Mystery/Thriller Book Reviews

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Agatha Raisin and the Case of the Curious Curate by M.C. Beaton
St. Martin's Minotaur, March, 2003
Hardcover, 224 pages
ISBN: 0312301154
Ordering information:
Amazon.com

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 Andrews
Berkley Prime Crime, May, 2003
Hardcover, 295 pages
ISBN: 0425188566
Ordering information:
Amazon.com

Click Here for Murder
by Donna Andrews

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.

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Mystery/Thriller Book Reviews

Agatha Raisin and the Case of the Curious Curate by M.C. Beaton

Click Here for Murder by Donna Andrews