action roleplaying games)
and he had quite a lot of secrets in his past. To make
matters worse, his laptop (which had passwords
which would enable a cracker to attack Turing)
is now missing. The more they look into Ray's
secret life, the more dangerous things become
for both human and cyber-sleuths.
A.I. sleuth Turing Hopper is a real original. In fact, she's the most appealing character in the series -- and she's not even of organic origin. Donna Andrews provides an interesting puzzle to solve and she makes the subculture of live action role playing and the world of computers accessible and interesting, even to the reader who is not expert in the field. Mystery/Thriller Reviews Page One | Page Two | Page Three Click Here to Return to the Book Reviews Index ** To visit the archives of mystery books reviewed in The IWJ, please click here. |