Agatha Raisin The Deadly Dance

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THE thing that finally nudged Agatha Raisin into opening her own detective agency was what she always thought of as the Paris Incident.

Made restless by the summer torpor blanketing the village of Carsely in the Cotswolds, Agatha decided to take a week’s holiday in Paris.

She was a rich woman, but like all rich people was occasionally struck by periods of thrift, and so she had booked into a small hotel off Saint Germain des Prés in the Latin Quarter. She had visited Paris before and seen all the sights; this time wanted only to sit in cafés and watch the people go by or take long walks by the Seine.

But Paris, after the first two days, became even hotter than Carsely and her hotel room did not have any air-conditioning. As the heat mounted to 105 degrees Fahrenheit and she tossed and turned on her damp sheets, she discovered that Paris never sleeps. There were two restaurants across the road with outside tables, and, up until one in the morning, the accordion players came around to get money from the diners. Agatha, as she listened to another rendering of “La Vie en Rose,” fantasized about lobbing a hand grenade through the window. Then there was the roar of the traffic and the yells of the tourists who had drunk not too wisely. Later on, as they felt not too well, she could hear moans and retching.

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