Death of a Maid

December 11, 2006
At the start of Beaton's enjoyable 22nd Hamish Macbeth mystery (after
\t\t 2006's Death of a Dreamer), the lovable
\t\t Scottish constable stumbles over the body of a gossipy housecleaner, Mrs. Mavis
\t\t Gillespie. She's been bludgeoned to death with her own pail, and there are
\t\t plenty of suspects to go around in the Highlands village of Lochdubh. None of
\t\t her clients liked her, but they insist she was a superb maid. Macbeth, noticing
\t\t thick layers of dust in their homes, digs a little deeper and learns that Mrs.
\t\t Gillespie was a more skilled blackmailer than housecleaner. His jealous senior
\t\t colleagues try to thwart his investigation, but he's determined to get to the
\t\t bottom of things. Meanwhile, the arrival of an erstwhile ladyfriend in town
\t\t with a new beau makes lifelong bachelorhood appear not so appealing to Macbeth,
\t\t who remains as charming a hero as ever in this funny, unpredictable read.
\t\t

January 1, 2007
The laid-back Hamish Macbeth police procedurals, set in the remote reaches of the Scottish Highlands, almost define the British cozy. The Atlantic rages at the borders of the tiny village of Lochdubh, while unseemly passions rage within the town's picturesque cottages, reliably spilling over into murder. Macbeth, the local constable, is responsible for cleaning up the messes. A conflict running through the series, which gives a bit of contemporary zest to the plots, is Macbeth's struggles to fight against promotion, which would entail leaving the trout streams and Highland paths of Lochdubh for the crime-ridden streets of Strathbane. In this twenty-second entry in the much-loved series, a mean-spirited local housecleaner is brained with her own bucket. Local feeling runs so high against the nasty, gossiping shrew that Macbeth's suspect card is overfull. Macbeth's investigation uncovers, as usual, secrets seemingly worth defending with murder. As usual, Beaton delivers a delightfully old-fashioned, absorbing village mystery.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2007, American Library Association.)