Death of a Witch

October 27, 2008
In bestseller Beaton’s devilishly droll 24th mystery to feature police constable Hamish Macbeth (after 2008’s Death of a Gentle Lady
), the Scottish Highlands’ most stubborn (and romantically challenged) bachelor returns to his home village of Lochdubh from a disappointing vacation to discover a witch stirring up trouble. To Macbeth’s annoyance, the sex-starved local men have fallen under the spell of Catriona Beldame, who turns out to be a runaway bride with a shady past. Macbeth longs to prove she’s selling illegal (and bogus) remedies for sexual dysfunction, and warns her to stop if she is. Macbeth gets a shock when someone murders Beldame and sets her house on fire—soon after Macbeth is overheard to say he’d like to kill her. Three more murders of other women quickly follow. Could a serial killer be loose in sleepy Lochdubh? As usual, Beaton’s crisp plotting and effervescent humor complement Macbeth’s deft crime solving.

This latest episode in the Hamish Macbeth series has our village constable investigating the death of a mysterious newcomer who, for various reasons (some rather amusing), managed to anger a number of Lochdub's residents, including Macbeth himself. Graeme Malcolm's brisk narration suits the pace of the novel, in which character development takes a backseat to plot--although Malcolm might pause a little more on occasion in order to separate one scene from the next and to create a bit of suspense. He has some difficulty voicing the female characters, but he gives Macbeth a low, occasionally gruff voice and a restrained manner that contrast nicely the constable's dry humor. A.E.B. (c) AudioFile 2009, Portland, Maine