Having lost all her hair when a malicious hairdresser shampooed her with a depilatory in the previous novel, Agatha goes off to a resort town to hide away. She gets a love potion and a hair tonic from a local witch who subsequently is discovered floating in the ocean. Now Agatha has a new love interest and a new crime to solve.

In despair over her lost loves, Agatha sticks a pin in a map and decides to move to Northumberland. The house she rents seems to be haunted by fairies. Then another mystery occurs when there is a murder in a manor house and the manuscript of Agatha's crime novel -- Murder at the Manor -- is discovered by the police. Agatha is embarrassed but undeterred. With Sir Charles Fraith once again on the scene in his continued quest to relieve his boredom, she sets out to find out who the real murderer is.

Agatha finally marries James Lacey but the marriage is a total disaster. He mysteriously disappears and a woman with whom he had had an affair is murdered. Agatha and her friend Charles investigate the murdered woman's past and try to find the missing James.

12. Agatha Raisin and the Day the Floods Came
by M. C. Beaton
Paperback: 240 pages
Publisher: St. Martin's Minotaur
October 19, 2003
ISBN: 031298586X

On vacation at Robinson Crusoe's Island near the coast of Chile, Agatha Raisin observes a newly married couple who seem to have a very one-sided relationship. She finds out later that the young husband has murdered his wife. This tragic event suggests to Agatha that a similar thing may have happened near her home when she sees the body of a bride-to-be dressed in her wedding gown floating under a bridge during a flood. Agatha investigates this bizarre incident with her new neighbor James Armitage, a handsome mystery writer who has moved into James' cottage next door.

13. Agatha Raisin and the Case of the Curious Curate
by M. C. Beaton
Hardcover: 224 pages
St. Martin's Minotaur
February 11, 2003
ISBN: 0312207689

The local vicar Alf Bloxby has a new curate, a very handsome man who draws a much larger crowd that the reverend has ever attracted. When the beautiful young man is murdered, Agatha and her neighbor John Armitage question the people who knew him to find out what really happened and to clear the vicar of suspicion.