Published: 4th August 2009 (print)/1st July 2012 (audio) 
Publisher: Minotaur Books/Bolinda Audio
Pages: 192/4 hrs and 40 mins
Narrator: Penelope Keith
Format: Audiobook
Genre: Cosy Mystery
★ ★ – 2 Stars
Agatha Raisin joins Dembley hiking club to pursue handsome Cotswold neighbour James Lacey. Angry member Jessica targets wealthy landowner Charles Fraith, who retaliates with tea invitation, but her body is found dead on his grounds. Agatha and James investigate the crime, the group ready to kill.
I didn’t enjoy this one nearly as much as the others. This was almost an uneventful story and it couldn’t hold my interest, no matter how hard I tried I couldn’t focus on the story and my mind kept wandering. I think in part it was the long dialogue between the walkers and the story in general, there was nothing engaging about it.
Even during the reveal of the culprit I found myself tuning out because I wasn’t interested. Nothing in the story had grabbed me enough to care about these characters or what they were doing. The most interesting part of the whole thing was at the very end with the set up for the events in the next book.
The story isn’t set in the village of Carsley and as a result we are introduced to a host of new characters. After the events at the end of the last book where Agatha returned to London briefly, she gets herself involved with the walkers through her desire to get fit, and as usual goes over the top and her vanity and complaints take up a lot of sentences.
With a lot of the focus on the walkers most of the story revolves around them, as well as those in the surrounds of the new village like Sir Charles Fraith. I liked how Charles tells Agatha outright that she shouldn’t pursue James because I never connected with this love match Beaton is trying for. They get together to start sleuthing about who the murderer could be, but since James has shown barely any interest in Agatha, often seems to dislike her at times, it’s weird trying to force them together.
You can purchase Agatha Raisin and the Walkers of Dembley via the following
Lost in a Good Book 