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Agatha Raisin #22.5
Le Noël d'Agatha
Lorsqu'Agatha Raisin décide d'organiser le Noël des personnes âgées dans un petit village des Cotswolds, elle ne s'attend pas à ce que la fête tourne au drame. Ni une ni deux, la voilà pourtant avec un cadavre sur les bras, accusée de meurtre ! L'arme du crime ? Le dessert le plus british qui soit : un pudding ! Il faudrait un miracle ou l'intervention du père Noël pour la sortir de ce bourbier. Mais Agatha compte bien pister le vrai coupable...
64 pages, Paperback
First published August 28, 2012
320 people are currently reading
2509 people want to read
About the author
M.C. Beaton
358 books6,078 followersLike her on Facebook!
Learn more on her website!
Marion Chesney Gibbons
aka: Ann Fairfax, Jennie Tremaine, Helen Crampton, Marion Chesney, Charlotte Ward, Sarah Chester.
Marion Chesney was born on 1936 in Glasgow, Scotland, UK, and started her first job as a bookseller in charge of the fiction department in John Smith & Sons Ltd. While bookselling, by chance, she got an offer from the Scottish Daily Mail to review variety shows and quickly rose to be their theatre critic. She left Smith’s to join Scottish Field magazine as a secretary in the advertising department, without any shorthand or typing, but quickly got the job of fashion editor instead. She then moved to the Scottish Daily Express where she reported mostly on crime. This was followed by a move to Fleet Street to the Daily Express where she became chief woman reporter. After marrying Harry Scott Gibbons and having a son, Charles, Marion went to the United States where Harry had been offered the job of editor of the Oyster Bay Guardian. When that didn’t work out, they went to Virginia and Marion worked as a waitress in a greasy spoon on the Jefferson Davies in Alexandria while Harry washed the dishes. Both then got jobs on Rupert Murdoch’s new tabloid, The Star, and moved to New York.
Anxious to spend more time at home with her small son, Marion, urged by her husband, started to write historical romances in 1977. After she had written over 100 of them under her maiden name, Marion Chesney, and under the pseudonyms: Ann Fairfax, Jennie Tremaine, Helen Crampton, Charlotte Ward, and Sarah Chester, she getting fed up with 1714 to 1910, she began to write detectives stories in 1985 under the pseudonym of M. C. Beaton. On a trip from the States to Sutherland on holiday, a course at a fishing school inspired the first Constable Hamish Macbeth story. They returned to Britain and bought a croft house and croft in Sutherland where Harry reared a flock of black sheep. But Charles was at school, in London so when he finished and both tired of the long commute to the north of Scotland, they moved to the Cotswolds where Agatha Raisin was created.
Learn more on her website!
Marion Chesney Gibbons
aka: Ann Fairfax, Jennie Tremaine, Helen Crampton, Marion Chesney, Charlotte Ward, Sarah Chester.
Marion Chesney was born on 1936 in Glasgow, Scotland, UK, and started her first job as a bookseller in charge of the fiction department in John Smith & Sons Ltd. While bookselling, by chance, she got an offer from the Scottish Daily Mail to review variety shows and quickly rose to be their theatre critic. She left Smith’s to join Scottish Field magazine as a secretary in the advertising department, without any shorthand or typing, but quickly got the job of fashion editor instead. She then moved to the Scottish Daily Express where she reported mostly on crime. This was followed by a move to Fleet Street to the Daily Express where she became chief woman reporter. After marrying Harry Scott Gibbons and having a son, Charles, Marion went to the United States where Harry had been offered the job of editor of the Oyster Bay Guardian. When that didn’t work out, they went to Virginia and Marion worked as a waitress in a greasy spoon on the Jefferson Davies in Alexandria while Harry washed the dishes. Both then got jobs on Rupert Murdoch’s new tabloid, The Star, and moved to New York.
Anxious to spend more time at home with her small son, Marion, urged by her husband, started to write historical romances in 1977. After she had written over 100 of them under her maiden name, Marion Chesney, and under the pseudonyms: Ann Fairfax, Jennie Tremaine, Helen Crampton, Charlotte Ward, and Sarah Chester, she getting fed up with 1714 to 1910, she began to write detectives stories in 1985 under the pseudonym of M. C. Beaton. On a trip from the States to Sutherland on holiday, a course at a fishing school inspired the first Constable Hamish Macbeth story. They returned to Britain and bought a croft house and croft in Sutherland where Harry reared a flock of black sheep. But Charles was at school, in London so when he finished and both tired of the long commute to the north of Scotland, they moved to the Cotswolds where Agatha Raisin was created.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 360 reviews
December 12, 2023
Oh I much prefer an older Agatha Raisin! She has developed a personality since her very first book, it seems. This one contained some saucy characters in some unconventional situations. A fun, short holiday story that makes me want to read another of the earlier Agatha Raisin stories.
