Agatha Raisin and the Day the Floods Came (Agatha Raisin series #12)

Agatha Raisin and the Day the Floods Came

 M.C. Beaton  (2002)

____________________________________________________________________________

I am in the midst of the Goodreads.com 2020 reading challenge.  This is my third challenge year and I am 4 books behind schedule.  Yikes!  To make a framework for the books I would read, I established a reading protocol early in the year to make book selection easy and organized.  Of course the closure of the libraries in my town make it a little awkward.  Each book chosen for this challenge must fall into one of the following categories:

     1. Authors recommended by other readers (author must be new to me)
     2. Any recommendations by my fellow readers of the online mystery reading group established in 1993 on Prodigy
    3. The next book in a series I have been reading
    4. The next book in a series I have abandoned (in an attempt to revive my interest)
    5. A book that references a historic event or period that is not in my lifetime  
    6. A book that references any historic event or a biography of a famous person who lived in my lifetime.  
    7. New mystery author with setting in USA.
    8. New mystery author with setting in western Europe.  

This novel satisfies Protocol #3

____________________________________________________________________________

 

Another warm summer day with Agatha Raisin ends up being quiet enjoyable.  Nothing more refreshing on a hot summer day than a protagonist who ends up locked in a meat locker.   I seriously forgot it was 90 degrees on my balcony!  

This cozy mystery series of an amateur detective (who is also a frustrated adult female in very high heels) and the men she chooses--never disappoints.  This is not a spoiler, but this novel begins with Agatha being quite frustrated, and she finds a way to be frustrated at the end.

This series is best read in order.  If it were just about the mystery, the series can be read in any order, but it is the frustrating romance situations Agatha encounters that are best when read in order.   For example, besides a mystery this time, Agatha has to juggle at least 5 men.  One who has disappeared, one who married a younger female in Paris and poor Agatha did not even get an invite, a very young male friend who comes in and out of the story, a police detective who seems to enjoy Agatha's style of investigation, and then there is some old guy who wants to kill her.    Not a bad romance gang of characters.

If a mystery reader needs to cuddle up with a series for the winter and/or the pandemic days we have left, this series is one I would suggest.   This is book 12--and I know there will be more.  How do I know?  Well, at the end of this mystery, Agatha cannot stop thinking of the guy who disappeared.  There is love in the air and if nothing else in book 13, Agatha is going to find it. (I hope).

I will be sorry when this series comes to an end.