"R.W. Green is really getting better!"

5 Stars

Read other BLUNT Reviews by Shon

I thought my relationship with Agatha had come to a irrevocable end after reading R.W. Green's first credited installment for the series, "Hot to Trot." Like most readers, I thought it was trash and wondered if he'd read ANY of the books that came before.

After several months away, I had such withdrawal I decided to listen to titles in the series I'd long sense finished. While they brought me some "peace" re-reading that many books wasn't really providing me with much satisfaction. I needed NEW! New capers, new antics, new romantic frustrations in Agatha's unique flare. So, I resigned myself to giving Green a second date. But with a caveat...

I listened to his contributions to the Hamish series first (yes, I had given that up as well) and was pleasantly surprised to find the new author had done a more than acceptable job. So once I'd finished all available stories in that line, I headed back over to Lilac Lane.

It helped that Audible was having it's pre-holiday sale and I got my next 2 Agatha books at about$2 each.

"Down the Hatch" wasn't bad. So I kept going. This one, "Devil's Delight," I dare say, was quite good.

R.W. Green is really getting better!

Here's what he improved...

Instead of just making abrupt and out of character changes to the personalities we'd come to know and love over the course of 30+ books, in these two most recent, Green gave justifiable reasons for new decisions made and unusual actions taken by Aggie and friends AND made us privvy to the character's thought process while they made their choices.

In other words, he grew the characters up in order to make them his own. WHILE honoring their inner core created and immortalized by M. C. Beaton.

It's quite brilliant actually. It's precisely what improved American television when it matured from its episodic history of featuring one dimensional characters who never changed into the serialized fare we all know and binge today.

I mean tell the truth. How many more times did you REALLY want to see Agatha get led by her nose by James Lacey, or watch Bill Wong blindly lose another potential wife to an uncomfortable dinner with his inappropriate parents?

More importantly, how many more times would you have believed it?