Agatha Raisin and the potted gardener by M.C Beaton - book review

At last some shade of positivity at least in the form of book. Was really worried with the kind of content I was grazing at, be it books or movies. Thanks to mister Mages, who shared this book, which turned out to be perfect antidote. The story felt more Enid Blyton-ish in setup, flow and made a nice read. And it was a detective series as well. Probably the most naïve murder investigation I’ve ever read. But still makes up in its charm. I googled about the author and was amazed at the list of books published by her. My god!!!! She seems like a factory for churning out books. Not sure if you can classify these novels as kids section but may be bit more serious than the Nancy drew/ Hardy boys genre.

I suppose, this particular book, is somewhere midway through the series, for there are no formal introduction to the characters. Be it Agatha or the village or her crush James, everyone is being mentioned on the fly and any backstory related to them, discussed over the course of conversations as well. There is something about the way the English talk about their villages. It is not like our local ones which are mostly depicted as poor, dry or barren. The English villages are always green and there would be non-stop mention about their gardens. The people are known to be gossipy and there are so many clubs and societies where the entire community mingle. There are pubs and restaurants that are known by name to everyone on the village and fun events involve everyone in the village. A similar setup is what we get to see in this series as well.

Agatha raisin, is interestingly named. Guess, it must be as a mark of respect for the queen of thrillers and Raisin. She is not your petite young lassie, but a divorced women bordering 50 age limit. She is so much smitten by her next door neighbor, who runs away from her, whenever she tries to express her feelings, but he has no qualms in philandering with other women!! They are both partners(sic) in crime. Not in committing but on solving them. There is a smart young detective of Chinese origin who is always helpful and there are couple of other recurring characters, along with her pet cat, who make up the ensemble. In “Potted Gardner” the pace is so leisurely setup that, first 22 pages of the book talks about, Agatha’s return back to the village from some trip and what gift she had got for the village folks. There is this mysterious, cynical lady, who is so good looking that menfolk of the village are immediately smitten. She gets killed in a brutal manner, which was quite a deviation from an otherwise quiet and calm storyline. Agatha gets to find out who killed her. Basically that is the plot. But almost the entire village seems to be on suspect row, with that lady having rubbed everyone the wrong way. The investigative approach is quite straight forward- Agatha asks the person directly. No brain churning puzzles or clues. Straight as an arrow. There is a gardening competition as well, amidst all this chorus, which Agatha cheats, to beat the mystery lady, only to get caught. I thought there may be some key thing around the gardening event, for, right from the title and almost through half the book, it was being mentioned. But it turned out to be a damp squib.

Gils verdict – a new author and series to follow. Probably not the best first book to start in the series. But I love the premise. It may neither be for kids in their teens, nor be for adults. Oru rendugettan set of folks who are forever in between the gap (enna mathiri) may take a fancy for this series. Adutha book epdirukunu paapom.