Moonlighting for Murder: Agatha Raisin’s other job

As Jen Forbus pointed out, amateur sleuths must have something else to do all day, whether they’re journalists, or caterers, or stay-at-home moms. She therefore suggested that those of us who are blogging as part of Moonlighting week should write a post about our amateur’s “other job.”

Agatha Raisin is, of course, a retired public relations agent, who sells her London agency and moves to the Cotswolds in the first book in the series, Agatha Raisin and the Quiche of Death (1992). But Agatha has a hard time leaving PR behind, and in several of the books she puts her experience back to work.

In Agatha Raisin and the Wellspring of Death (1998), author M.C. Beaton explains that “Agatha Raisin was bored and unhappy,” so it’s no surprise that when Agatha’s former employee Roy Silver phones to ask if she wants to take the Ancombe Water Company account on a freelance basis, she threatens to take the job — in part because it will irritate Mrs. Darry, a newcomer whom Agatha finds ugly (not on account of her appearance, “but because of the atmosphere of judgmental bad temper and discontent” she carries with her, a description others might apply to Agatha). Then Agatha finds a dead man at the well where the company is buying its water, and she’s drawn into the mystery — in fact, she takes the job primarily so she can investigate the murder.

In A Spoonful of Poison (2008), although by this time Agatha has started up her own detective agency (yes, she’s renounced her amateur status but I decided to include this book for its PR aspects), she’s asked to help publicize a church fête, but when she goes to turn the job down, she spots highly attractive widower George Selby and instantly agrees to help.

So, what is Aggie’s version of public relations? In the first book, Beaton explains that

“It helps in public relations to have a certain amount of charm and Agatha had none. She got results by being a sort of one-woman soft-cop/hard-cop combination; alternately bullying and wheedling on behalf of her clients. Journalists often gave space to her clients just to get rid of her. She was also an expert at emotional blackmail and anyone unwise enough to accept a present of a free lunch from Agatha was pursued shamelessly until they paid back in kind.

We see this in Spoonful, when Agatha engages a famous pop singer to come to the fête, which in turn gets the promise of national press — and all because Agatha helped get “her going again” after a drugs bust. The fête is a huge success, at least until someone drugs the jam in the tasting booth. Nonetheless, the church clears thousands, and all because of Agatha.

In Wellspring, Agatha takes a more strategic role. During her job interview, for example, she questions the logo the company has selected for the bottles of water and discredits some of the ideas the company directors suggest to launch the new product, including an event at a stately home and a boat trip down the Thames (“old hat”). Instead, she proposes a village fête, which will buy the goodwill of the village while appealing to the British “rural dream of croquet and skittles and my lord dishing out the prizes.” When the press come to interview her about the dead man, Agatha invites them in for drinks and plugs the water company. And, Agatha turns a village protest meeting against the water company into a “roar of applause” when she announces the company’s plan for a village fête with film stars and the like, and she spends a week in London “cajoling journalists” to attend.

Those of you who know me know that I’m a professor of public relations, and I can assure you that Agatha’s brand of PR is not what I teach. She’s primarily a publicist and event planner, rather than a counselor, and only rarely (as at the village protest) does she make an effort to build relationships with key constituents. As a publicist, though, Agatha is a real pro: she’s usually effective, and she makes it looks easy. Fellow PR prof Philip Young has written about Agatha’s approach to media relations in The Quiche of Death — well worth a read!

Thanks again to Jen Forbus for hosting Moonlighting for Murder week (links to today’s posts). I know that you all can now identify at least one of the amateur sleuths in Jen’s Positions Wanted contest.