And when we chat, Marion – or M.C. Beaton – is nursing three cracked ribs and recuperating from a tumble.

"Yes I may well send Agatha flying down the stairs in a future adventure," she says.

I offer my sympathies – but they are short-lived when she tells me her recuperation is taking place in her Paris flat.

"It's on the Left Bank and there's a wonderful view of Notre Dame," she says when I ask her to describe where it is.

Her French hideaway is well-deserved. Six years ago, Marion was diagnosed with breast cancer, which not surprisingly, forced her to reassess her life.

"When the treatment was over, I said to my husband, 'you know, I've always wanted to live in Paris' and that was that. He got on to it straight away."

Marion's other home though is in the heart of the Cotswolds, where she writes her Agatha Raisin adventures come to life.

As fans will know, the Cotswolds are where this much-loved carries out much of her sleuthing.

Agatha is a former scary public relations boss who, after taking early retirement to the picture-perfect Cotswolds turns into an amateur sleuth, solving mysteries ably aided and abetted by a number of friends and neighbours, including Bill Wong, a half-Chinese, half-Gloucester detective sergeant, Doris Simpson, Agatha's cleaning lady and James Lacey, a retired colonel for whom Agatha carries a bit of a torch.

Marion has now completed 18 titles in the Agatha Raisin series – with number 19 due out in June – and since the first one appeared in 1993, she has earned herself critical acclaim as well as legions of fans.

Even normally acerbic-tongued TV presenter Anne Robinson is a devotee, proclaiming of Agatha and her adventures: "Sharp, witty, hugely intelligent, unfailingly entertaining, delightfully intolerant and oh so magnificently non PC."

"The books were first published in America as an antidote really for the dark mysteries and depressing stuff that seemed to be fashionable at the time," says Marion.

Since then they have been discovered by British readers – as well as being brought to life after being serialised recently on BBC Radio Four with Penelope Keith taking the starring role.

But Marion is also well known thanks another popular creation, Hamish Macbeth in 1985. Allegedly the idea for this detective came to Marion while she was learning to fly cast for salmon at a fishing school in northern Scotland.

The character was portrayed by Robert Carlisle in the hit BBC TV series, which is something of a contentious subject as far as Marion is concerned.

"No I was not happy about the show. Hamish was nothing like the Hamish Macbeth I had in mind; nothing like the books. But fortunately the books were established by then and you leave people to make up their own minds," she says.

Marion, who was born in Glasgow, says she had no literary ambitions when she started out as a fiction-buyer for a firm of book-sellers.

"I have always read. I always have my head in a book and have always loved authors such as Ian Fleming and Agatha Christie – I read those from being a young girl. I loved John Buchanan's 39 Steps and Dorothy L. Sayers. They were a terrific inspiration. But no, I never thought I'd be a household name. I have always wanted to entertain though and I do love telling stories."

From selling books, Marion moved into journalism after being asked to cover a pantomime.

"It was a review at the Glasgow Empire and I remember it coming about after a morning coffee visit. It was all a bit of a freak," she laughs.

She went on to become women's fashion editor for the magazine Scottish Field, then a reporter and theatre critic for the Scottish Daily Express and eventually a reporter for the Daily Express in London.

She says it was thanks to husband Harry Scott Gibbons – former foreign correspondent with the Daily Express – that she started to write novels. "He got me started really," she says.

She is now known for more than 100 historical romance novels, published not only under her own name but under several pseudonyms too, including Helen Crampton, Ann Fairfax, Jennie Tremaine and Charlotte Ward.

"I'll answer to anything," she laughs.
But M.C. Beaton is the name she reserves for her detective novels – a name that she came up with thanks to recalling a little childhood history.

"Well the MC bit is for Marion Chesney but then Beaton comes from Mary Beaton, as in one of the four Marys who were attendants of Mary Queen of Scots (there was also Livingstone, Fleming and Seaton.)

She tells me that she now has to be disciplined because of looming deadlines for the next Agatha Raisin mystery.

"Every single time I say 'never again' but then you just get stuck in," she says breaking into laughter.

Meet the authors - ticket details
Meet Marion Chesney at the Courier's very first literary lunch - Meet The Authors, which takes place at Berties Banqueting Rooms, Elland , on Thursday, May 22, from 11.20am. The event, which is sponsored by Finn Gledhill solicitors, also includes guests BBC Look North weatherman and author Paul Hudson and Calderdale's Trevor Simpson, author of the 1960s pop music book, Small Town Saturday Night. There is also a three course Yorkshire lunch and tickets cost £23.50 or £210 for a table of 10. They are available from Courier reception, King Cross Street; Brighouse Echo, West Park Street; Todmorden News, Fielden Square; Hebden Bridge Times, Crown Street or by ringing 01422 260358 with credit card or debit card details.

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The Swinging Sixties are on their way to our literary lunch