Review: Death of a Ghost by M C Beaton

Death of a Ghost by M C Beaton, February 2017, Constable, ISBN: 1472117247

I'm a huge fan of M C Beaton's Hamish MacBeth series set in the Highlands of Scotland, which has been running for over thirty years now. Though time stands still in terms of the characters' ages they do move with the times in terms of modern accoutrements such as iPhones.

In this latest outing, DEATH OF A GHOST, Hamish and his latest police sidekick/colleague Charlie are summoned by an ex-police superintendent who has bought a castle in the dismal and remote loch-side village of Drim. The former police bigwig, nicknamed Handy, has been hearing howling, “haunted”, noises from the disused tower attached to his historic home. Hamish and Charlie agree to spend a night in the tower to dispel the myth of a ghost.

What they find however is not an airy-fairy ghost but an honest to goodness dead body.

And so begins an investigation into the residents of Drim and uncovering their secrets and desires and along the way there are more murders.

As well as the murder enquiries, we catch up briefly with all of Hamish's previous colleagues who have spent a short while with him in his police station/home in Lochdubh and his former love-interests Priscilla and Elspeth make brief and slightly longer appearances respectively.

I dive into this series whenever I need a bit of light relief and a trip to beautiful countryside. This one caught me particularly off guard with the identity of the murderer. M C Beaton manages to keep this series fresh, despite it having over thirty entries and I always look forward to the next one. If you like one, you'll like them all.

British cozy crime is having a bit of a resurgence at the moment and if you like that sub-genre then why not start with the very first Hamish, DEATH OF A GOSSIP.

TV News: Agatha Raisin & the Quiche of Death coming to Sky One

From M C Beaton's website:

We can finally reveal that Ashley Jensen, who has starred in hit TV series such as Extras and Ugly Betty, is to play Agatha Raisin in an upcoming adaptation of The Quiche of Death commissioned for Sky Television. More details will be forthcoming, but for the moment we have the details from the press release below:

As part of Sky’s investment in original content and continuing the tradition of drama on the channel at Christmas, Sky 1 HD today (Friday 22nd August 2014) announces the commission of AGATHA RAISIN AND THE QUICHE OF DEATH, starring Ashley Jensen as PR turned detective Agatha Raisin.

[] this 1 x 120 contemporary and quirky crime drama written by Stewart Harcourt is based on the highly successful novel series by M C Beaton, creator of Hamish Macbeth, and can be enjoyed by the whole family this Christmas on Sky 1 HD.

AGATHA RAISIN, PR whiz, gives up her successful life in London, landing with a bang in the quiet village of Carsely with hopes of beginning a new dream life. Bored, lonely and used to getting her own way, Agatha finds that life in the Cotswolds isn’t quite the picture-perfect existence she imagined...and when her highflying city attitude is met with puzzlement and suspicion from country locals, Agatha enlists the few allies she can find. Among them are DC BILL WONG, a lovelorn local policeman, GEMMA SIMPSON, her suffer-no-fools cleaning lady, and ROY SILVER, a faithful former assistant from London. But with her unique brand of feisty truth telling finding little favour, it seems the community is not quite ready for the acerbic Agatha.

In an attempt to ingratiate herself, Agatha enters the annual quiche making competition and inadvertently becomes a suspect in a murder case. As her reputation sinks ever lower, and any hopes of romance with her dashing ex-Army neighbour JAMES LACEY swiftly thwarted, Agatha has no choice but to clear her name and earn the respect of her fellow villagers. Determined to wring out the truth, Agatha sets about solving the mystery of the quiche of death. Further casting to be announced.

Ashley Jensen comments: “I am absolutely delighted to be on board! It's not often a part like this comes along for a woman. Agatha Raisin is a strong forthright, independent, driven, successful woman, who is both funny and flawed, a real woman of our time. Determined to fulfil her lifelong dream and in doing so discovers that all is not quite as rosy as she had anticipated, undeterred she finds a new purpose in her life! Based on the hugely successful novels and filled with wonderful hilarious characters set in one of the most beautiful parts of the country, it has all the ingredients for a great show. I can't wait!”

