Agatha Raisin is very happy living in the Cotswolds, enjoying her cottage and running her private investigation business. Despite living and working in small towns, she has a surprising amount of business. She gets some referrals for insurance claims, references from friends (her one-time love interest who asks her to help a friend with a woman claiming he fathered her child), and then there are the potential murder scenes that she stumbles on all by herself.

Taking a lunchtime walk near her office, Agatha is drawn by a woman’s screams to the Mircester Crown Green Bowling Club, where she discovers Mrs. Swinburn on the ground and a man’s body nearby. She checks on the man and realizes that it’s too late for him, so she calls the police for him, requesting an ambulance for Mrs. Swinburn. She and her husband had discovered the body, who they referred to as the Admiral. He was well known in the park, as the former president of the Bowling Club.

Agatha immediately thinks that the Admiral was poisoned, but the police officer who shows up to take over thinks it’s an accident. But she knows that she can still investigate and find out what happened. Meanwhile, she gets a call from a man who looked into his garden and saw some short wizards, giant smiling rats, and the ghost of Aslan, the white lion from The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe. They all ran away, but before they did, one of the smiling rats reached into a pouch on its belly and pulled out a tiny rat and threw it at him.

When Agatha showed up to see the tiny smiling rat, her date James realized that the rats were quokkas, the wizards were a type of monkey, and the lion was, well, a lion. Agatha finds out where the animals were headed and make plans to investigate the next day. But what she finds there puts her on the radar of some very dangerous men.

As Agatha investigates the Admiral’s death, she learns a lot about the man and about the men and women of the Bowling Club. Mrs. Swinburn is the current president, and she and her husband had worked to make the club friendly to women and children. The Admiral had banned children and discouraged women to join, and he had talked about taking out the rose bushes to add more greens. Aside from a few close friends, he hadn’t been a popular leader, so Agatha is finding plenty of suspects, including the Admiral’s widow Cathy.

But when her investigating turns into a death-defying car ride, with another car behind her trying to run her off the road, will Agatha’s will to uncover the truth be stronger than someone’s desire to keep the secret, or will it mean the end of Agatha Raisin?

M.C. Beaton’s favorite Miss Marple is back with yet another murder investigation in Down the Hatch. Author R. W. Green, working with the late Ms. Beaton’s characters and her ideas, has crafted a new Agatha Raisin book with all the bells and whistles, all the snakes and bastards, and all the potential love interests and heartbroken exes that you could ask for.

I adore Agatha. I love her new life in the Cotswolds, love the characters who surround her, and love her spirit and ingenuity. I thoroughly enjoyed Down the Hatch. While it may not be my favorite Agatha Raisin, this is certainly in the top 5, which is impressive for a series with 32 books. There is a lot going on in this book, and all of it is classic Aggie. Getting to read a new Agatha Raisin book is almost as good as retiring to a lovely Cotswold cottage myself. It’s just so much fun!

Egalleys for Down the Hatch were provided by St. Martin’s Press, Minotaur Books, through NetGalley, with many thanks.