Death of a Dreamer [Hardcover]

Starred Review. Beaton's flawless 21st installment in her popular Hamish Macbeth series (after 2005's Death of a Bore) boasts amusing local color and singularly savvy sleuthing. Macbeth, constable in the Highlands village of Lochdubh, thinks the apparent suicide of Effie Garrard, an artist who's arrived in town only recently, is suspicious. Following the murder of a nosy American tourist, Macbeth digs a little deeper and learns that Effie couldn't paint to, er, save her life—she was passing off another artist's work as her own. Macbeth's personal life is also consuming: two old flames turn up in Lochdubh within a few days of each other. Of course, Macbeth solves what turns out to be a double murder—but resolution of his romantic contretemps will have to wait for the next novel in this charming series. Beaton, who's also the author of the Agatha Raisin mystery series, will be the British guest of honor at the 2006 Bouchercon. (Feb.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

*Starred Review* A wine bottle loaded with antifreeze. A Scottish dance party interrupted by obsessive jealousy. A Brigadoon-like setting in northern Scotland that quickly turns Hitchcockian. Beaton is a masterful mixer of disparate elements that result in crime novels that are part police procedural and part psychological thriller. In this, the twenty-first in the Hamish Macbeth series, Beaton positions the stolid Constable Macbeth, sole lawman in the tiny village of Lochdubh in the Highlands, at the end of a winter marked by a series of spectacular blizzards. Macbeth is certain that the newcomer to the village, Effie Garrard, an artist under the influence of the usual romantic baggage about life in the Highlands, will have long abandoned her isolated cottage. But Effie seems to be in fine fettle, even talking about another newcomer artist falling in love with her. Then spring arrives, and Effie is found dead on a hillside. Macbeth's higher-ups rule the death a suicide, but he is bothered by the scene of the crime and the psychology behind the woman's death. A clear-cut case of murder follows, with Macbeth trying to discover a connection between the two. While the plotting itself is intricate and absorbing, Beaton, a Scot herself, excels at giving readers a taste of Highland life and creating a believable character in the lonely, brilliant, continually frustrated-in-love Macbeth. A treat. Connie Fletcher
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Occasionally, the rugged landscape of Scotland attracts dreamers who move north, wrapped in fantasies of enjoying the simple life. They usually dont last, defeated by the climate or by inhospitable locals. But it looks as if Effie Garrand has come to stay. When local constable Hamish Macbeth calls on her, he is amazed to find the small woman still in residence after a particularly hideous winter. Unfortunately, Effie is also quite delusional, having convinced herselfand everyone elsethat local artist Jock Fleming is in love with her, and that they are engaged. After a huge fight with Jock, Effie is found in the mountains, poisoned by hemlock. Now, its up to Hamish Macbeth to find the dreamers killerbefore any more nightmares unfold.

M.C. Beaton has written fourteen Hamish Macbeth mysteries. She is the author of the Agatha Raisin series and is a film commentator on BBC television. M. C. Beaton lives in a Cotswolds cottage with her husband.

Graeme Malcolm gives a nuanced portrayal of diverse characters inhabiting or visiting a remote village in northern Scotland. Various characters stride across the canvas, and Malcolm essays them all, including a grumpy American, and Englishmen and women from down south. Malcolm succeeds without going into falsetto or mumbling incoherently; it's all in the pacing and accent and cadence. His vaguely Scottish narrative voice binds the story together. Constable Hamish Macbeth, who has starred in 20 previous mysteries, must cope with a delusional female visitor whose fantasies lead to murder. The voice and the setting are so compatible that one settles back and enjoys the story, scarcely noticing the narrator's expertise. D.R.W. © AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine --This text refers to the Audio CD edition.