Agatha Raisin is a fictional detective in a series of humorous mystery novels, originally written by Marion Chesney using the pseudonym M. C. Beaton. Chesney's friend Rod W. Green took over as writer with Hot to Trot. The books are published in the U.K. by Constable & Robinson and in the US by St. Martin's Press. Raisin has been played by Penelope Keith on BBC Radio 4, and by Ashley Jensen in the television series Agatha Raisin. The pilot aired on Sky 1 in December 2014. A full 8-part series, filmed during 2015, began airing on Sky 1 in June 2016. For series 2, the format was changed from 45-minute episodes to two 90-minute TV movies. Series 3 premiered on 28 October 2019 and the four stories retained the 90-minute format.

Character

Agatha Raisin is a frustrated, yet endearing, middle-aged public-relations agent who moved from London to Carsely in the Cotswolds when she sold her public-relations firm in Mayfair and took early retirement. She solves murders in each of the earlier books, but in the fifteenth book Agatha Raisin and the Deadly Dance (2004) Agatha sets up her own detective agency. The police, and even some of her acquaintances, insist that she solves crimes through accident and luck. In the first book, Agatha Raisin and the Quiche of Death (1992), Agatha is 53. (She remains 'in her early fifties' throughout the series, even in the novels set during the late 2000s / early 2010s recession. ) She was born Agatha Styles in a tower block slum in Birmingham to Joseph and Margaret Styles, both unemployed drunks living on benefits and occasional bouts of shoplifting. She went for one glorious week on a rare family vacation to the Cotswolds (her parents preferred going to a casino/holiday camp) and she never forgot that golden holiday or the beauty of the countryside. Agatha went to the local comprehensive, then saved enough from her biscuit factory wages to run off to London. After an evening secretarial course she worked as a secretary in a public relations firm, moved into public relations work and saved enough to start her own firm. She lives in the village of Carsely, but her detective agency Raisin Investigations and the police headquarters where Bill Wong is based are in the nearby town of Mircester. Even though Carsely and Mircester are fictional, they are based on true places; she does, however frequent Evesham, Moreton-in-Marsh, Stow-on-the-Wold, Chipping Campden and other nearby villages quite often. Agatha's first case came when she first moved to Carsely and heard about a quiche competition. She promptly bought a spinach quiche in London from a famous quiche shop and entered it as her own. She was outraged she did not win but later the judge, Reg Cummings-Browne, took another slice and died from cowbane poisoning. Frustrated, Agatha set out to find the poisoner and clear her own name. Agatha's character in the TV series, as played by Ashley Jensen, is notably different to her depiction in the novels: she is less bitter and more vulnerable than the version in the books. Other characters from the novels and some of the relationships between them are also notably different in the TV series, making the cast more of an ensemble.

Novels

Short stories

Recurring characters