Filming begins in September in Bristol and the Cotswolds.

New Reviews: Bates, Beaton, Bolton, Harvey, Meredith, Mogford, Morris, Roslund & Hellstrom, Wilson

Here are nine reviews which have been added to the Euro Crime website today, one has appeared on the blog over the last couple of weeks and eight are completely new.

Since the last set of reviews, we've announced the winner of the Petrona Award 2014; I've been at CrimeFest and you can see my notes on twitter @eurocrime or on #crimefest14, and there's been lots of tv news.

NB. You can keep up to date with Euro Crime by following the blog and/or liking the Euro Crime Facebook page.

New Reviews

Geoff Jones reviews the latest in Quentin Bates's Icelandic series, Cold Steal which has just been released as an ebook;

I muse on the latest books in M C Beaton's Hamish Macbeth series including Death of a Policeman;

Michelle Peckham reviews the fourth in the Lacey Flint series by Sharon Bolton: A Dark and Twisted Tide;

Mark Bailey reviews John Harvey's Darkness, Darkness which is the last in the Resnick series and, I understand, his final crime novel;

Amanda Gillies reviews The Devil's Ribbon by D E Meredith, which is now out in paperback;

Rich Westwood reviews Thomas Mogford's Sign of the Cross which is set in Malta;

Terry Halligan reviews R N Morris's The Dark Palace, the third in the Silas Quinn series, set in 1914;

Lynn Harvey reviews Two Soldiers by Roslund & Hellstrom tr. Kari Dickson, which is now out in paperback

and Terry also reviews Capital Punishment by Robert Wilson, which is the first in the Charlie Boxer series and is also now out in paperback.

Previous reviews can be found in the review archive.

Forthcoming titles can be found by author or date or by category, here along with releases by year.

Catching up with M C Beaton's Hamish Macbeth

I have a tendency to stock-pile books by my favourite authors which is how I've ended up four books behind in M C Beaton's Hamish Macbeth series and five books behind in her Agatha Raisin series. This is a compliment rather than a negative reflection on the quality of the books!

With the arrival of the latest instalment, DEATH OF A POLICEMAN, I thought enough is enough and I have binge read DEATH OF - A SWEEP, - A KINGFISHER, - YESTERDAY and - A POLICEMAN to get up to date.

I have reviewed several of the earlier books and I do find it difficult to say anything new as these books are very much about maintaining the status quo....:

An outsider moves in the tiny Sutherland village of Lochdubh (or nearby) where Hamish has been a thirty-something policeman for over twenty-five years. Often the outsider is killed or turns out to be the killer. The murder is solved. Hamish vacillates between two love-interests: Priscilla and Elspeth and another year passes.

In SWEEP, Hamish is joined in his home by another policeman. This has happened before and the new police officer doesn't usually last long. And it is the case with this one. However, his replacement, Dick, makes himself at home and appears from KINGFISHER onwards. Hamish also seems to be getting more keen to get a wife as Dick gets cosy and chintzes the place up.

In DEATH OF A POLICEMAN, Hamish's nemesis Blair has another attempt at sending a police officer to spy on Hamish and Dick, to gather information that the pair are lazy and underworked and that the police station can be closed. The spy, Cyril, is soon sussed out by the locals and turns for information to a librarian in Braikie who was once rebuffed by Hamish and bears a grudge. Hamish makes an off-the-cuff remark about shooting Cyril and when Cyril is indeed shot dead, Hamish is in deep trouble. Fortunately Dick is able to help get Hamish's name clear. The investigation into Cyril's murder has Hamish risking his life and career to unearth the truth about some of the well respected members of Strathbane society.

As usual I enjoyed all four books with my favourites being KINGFISHER and POLICEMAN. This is an addictive, uncomplicated, easy to read series and the place and people are fun to visit. Despite the high murder rate (!) these books must do wonders for the Sutherland tourist industry as it sounds beautiful.

