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14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Delight!, April 24, 2003
Fans of Hamish Macbeth will rejoice! Hamish is back, slightly perturbed by stories that his adored Priscilla will be marrying someone else. He knows they're unsuitable -- but he misses her. Tall, red-headed Hamish continues to attract women, however, and the local reporter Elspeth has been showing some interest. With her help, he digs into a series of cases that only loosely relate to one another. A nearby village seems caught up in a sinister spell. A lovely young wife seems to be abused. Residents check into a local nursing home and some seem to check out awfully fast. And villagers report some mysterious action along the jagged coastline. Hamish loves a mystery but this time his skill may get him the reward he doesn't want: a promotion to a big-city police force, where he'll be lost in the crowd. Nearly every character in the series -- as well as the reviewers -- call Hamish unambitious, but I think he's a man who's got everything he wants, and he knows it. And on some level, he seems to know he's not destined for marriage (thankfully -- the series would never be the same) and takes comfort in his beloved dog, Lugs. It's easy to dismiss M.C. Beaton's books as light -- and they are -- but she's a solid writer. She creates characters in a sentence or two and even gives them some depth. Her characters have self-defeating flaws as well as heroic virtues. Her books are small but you get a real sense of people and place -- the result of tight, careful writing. On page 233, we learn how Hamish acquired Lugs -- in 3 sentences. Some writers would need 3 pages. Let's hope we see a few dozen more volumes from this prolific and gifted author.
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12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
It's SUPER Hamish!, April 1, 2003
No our highland hero doesn't don a cape and tights, but with as many crimes as he's solving he is achieving superhero status, with his devoted LUGS as his faithful sidekick. This time the irrepressible M.C. Beaton provides a delightful deviation from the formula of bumping off the most obnoxious character, and gives us lots of mystery and mayhem for the buck - but will an entire village die? And how to prevent a promotion that would send him away from his beloved Lochduh? With cunning, an offbeat attitude and a willingness for unorthox methods, he dances about the plodding Blair and Anderson and pulls numerous surprising solutions out of his hat. But weighing heavily is the peculiar air of the seaside town of Storye. Weighing almost as heavily is Hamish's luck with women. Will Priscilla really marry? Is Hamish in danger of cradle robbing? Will he ever give the right signal to the rather bizaare lady reporter? Is he really involved with his married admirer? With equal parts of tea and whiskey, Hamish manages to be the unluckiest - or luckiest? - Superhero of them all as the clock ticks for the Village of Storye. Let me also say that the cover is a departure, and one that makes the reader eager to crawl right into the book.
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18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
It's hip to be square, July 20, 2008
This review is from: Death of a Village (Hamish Macbeth Mysteries, No. 19) (Mass Market Paperback)
Greetings to the Ozarks, and thanks for recommending a delightful little ethnic cop series!
Hamish the hero is a village cop in the Scottish Western Highlands. He doesn't drink. He seems to like women, but somehow doesn't seem to handle it well. He is good at his job, but likes it so much he fears promotion more than anything in the world. Maybe apart from girls who don't dress properly. So he manages to avoid promotion by artful screw-ups, which don't damage the cases. His cases come at us by the half dozen.
Frankly speaking, that is why I deduct a star: the cases are too brief. Hamish hardly settles down to working at them and thinking them through, and there, bingo, they are solved already. Like the murderous nursing home, which is a case that probably interests a few people: it should have been developed more carefully, not with the short attention span approach of a pre-prime-time episodical. Or the insurance fraud case: Beaton doesn't even try to let us watch Hamish solve it; we just have to believe it, there is no indication of what kind of proof he found in the safe of the dealer.
But it is fun. Pity for Elspeth, had she worn different shoes, it might have worked.
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