“Agatha Raisin and the Vicious Vet ” by M.C. Beaton

Agatha Raisin and the Vicious Vet (1993)  St. Martin’s, 199 pages, $17.95 hardcover  ISBN 0‑312‑09242‑3 Agatha Raisin arrived at London’s Heathrow Airport with a tan outside and a blush of shame inside. She felt an utter fool as she pushed her load of luggage towards the exit. She had just spent two weeks in the […]

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“Agatha Raisin and the Quiche of Death” by M.C. Beaton

Agatha Raisin and the Quiche of Death (1992). St. Martin’s, 201 pages, $17.95 hardcover  ISBN 0‑312‑08153‑7 When we first meet Agatha Raisin, she’s 53 years old and about to retire from her public relations job in London to a cottage in the Cotswolds: “The Cotswolds in the Midlands are surely one of the few man‑made

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“Death of a Gossip” by M.C. Beaton

Death of a Gossip (1985) Warner Books, 179 pages, $6.50 paperback  ISBN 0‑446‑60713‑4 Every week during salmon-fishing season a new class arrives at the fishing school in Lochdubh run by John and Heather Cartwright. But town constable Hamish Macbeth has a bad feeling about this particular class…. Macbeth is the lone police officer in Lochdubh,

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M.C. Beaton: Introductory Notes

M.C. Beaton is a pseudonym of Marion Chesney, who is known primarily for the more than 100 historical romance novels she has published under her own name and under several pseudonyms: Helen Crampton, Ann Fairfax, Jennie Tremaine, and Charlotte Ward. But M.C. Beaton is the pseudonym she reserves for her mystery novels. Marion Chesney was

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The Best Books I Read in 1999

Listed alphabetically by author Berg, A. Scott. Lindbergh Cheever, Susan. Note Found in a Bottle: My Life as a Drinker Connelly, Michael. The Black Echo Danticat, Edwidge. Breath, Eyes, Memory Deane, Seamus. Reading in the Dark Dickens, Charles. Great Expectations Joyce, James. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man Krakauer, Jon. Into Thin

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“Certain Prey” by John Sandford

Sandford, John. Certain Prey (1999)  G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 339 pages, $24.95 hardcover   ISBN 0 399 14496 X   In his latest Lucas Davenport thriller John Sandford does something different: he focuses on the villain as much as on the hero. And what a villain it is: Clara Rinker, the best hit woman (or hit

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book review

“The Body Project” by Joan Jacobs Brumberg

Brumberg, Joan Jacobs. The Body Project: An Intimate History of American Girls Random House, 1997Hardcover, 267 pagesISBN 0-679-40297-7 Joan Jacobs Brumberg teaches in the fields of history, human development, and women’s studies at Cornell University. In this cultural and historical study, she describes how growing up female has changed over the last century and how, in

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“Orchid Beach” by Stuart Woods

Woods, Stuart. Orchid Beach (1998)HarperCollins, 325 pages, $25.00 hardcover  ISBN 0-06-019181-3 Finally, a new book by Stuart Woods that doesn’t feature philandering superhero Stone Barrington. In fact, the protagonist of Woods’s latest novel is a woman, 37-year-old Holly Barker. After 20 years in the army, Barker retires when a male superior whom she and another

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book review

“The Professor and the Madman” by Simon Winchester

Winchester, Simon. The Professor and the Madman HarperCollins, 1998Hardcover, 242 pagesISBN 0-06-017596-6 Recommended Compilation of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), begun in 1857, required more than 70 years and the help of hundreds of volunteers who submitted examples of the usage of individual words. The editor of the project was Professor James Murray, a scholarly former

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“The Hunter” by Richard Stark

Stark, Richard.  The Hunter (1962); rpt. as Point Blank   Allison & Busby, 154 pages, $13.95 hardcover    ISBN 0 85031 591 3 {Richard Stark is a pseudonym Donald E. Westlake used for a series of stark noir thrillers featuring the character Parker.} As Parker walks across the George Washington Bridge into Manhattan at the

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