As well as Dick staying for more than one book there was a short continuation of a murder-related plotline from KINGFISHER into YESTERDAY but really these books can be read in any order and with the new covers they are flying off the library shelves.

Series order and more reviews of M C Beaton's books.

New Reviews: Beaton, Bond, Davis, Grieves, Hayder, Morris, Royal, Vichi, Wheelaghan

Nine new reviews have been added to Euro Crime today:

I review an earlier entry in the Hamish Macbeth series by M C Beaton, Death of a Valentine;


Allison & Busby are reprinting the Monsieur Pamplemousse series by Michael Bond, and Lynn Harvey reviews Monsieur Pamplemousse Afloat;


Lindsey Davis has begun a new series, Falco: The New Generation starring Flavia, the adopted daughter of Falco who makes her debut investigation in The Ides of April, reviewed here by Sarah Ward;


Amanda Gillies reviews Sleepwalkers by Tom Grieves which she loved: "if [] you love books that draw you in and freak you out, this one is for you!";


Sarah Hilary reviews Poppet by Mo Hayder, the sixth in the Jack Caffery series, writing that it's even better than Skin and Ritual;


Terry Halligan reviews the second in the DI Silas Quinn series The Mannequin House by R N Morris saying that it's an "excellent historical mystery book with a very intelligent and historically accurate plot";

Laura Root reviews Priscilla Royal's Wine of Violence the first in the Eleanor,  Prioress series, set in the thirteenth century, which gets its UK release almost ten years after its US one;


Michelle Peckham reviews Death in Sardinia by Marco Vichi tr. Stephen Sartarelli, the third in the Inspector Bordelli series, which she called "a real pleasure to read"

and fans of the BBC series Death in Paradise might want to check out Marianne Wheelaghan's Food of Ghosts the first in the DS Louisa Townsend series, set on the Pacific Island of Tarawa, reviewed here by Susan White.





Previous reviews can be found in the review archive.

Forthcoming titles can be found by author or date or by category, here along with releases by year.

Review: Death of a Valentine by M C Beaton

Death of a Valentine by M C Beaton, January 2011, Robinson Publishing, ISBN: 1849015090

I've inexplicably got behind with my M C Beaton series, so when the latest Hamish Macbeth book, DEATH OF YESTERDAY, came for review I thought I'd better catch-up. Gone are the days it seems when a Hamish book came in at 160 pages if you were lucky, for DEATH OF A VALENTINE is nearly 300, not that I'm complaining as I love my time in Lochdubh.

The book opens with a shocking prologue – Hamish is standing at the aisle waiting for his bride to be to arrive. After twenty-five books is Hamish about to settle down? Flash back one year and we come in at the start of the events that lead Hamish ready to marry his fellow police-officer, Josie.

Hamish has been promoted again to sergeant which means that he needs a constable and Josie McSween, secretly besotted with Hamish, has got the job and thinks she'll be sharing Hamish's cosy police house in the sea-loch village of Lochdubh. Hamish acts swiftly and gets her alternative accommodation but that doesn't stop Josie from pursuing him, though Hamish remains blissfully unaware.

Hamish and Josie finally have a murder to solve when a local beauty queen is killed by a deadly Valentine's card. It seems that the young woman was not the quiet and retiring girl everyone thought and soon a list of suspects forms. Running alongside the investigation are Josie increasingly desperate attempts to get Hamish to notice her. The usual former girlfriends of Hamish make an appearance – Priscilla (briefly) and Elspeth - fuelling Josie's jealousy.

Though this is a cosy series, set in a fantasy Scotland which you wouldn't confuse with reality, DEATH OF A VALENTINE is quite a dark entry, it includes date-rape drugs and alcoholism as well as the usual infidelity and corruption. The tension comes more from whether Josie will get her man than solving the murder. Indeed the Josie subplot is quite a large part of the book which may explain its (relative) length. Overall, this is a solid entry in this long-running but timeless series, in which no-one gets any older, but it may not be the best place to start.

