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Summary
Summary
The aromas of wild thyme and Highland heather waft through Lochdubh, home to M. C. Beaton's eccentric policeman, Hamish Macbeth. Yet what the irascible constable smells in his latest case is the acrid scent of fear as an entire town is entrapped in something dark and deadly.
Yet, as he deftly investigates the summer's high crimes and misdemeanors, he attracts the attention of his superiors. They feel a promotion and transfer will give him a larger playing field than Lochdubh, but that's the last thing Macbeth wants. Now the laconic lawman needs a clever way to quash the move without losing his job entirely.
Author Notes
M. C. Beaton's real name is Marion Chesney. She was born in Glasgow, Scotland, in 1936. She has written over a hundred books under her own name and other pseudonyms: Ann Fairfax, Helen Crampton, Jennie Tremaine, Charlotte Ward, and Sarah Chester. She started her writing career while working as a fiction buyer for a bookstore in Glasgow.
Working at one time or another as a theater critic, newspaper reporter, and editor, she used her British background to write a series of regency romances set in England and Scotland. Some of her regency romances include The Folly, Colonel Sandhurst to the Rescue, and Regency Gold. In 1986, she was awarded the Romantic Times Award for Outstanding Regency Series Writer.
She has also written two mystery series under the pseudonym M. C. Beaton: The Hamish Macbeth Series, which became the inspiration for a television show in England, and The Agatha Raisin Series, about a retired advertising executive. Her title His and Hers made The New York Times Best Seller List for 2012.
Marion Chesney passed away on December 31, 2019 at the age of 83.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Scottish policeman Hamish Macbeth tries to avoid a dreaded promotion while solving assorted crimes and crossing swords with pretty reporter Elspeth Grant in his episodic 18th outing (after 2002's Death of a Celebrity). Macbeth knows something is amiss in the village of Stoyre, because the residents have become even more religious and closemouthed than usual. Discovering and rooting out the cause will cost him dearly. All Macbeth's talents are on display as he performs a heroic rescue, outwits some crooks and meets violence with violence. For all his nonchalance, the laconic Macbeth does his best to protect his people and preserve his way of life among them. Beaton fans will rejoice. (Feb. 18) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Booklist Review
Beaton adds a new twist to the standard murder-in-a-village plot. Something strange is happening in the quiet fishing village of Storye. A pervasive air of evil seems to linger over the cottages and the kirk of this unremarkable hamlet in the Scottish Highlands. Determined to expose the reason why the taciturn local residents are actively discouraging tourists, quirky Constable Hamish Macbeth decides to vacation in Storye for a few days. Leaving his comfortable home base in Lochdubh for more primitive digs up the coast, he himself becomes the victim of foul play. When an elderly woman is seemingly frightened to death by an inexplicable apparition, Hamish must uncover a secret the entire town is dying to protect. In addition, the less-than-ambitious Macbeth does his best to avoid a promotion after he solves a string of smaller mysteries artfully interwoven into the main plot. Another delightful installment in a perennially entertaining series. --Margaret Flanagan
School Library Journal Review
Adult/High School-The village of Lochdubh, in the Scottish Highlands, seems to be peaceful enough, but Hamish Macbeth, the local policeman, keeps uncovering criminal activity almost by accident. There is something fishy going on over in the isolated village of Stoyre, too. With a clear-eyed understanding of people and an uncommon degree of common sense, Macbeth solves these riddles almost effortlessly. His real problem is not crime, but avoiding promotion; each time he catches a wrongdoer or saves a child, he comes to the attention of his superiors, who feel his talents are wasted in Lochdubh. But his life there, with its cottage police station, his dog, his hens and sheep, and an attractive new journalist on hand, suits Macbeth very well. And though the villagers think him lazy and unambitious, they don't want to see him go, either, as they would lose their police station if he were transferred. The trademark charm of the series-quirky humor, eccentric characters, and dark overtones-is in full swing here; fans will be well pleased, and readers new to Lochdubh can enjoy this as a stand-alone volume.-Christine C. Menefee, Fairfax County Public Library, VA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
Once again, Hamish Macbeth, sole guardian of the law in Scotland's Lochdubh village and environs, is fighting the specter of promotion as he tangles-successfully, he hopes, but not too dramatically-with a series of complex puzzles in his bailiwick. Helped at times by local reporter Elspeth Grant, Hamish deals with domestic intrigue, fake insurance claims, and skullduggery at a nursing home in nearby Braikie village. The most worrisome item on his agenda, however, takes him to the village of Stoyre. The entire town seems to be gripped by an outbreak of unholy religious fervor, its church packed with grimly unresponsive worshippers. Is this ferocious newfound piety connected to the bombing of the house owned by Major Jennings, widely regarded by the locals as godless? Hamish is determined to find out. A couple of visits to Stoyre, its cliffs, and the surrounding sea, provide him with some far-fetched possibilities-none of them as bizarre as the actual events behind the town's sudden and remarkable religious conversion. Beaton (Death of a Celebrity, 2001, etc.) rarely disappoints, and his 19th adventure finds Hamish in top form, with intriguing puzzles to solve, the possibility of a new romance, and ever more inventive ways of avoiding a promotion to higher rank and transfer from his beloved Lochdubh.
