Book Review: The Perfect Paragon by M. C. Beaton (2005)

Synopsis: Agatha Raisin is in a bit of a rut. Business has slowed down at her detective agency, forcing her to downsize her staff and the few cases she does get are barely enough to pay the bills. Even though she hates divorce cases, she reluctantly agrees to let Robert Smedley hire her to spy on his wife, Mabel, only to find Mabel is both smart enough to know she is being followed and might be the most perfect wife ever. Things take an unexpected turn soon when Agatha and her new photographer, Phil, discover the body of missing teenager Jessica Bradley. For publicity, Agatha vows to find Jessica's killer free of charge but when Robert Smedley is also murdered, just hours after un-hiring Agatha and claiming he made up with his wife, Agatha soon finds evidence suggesting the murders might be related.

Review:  I misjudged how long it would take me to read the stack of books I checked out from our library prior to its temporary closure for renovation and finished the last one, The Perfect Paragon, last night and with about a week to go until the library re-opens. Sadly, this book did wind up being a bit of a disappointment for me, leaving me waiting out the final few days on a bit of a down note.

When amateur sleuth Agatha Raisin went legit by opening her detective agency a couple books ago, I was intrigued. However, while that twist did exceed expectations at first, I am starting to think it is a bit of a hindrance, and this book is a great example as to why.

The whole point of these mysteries is to demonstrate Agatha as someone who is flawed but has an uncanny gift of being a good (or perhaps just lucky) detective. Since opening her agency, it seems as though just about everyone is just as good, if not better, at sleuthing. In this case, it was a retired photographer, Phil, who worked out where Jessica's body was hidden and found the key piece of evidence that broke the case. Her other new hire, Harry, possibly could have solved the case on his own.

Agatha was just kind of there, contributing some things but mostly just sulking. She didn't even solve the crime, in my opinion. She just accidentally stumbled upon the solution and only comes out looking like the hero because the police were slightly worse at detective work (seriously, their entire forensics team should be fired for missing two very important clues that weren't that hard to find).

Also not helping this book was the mystery itself. When Jessica was the only victim, there were a whole mess of possible suspects. Once Smedley and one more were murdered, it really came down to just two. There was, admittedly, a little bit of a twist at the end, but the book let that cat out of the bag a couple chapters too soon.

Final Opinion: I am probably going to take a break from reading Agatha Raisin mostly out of frustration of the direction the character is taking and the dread over one of her love interests being re-introduced in the final chapter. When I do get back to reading the series, I hope she regains some of her detective mojo.

My Grade: C-

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Here are some reviews of other murder mysteries:

Book Review: A Murder is Announced by Agatha Christie (1950)

Book Review: School for Murder by Robert Barnard (1984)

Book Review: The Single Twin by Sean Patrick Little (2019)

Book Review: The Case of the Long-Legged Models by Erle Stanley Gardner (1957)