Title Change Alert - M C Beaton

I've just been updating my database with M C Beaton's new Agatha Raisin title - As the Pig Turns - due out in October and saw what I thought was a new Hamish MacBeth offering, straight in paperback. Close inspection of the cover reveals a) that it was first published as Death of a Glutton (the eighth in the series) and b) Scotland now has vultures (apparently)...

This retitled offering is due out in the US in late June.

New Reviews: Beaton, Carrisi, Chessex, McKenzie, Siger, Taylor, Walsh

Two competitions for January, both close 31st January:
1.Win Assassins of Athens by Jeffrey Siger UK only
2.Win A Noble Killing by Barbara Nadel (International)

I'd like to welcome Lizzie Hayes to the Euro Crime fold. She has donated a sizeable collection of reviews of recent books, which I'll be running over the next few weeks.

Here are this week's reviews:

Lizzie Hayes reviews the most recent Agatha Raisin from M C Beaton: Agatha Raisin and the Busy Body;

I review Donato Carrisi's The Whisperer, tr. Shaun Whiteside which has won several prizes in Italy;

Maxine Clarke reviews Jacques Chessex's A Jew Must Die, tr. W Donald Wilson published by Bitter Lemon Press ;

Michelle Peckham reviews Grant McKenzie's debut novel: Switch, a thriller set in the US;

Terry Halligan reviews one of this month's competition prizes: Assassin of Athens by Jeffrey Siger;

Amanda Gillies loved Andrew Taylor's latest: The Anatomy of Ghosts

and Lizzie also reviews The Attenbury Emeralds by Jill Paton Walsh, Lord Peter Wimsey's first case.

Previous reviews can be found in the review archive and forthcoming titles can be found by author or date, here.

Agatha Raisin alert

The twentieth book in the Agatha Raisin series by M C Beaton is out next week in the UK. The jacket look has had a make-over and is more akin to the US style (see bottom of post). No review copy has arrived but I'm on the list at the library:

Agatha's former husband James is engaged to be married to a beautiful, young woman and Agatha has been kindly invited to the wedding. To take her mind off this, Agatha decides she has fallen for Sylvan, a Frenchman she met at James' engagement party. To distract her still further she decides upon a holiday and flies to Istanbul, where unfortunately she bumps into James and his fiancee not once but twice - convincing him she is stalking them. So when the bride is murdered on her wedding day, naturally Agatha is Suspect Number One - but then matters are turned on their head when the dead bride's mother engages Agatha to take on the case of her murdered daughter! And very soon Agatha's own life is in danger while she tries to solve the mystery of the corpse bride while fighting off (halfheartedly) the advances of a very attractive and determined Frenchman.

New Reviews: Alvtegen, Beaton, McGilloway, Magson, Walters, Wilson

This month's competition is open to all. Win a copy of The Black Monastery by Stav Sherez.

The following reviews have been added to the review archive over on the main Euro Crime website:

New Reviews:

Maxine Clarke has high praise for Karin Alvtegen's Missing;

I review the latest in the Hamish Macbeth series from M C Beaton: Death of a Witch;

Maxine also reviews the third in the 'Borderlands' series from Brian McGilloway - Bleed a River Deep

Terry Halligan enjoys Adrian Magson's latest Gavin/Palmer outing: No Kiss for the Devil

Norman Price reviews the "impressive beginning" to Michael Walters' Mongolian series - The Shadow Walker

and Mike Ripley reviews War Damage by Elizabeth Wilson, which is set just after World War Two in London, and tips it as a strong contender for the Ellis Peters award.

Previous reviews can be found in the review archive and forthcoming titles can be found here.

What I'm reading...

I've just started the latest Hamish Macbeth mystery by M C Beaton, Death of a Witch which came out last month in both the UK and US. (The US cover is on the left, UK on the right). So far so usual, incomer moves to the sea-loch-side Highland village of Lochdubh and within 30 pages dies!

You can read the first few pages via Open Book.

It's Christmas Crime (4) - M C Beaton (free book)

This one's a repeat entry as I first mentioned it in 2007 but it's now out in paperback and can be downloaded as an e-book for free from the nice people at the Book Depository website.