January 14, 2019
Rapidement lu pendant une insomnie, c'était sympathique de retrouver Agatha Raisin, fidèle à elle-même, mais l'histoire est vraiment trop courte pour se passionner et il n'y a pas vraiment de mystère.
November 11, 2024
4⭐️ = Good.
Paperback.
A fun, very short story. I do love Agatha!😂
Paperback.
A fun, very short story. I do love Agatha!😂
March 31, 2014
M.C. Beaton's "Christmas Crumble" is a very short (36 pages) book that isn't worth the sub-dollar price currently being charged for it. Oh, not for the price or shortness. But, very simply because Beaton thinks it's supposed to be humorous, when, instead, it's just a series of nasty, shallow, people being rotten. Also, and this is somewhat important for a work classified as a Mystery, Detective, and Sleuth book, there's really no mystery here, no sleuthing, and the detective in this case isn't worth her own pudding. I rate it at a Highly Disappointing 1 star out of 5.
July 15, 2018
What is this even 😂 Really short, the plot was not even developed, I'm not exactly sure what was supposed to happen actually.
November 23, 2019
I do like a bit of Agatha Raisin. This is a very short story (about 36 pages) and not really a mystery. Rather than be lonely at Christmas, Agatha puts together a meal for a bunch of elderly village residents & accidentally kills one of the guests. Or does she? In 36 pages you aren't going to get a huge load of plot and story but it made a couple of bus rides a bit more interesting
September 1, 2021
This is a 3.5 star read.
December 29, 2024
Oui oui j’ai mis 1 étoile à la franchise Agatha Raisin vous ne rêvez pas…
On est sur un hors-série (et ça se sent) qui est mis sous la forme d’une nouvelle (jusque là tout va bien).
Le problème étant : où est la Agatha que nous connaissons dans les livres ? Dans cette nouvelle, son caractère est complètement différent de celui qu’on lui connaît, ce qui retire tout le charme et le piquant du personnage. L’enquête paraît insignifiante au vu des tomes que l’ont connaît bien.
Je ne vais pas m’attarder, c’était grotesque. Il est temps de repartir sur la collection ordinaire !
On est sur un hors-série (et ça se sent) qui est mis sous la forme d’une nouvelle (jusque là tout va bien).
Le problème étant : où est la Agatha que nous connaissons dans les livres ? Dans cette nouvelle, son caractère est complètement différent de celui qu’on lui connaît, ce qui retire tout le charme et le piquant du personnage. L’enquête paraît insignifiante au vu des tomes que l’ont connaît bien.
Je ne vais pas m’attarder, c’était grotesque. Il est temps de repartir sur la collection ordinaire !
May 6, 2023
Very short story. Two chapters long. At the end of Quiche of Death.
May 2, 2021
I had forgotten how fun Agatha Raisin's character is. Her antics is just LOL. In this short story, Agatha is hosting a Christmas party for a couple of elders in her community and sleazy Len Leech dies when Agatha Raisin's insecticide pudding lands on his head 😂😂 I thoroughly enjoyed this short story and it reminded me that I need to pick up this series from where I left off.
October 14, 2022
Rounding up to 4 stars. This packs a lot in for such a short story, but it ends a bit unpleasantly and abruptly. As I’ve found with these Agatha Raisin books, they forget they are meant to be cosy crime and get a bit heavy. One minute we have comedy Christmas puddings, then we have a mention of rape and an elderly woman being assaulted to silence her. If only these books would keep the tone to the right side of the line, I’d enjoy them a lot more.
November 18, 2025
A short story of 33 pages. An hilarious tale of Agatha hosting a Xmas party for five lonely octogenarians with disastrous results when Agatha decides to cook a Xmas pudding. Death by Xmas pudding and the ensuing farcical investigation is amusing.
Of course Agatha is cleared but one of the participants decides to accuse Agatha but then suddenly drops her case and has a bruise on the side of her face. Who did it baffles Agatha.
Of course Agatha is cleared but one of the participants decides to accuse Agatha but then suddenly drops her case and has a bruise on the side of her face. Who did it baffles Agatha.
