M. C Beaton

"Toni and Agatha are in the car on the way to Officer Bill Wong's long-awaited wedding when, much to their shock, a naked young man bursts through a hedge on the side of the road and comes running toward them. Terrified, he explains that he has just seen a dead body in the woods. Toni lends him an old t-shirt to cover himself, Agatha calls the police, and the young man takes them to the spot where he saw the body, across from a meadow where the Mircester...

A sudden plague of maliciousness strikes the beautiful Highland town of Lochdubh in the form of a rash of poison pen letters. Things turn deadly when the local postmistress is found hanged in her room?with a vicious note beneath her dangling feet. Though his superiors call it an obvious suicide, Constable Hamish Macbeth pronounces it a murder-and sets off a media circus. But Hamish is soon distracted by Jenny Ogilvie, a friend of his ex-fiancée,...

The loveable characters from the Poor Relation Hotel return in this sparkling and adventurous Regency romance from M. C. Beaton. Eliza Budley is a beautiful widow whose husband gambled away his fortune. So when the poor relations need to acquire some valuables to keep the hotel afloat and Eliza draws the short straw, Lady Fortescue reminds the others that Mrs. Budley has no relatives on whom she can call. Gentle Mrs. Budley thinks she has escaped...

The New York Times–bestselling author presents a delightful series in which the staff in a London town house helps with much more than the daily chores . . .
 
It was the fashion during the Regency era to hire a house for the season in Mayfair—the heart of London’s West End—at a disproportionately high rent for sometimes very inferior accommodation. But Number 67 Clarges Street,...

Life is not easy for the poor relations of England's upper crust, but fate and clever schemes bring them together. Lady Fortescue and Colonel Sandhurst hatch a plan: What if they were to transform her decrepit Bond Street home into a posh hotel, offering their guests the pleasure of being waited upon by nobility? With the help of other down-and-out aristocrats, they do just that, and London's newest hotel, the Poor Relation, is born. The establishment...

A house in London’s fashionable West End is the setting for romance, mystery, and danger in this Regency-set tale by a New York Times–bestselling author . . .
 
Number 67 Clarges Street—a good address in London’s elegant Mayfair with a dubious past and a lovably eccentric staff—is where the Hart sisters are taking up residence for the season. Beautiful and socially ambitious...

Life is finally looking up for the poor relations. The Prince of Wales' coat of arms gleams over the hotel entrance. All but one of the rooms are filled by the open-handed Prince Hugo and his entourage. The owners have taken on a new partner, Mr. Jason Davy, a popular actor. Even curmudgeonly Sir Philip hasn't uttered anything loathsome for days. They have finally reached a position comfortable enough to allow them to consider offers to buy the hotel. The...

"When Police Sergeant Hamish Macbeth hears reports of a haunted castle near Drim, he assumes the eerie noises and lights reported by the villagers are just local teenagers going there to smoke pot or, worse, inject themselves with drugs. Still, Hamish decides that he and his policeman, Charlie "Clumsy" Carson, will spend the night at the ruined castle to get to the bottom of the rumors once and for all. There's no sign of any ghost...but then Charlie...

The aromas of wild thyme and Highland heather waft through Lochdubh, home to M. C. Beaton's eccentric policeman, Hamish Macbeth. Yet what the irascible constable smells in his latest case is the acrid scent of fear as an entire town is entrapped in something dark and deadly. Yet, as he deftly investigates the summer's high crimes and misdemeanors, he attracts the attention of his superiors. They feel a promotion and transfer will give him a larger...

Unlike quite a number of people, Agatha has not given up on Christmas. To have the perfect Christmas had been a childhood dream while surviving a rough upbringing in a Birmingham slum. Holly berries glistened, snow fell gently outside, and inside, all was Dickensian jollity. And in her dreams, James Lacey kissed her under the mistletoe, and like a middle-aged sleeping beauty, she would awake to passion once more...Agatha Raisin is bored. Her detective...