<P> Agatha Raisin is a fictional detective in a series of humorous mystery novels by Marion Chesney using the pseudonym M.C. Beaton . They are published in the U.K. by Constable & Robinson and in the U.S.A. by St. Martins Press . </P> <P> 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 . </P> <P> 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 . </P> <P> In the first book, Agatha Raisin and the Quiche of Death (1992), Agatha is 53 . 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 . </P>

M c beaton agatha raisin books in order