April 12, 2021
Pretty dumb story. I enjoy spending time with Agatha and Company but this book seemed fairly pointless. Like Beaton typed it out because someone needed a Christmas-themed short story. It includes typical Agatha behavior in the kitchen (she doesn't follow a recipe for Christmas pudding and thinks that leaving it in her shed is a good idea... I'm a terrible cook and even I know that's a plan destined for disaster.) One of her elderly Christmas dinner guests, Len, is an old lech and when he tries to grab her, Agatha tips the pudding on him. He ends up dead. Murder?
December 13, 2018
I read this Agatha Raisin short story (sub 40 pages) as part of a volume featuring the full-length "Agatha Raisin and the Blood of an Englishman". It's the first of several Christmas-themed stories by well-known writers that I intend reading this December.
Apart from its length, this story also departs from the Agatha Raisin oeuvre in that it is not in fact a "whodunit" detective story, but a simple narrative, albeit featuring a suspicious death!
Encouraged by her friend Mrs. Bloxby, Agatha decides to embrace the Christmas spirit of goodwill, rather than heading abroad as she usually would. She invites several local elderly people, who would otherwise be alone for Christmas, to her home for a slap-up lunch and lavish gifts. Predictably for Carsley, these are not lovely fluffy harmless oldies, but a challenging group of misfits, including an irascible spinster and an unrepentant octogenarian letch.
While employing caterers for the majority of the lunch, Agatha courageously attempts to make a Christmas pudding from scratch, under the scrutiny of her former employee / friend Roy Silver. As expected, the results are hilariously disastrous, but fortunately the pudding becomes the instrument of death for one of Agatha's guests before anyone has to eat it. The remainder of the story follows Agatha's attempts to extricate herself from suspicion, while her surviving guests reap the consequences of Agatha's act of Christmas kindness.
This was a humorous and light-hearted Christmas tale, with Agatha at her self-centred and disaster-prone best.
Apart from its length, this story also departs from the Agatha Raisin oeuvre in that it is not in fact a "whodunit" detective story, but a simple narrative, albeit featuring a suspicious death!
Encouraged by her friend Mrs. Bloxby, Agatha decides to embrace the Christmas spirit of goodwill, rather than heading abroad as she usually would. She invites several local elderly people, who would otherwise be alone for Christmas, to her home for a slap-up lunch and lavish gifts. Predictably for Carsley, these are not lovely fluffy harmless oldies, but a challenging group of misfits, including an irascible spinster and an unrepentant octogenarian letch.
While employing caterers for the majority of the lunch, Agatha courageously attempts to make a Christmas pudding from scratch, under the scrutiny of her former employee / friend Roy Silver. As expected, the results are hilariously disastrous, but fortunately the pudding becomes the instrument of death for one of Agatha's guests before anyone has to eat it. The remainder of the story follows Agatha's attempts to extricate herself from suspicion, while her surviving guests reap the consequences of Agatha's act of Christmas kindness.
This was a humorous and light-hearted Christmas tale, with Agatha at her self-centred and disaster-prone best.
May 22, 2020
This review is about a short story by one of my favorite authors, M.C. Beaton.
In the short story, Agatha Raisin decided to cook a Christmas meal and invite a group of senior citizens that Mrs. Bloxley, the Vicar's wife, told her that they spent Christmas alone last year. During the party, Agatha Raisin dumps a bowl of Christmas pudding on a person's head who came onto her, who then died. One senior insisted that Agatha killed him by doing that. The others at the dinner said that the Christmas pudding wasn't what killed her.
I loved every other book I have read by her. I loved the idea of this with inviting lonely seniors to dinner.
My only reason for not giving this four stars was that it ended too quickly. Maybe it is just me as I usually don't read too many short stories. I would have loved it as a full-length novel
In the short story, Agatha Raisin decided to cook a Christmas meal and invite a group of senior citizens that Mrs. Bloxley, the Vicar's wife, told her that they spent Christmas alone last year. During the party, Agatha Raisin dumps a bowl of Christmas pudding on a person's head who came onto her, who then died. One senior insisted that Agatha killed him by doing that. The others at the dinner said that the Christmas pudding wasn't what killed her.
I loved every other book I have read by her. I loved the idea of this with inviting lonely seniors to dinner.
My only reason for not giving this four stars was that it ended too quickly. Maybe it is just me as I usually don't read too many short stories. I would have loved it as a full-length novel
December 15, 2022
I'm always on the hunt for an Agatha Raisin murder mystery. This one is exceptionally short, and ended on a really ambiguous note. This annoyed me at first, but now I likeAgat ha's mysterious answer to the question, "Has one of your investigations ever gone unsolved?
