M.C. Beaton

Peut-être ces Américains avaient-ils donné naissance à une nouvelle tradition anglaise, songea Agatha avec aigreur. Peut-être que dans cinq cents ans, des stripteaseurs se produiraient sur les places des villages de la région pendant que des guides exposeraient aux touristes les origines de ce rituel ancien.

C'est alors que Freda entra, flanquée d'un homme. Dans son tailleur vert pâle et son corsage de soie blanche, elle avait l'air aussi calme et fraîche qu'une laitue.

Agatha Raisin was bored and unhappy. Her neighbour, James Lacey, had returned at last to the cottage next door to her own in the Cotswold village of Carsely. She tried to tell herself that she was no longer in love with him and that his coldness towards her did not matter.
She had almost married him, but her husband, still then very much alive, had surfaced at the wedding ceremony, and James had never really forgiven her for her deception.

She had agreed to meet Ross in the bar of the City Hotel and to eat there as well, for the restaurant was passable and its windows commanded a good view of the River Thames.
She twisted this way and that in front of the mirror. The dress, a recent purchase, looked suspiciously tight. Too many expense account dinners and lunches; As soon as she got back to Carsely, she would take the weight off.

The weather was tropical. And this was England and this was Evesham in the Cotswolds. Agatha Raisin drove into the car-park at Merstow Green, turned off the air-conditioning, switched off the engine and braced herself to meet the wall of soupy heat which she knew would greet her the minute she stepped out of the car.
Like many, she had decided that all the scares about the greenhouse effect were simply lies made up by eco-terrorrist. But this August had seen clammy, sweaty days followed by monsoon thunderstorms at night. Most odd.

La pleine lune brillait, baignant tout d'une lumière argentée et faisant ressortir les bras squelettiques des arbres sur fond du ciel étoilé.

- Remember in future to keep your nose out of police business.
- If we had kept our noses out of police business then you would still be looking for a murderer.

I don't know if she exactly solved those last crimes, but she made things happen by poking her nose in; otherwise we'd never have got to the murderers.

Never say die. That's the philosophy Agatha Raisin clings to when she comes home to cozy Carsely and finds a new woman ensconced in the affections of her attractive bachelor neighbor, James Lacey.

The beautiful newcomer, Mary Fortune, is superior in every way, especially when it comes to gardening. And Agatha, that rose with many thorns, hasn't a green thumb to her name. With garden Open Day approaching, she longs for a nice juicy murder to remind James of her genius for investigation.

And sure enough, a series of destructive assaults on the finest gardens is followed by an appalling murder. Agatha seizes the moment and immediately starts yanking up village secrets by their roots and digging up all the dirt on the victim. Problem is, Agatha has an awkward secret of her own . . .

Je pense que vous mettez votre nez partout quand ce n'est pas nécessaire, mais que vous êtes d'une naïveté touchante quand ça l'est.

Il y a énormément de veuves dans le coin. Les hommes vivent moins longtemps.
- Du moins quand ils sont mariés.

Une fois le feu allumé et le chat nourri, un whisky bien tassé dans le gosier, Agatha sentit qu'elle survivrait. Que James Lacey aille se faire foutre, lui et ses congénères !

Bouge ton petit cul maigrichon de ta chaise et va dire à ton escroc de patron de me recevoir.

Pourquoi nous conduisons-nous comme des brebis errantes ? se demanda Agatha. Pourquoi les Britanniques sont-ils si peureux, soumis et placides? Pourquoi est-ce que personne ne crie, ne demande à voir le contrôleur pour exiger une explication ? D'autres peuples, plus expansifs, ne se laisseraient pas faire ainsi.

They had reached the Harbour, where fishing boats rose and fell at anchor on an oily swell. It was Sunday, the Lord's day, which meant the bar might be open but taking a fishing boat out was flying in the face of Providence.

"Just wait one sodding minute! I am not the invisible woman. I have solved cases for you before. This is the twenty-first century. How dare you all go on as if I don't exist and have nothing to contribute?"

There is nothing more depressing for a middle-aged lovelorn woman with bald patches on her head than to find herself in an English seaside resort out of season. Wind ripped along the promenade, sending torn posters advertising summer jollities flapping, and huge waves sent spray high into the air.
Agatha had lost her hair when a vengeful hairdresser had applied depilatory to it rather than shampoo. It had grown back in tufts but leaving distressingly bare patches of scalp.

It was a glorious day. Summer was edging its way into England. Hawthorn flowers were heavy with scent pink and white along the winding road out of Carsely. On either side of the Fosse Way, obviously a Roman road, for it runs straight as an arrow up steep hills and down the other side, lay fields of oilseed rape, bright yello, Van Gogh yellow, looking too vulgary bright among the gentler colours of the English countryside.

EVERYONE in the village of Carsely was agreed on one thing - no one had ever seen such a spring before.
Mrs. Bloxby, the vicar's wife, stepped out into her garden and took a deep breath of fresh-scented air. Never had there been so much blossom. The lilac trees were bent down under the weight of purple and white blooms. White hawthorn hedges formed bridal alleys out of the country lanes. Clematis spilled over walls like flowery waterfalls, and wisteria decorated the golden stone of the cottages with showers of delicate purple blooms. All the trees were covered in bright, fresh green. It was as if the countryside were clothed like an animal in a deep, rich pelt of leaves and flowers.

So although it was only early October, she tried to fill her mind with thoughts of Christmas. Unlike quite a number of perople, Agatha had not given up on Christmas. To have the perfect Christmas had been a childhood dream whilst surviving a rough upbringing in 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 midletoe, and, like a middle-aged sleeping beauty, she would awake to passion once more.
Her friend, the vicar's wife, Mrs. Bloxby, had once pointed out that Christmas was to celebrate the birth of Christ, but Agatha's mind shied away from that. To her, Christmas was more Hollywood than church.