The plot involves Agatha deciding to give a Christmas Dinner to folks in town that she calls "the crumblies" -- elderly folks who would normally have been alone on the holiday. True to form, Agatha caters the meal but decides to make the Christmas Pudding - hilarious and gross at the same time.
Let's just say that the dinner does not go as well as Agatha had hoped.
Again, this was extremely short (36 pages, according to Goodreads) and perhaps the lack of development in the story led to my decreased reading satisfaction compared to previous encounters w/ Agatha.
The plot involves Agatha deciding to give a Christmas Dinner to folks in town that she calls "the crumblies" -- elderly folks who would normally have been alone on the holiday. True to form, Agatha caters the meal but decides to make the Christmas Pudding - hilarious and gross at the same time.
Let's just say that the dinner does not go as well as Agatha had hoped.
Again, this was extremely short (36 pages, according to Goodreads) and perhaps the lack of development in the story led to my decreased reading satisfaction compared to previous encounters w/ Agatha.
January 1, 2016
If you love Agatha Raisin, as I do, this short story is a fun addition to her adventures. It reminded me of how much I enjoy M.C. Beaton and especially her both her Agatha Raisin and her Hamish Macbeth series. I find Agatha nasty and hilarious and I think I'm a little in love with Hamish and his Scottish village of Lochdubh!
May 18, 2020
This was short story in the Agatha Raisin series which I'd been unable to find before. It wasn't as interesting as a full Agatha Raisin mystery with only a few of the familiar characters & nothing of her detective agency. It was like reading a chapter of a book & not that interesting. Agatha wasn't as rude or nasty as she can sometimes be which was a pleasant change.
October 2, 2016
Fun and silly. Just right for a rainy afternoon.
September 4, 2019
Trop de descriptions élément perturbateur a mi nouvelle... Pas assez de rythme pour moi.
March 13, 2020
•C’était un livre court, drôle et chouette a lire. Comme il ne fait que 60 pages l’intrigue n’est pas complet et solide mais c’était une bonne petite lecture.
•Kısa, komik ve hoş bir kitaptı. Tabi bu kitaptan böyle detaylı ve güçlü bir polisiye eseri bekleyemeyiz çünkü kitap sadece 60 sayfadan oluşuyor. Komik bir kitaptı onu söyleyebilirim. Keşke sadece en baştaki ana olayda kalsaydık da ikinci bir olay karışmasaydı işin içine gereksizdi çünkü. Bu yüzden puan kırdım zaten. Eğlenmek ve gülmek isteyenler için güzel bir seçim olabilir.
•Kısa, komik ve hoş bir kitaptı. Tabi bu kitaptan böyle detaylı ve güçlü bir polisiye eseri bekleyemeyiz çünkü kitap sadece 60 sayfadan oluşuyor. Komik bir kitaptı onu söyleyebilirim. Keşke sadece en baştaki ana olayda kalsaydık da ikinci bir olay karışmasaydı işin içine gereksizdi çünkü. Bu yüzden puan kırdım zaten. Eğlenmek ve gülmek isteyenler için güzel bir seçim olabilir.
May 7, 2019
I had to do some research to figure out if I had read this before. It has a 2012 publication date, but I think in the U.S., it only appeared in a couple of reprint paperback editions of early titles in the series, which I wouldn't have read, since I read the early titles when they were first published. There's not much of a story here. In fact, this may be the only Raisin outing in which there's no murder. I would love to read a version where her party guests actually ate the adulterated pudding. I know Aggie is stubborn, and that she can't cook, but she's not stupid-- who would think it was okay to serve a pudding that had been doused with insect killer?
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 8, 2022
Lovely little short story from MC Beaton. I listened to this via audio and it was classic Agatha Raisin. Nothing particularly exciting or ground-breaking, just a quick little ditty in the Cotswolds to pass the time.
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December 19, 2025
Ci voleva proprio questa storia! Mi mancava Agatha e quindi me l’ero tenuta da parte per questo Natale: è un racconto, perciò molto più breve dei soliti romanzi, ma comunque incisivo e ben strutturato. Soprattutto, ho riso tantissimo!
December 10, 2020
Une courte et agréable incursion dans l’univers d’Agatha Raisin qui m’a donné envie de découvrir les romans !
December 19, 2021
A fun short read
August 4, 2022
Please, I need more elderly drama! “His rather prominent eyes roamed over her body. It felt like two snails leaving pornographic trails” 😂😂
July 7, 2024
This was a quick and fun read, more humorous than mysterious, but of course someone dies - it’s Agatha Raisin, after all.
August 13, 2025
Mouais.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 360 reviews