The euro crime review of M C Beaton's Agatha Raisin and Kissing Christmas Goodbye is here.

The Hamish Macbeth novella, A Highland Christmas will have its first UK publication in November 2009.

M C Beaton's bibliography can be found, here.

New Reviews: Beaton, Clarke, Edwards, Stacey

The following reviews have been added to the review archive over on the main Euro Crime website:

New Reviews:

I review the latest in the Agatha Raisin series by M C Beaton Agatha Raisin and a Spoonful of Poison which I enjoyed as usual as the Agatha Raisin and Hamish Macbeth books are must reads for me;

Amanda Brown reviews the final entry in the Merde series by Stephen Clarke, Dial M for Merde a James Bond spoof which sounds very comical;

Maxine Clarke reviews the paperback of the latest in another one of my must read series, the Lakeland mysteries by Martin Edwards, - The Arsenic Labyrinth - concluding that "Martin Edwards has well and truly hit his stride in his Lake District novels"

and Michelle Peckham is less taken with Lyndon Stacey's Murder in Mind - but she writes "if you like horse-racing, and a little murder mystery on the side then this is for you".

M C Beaton - Publishing Deal

M C Beaton's Hamish MacBeth series will continue for at least another four books. Amazon already lists Death of a Witch for February 2009 and from Publisher's Lunch:

M.C. Beaton's DEATH OF A VALENTINE, DEATH OF A CHIMNEY SWEEP, and DEATH OF A DOCTOR, three new titles in the Scottish Highland mysteries series featuring policeman Hamish Macbeth, to Celia Johnson at Grand Central, by Barbara Lowenstein at Lowenstein-Yost.

I've recently reviewed her latest, Death of a Gentle Lady.

New Reviews: Beaton, Dahl, Lennon, Rygg, Sjowall & Wahloo and Wells

Here are this week's new reviews and details of the latest competition.

Latest Reviews:

I get to review the latest in the Hamish MacBeth series, Death of a Gentle Lady by M C Beaton, which is the 24th in the series but Constable are reprinting all the earlier ones at quite a rapid rate for those who have yet to become addicted;

Norman Price reviews the newly translated The Man in the Window by K O Dahl who like his fellow Norwegian Jo Nesbo has had his fifth book (The Fourth Man) translated before his third... Norman writes that Dahl is "one of the ever growing group of excellent Nordic crime fiction authors available in English";

Amanda Gillies reviews the second in the Tom Fletcher series by Patrick Lennon, Steel Witches, who, like Jim Kelly, sets his books in Cambridgeshire and both authors also appear to incorporate extremes of weather in their plots. Amanda calls it "a very fine piece of work";

Back to Norway and Maxine Clarke reviews the first of two books featuring Igi Heitmann, The Butterfly Effect saying that it "is a wonderful book;

Karen Chisholm helps out with Euro Crime's quest to review all ten of the Martin Beck books by Sjowall and Wahloo by reviewing the fourth (and some say the best) in this classic series, The Laughing Policeman

and Maxine provides a second opinion on Shirley Wells' Into the Shadows a book I enjoyed immensely and which Maxine says is "perfect for whiling away a wet Sunday afternoon".


Current Competition (closing date 31 May):

Win a signed copy of Spider by Michael Morley*

* UK/Europe only

It's Christmas Crime (2) - M C Beaton (b)

M C Beaton's Hamish Macbeth series is one of my favourites. I first started buying them when Murder One was in Denmark Street. After the success of the Agatha Raisin series, Constable and Robinson are printing the newest Hamish next year along with reprints of the earlier titles. I'm currently on a Hamish binge to get myself up to date in time for the new hardback, 'Death of a Gentle Lady'.

A Highland Christmas is a novella length mystery, the 16th entry in the soon to be 24 book series and the only one I think to not include any murders.

Synopsis (from amazon.ca):

Christmas is an ancient Roman festival, not to be celebrated by decent folk in the Scottish Highlands. Police Constable Hamish Macbeth has always loved the festivities, but this year he is stuck with the long, lonely Christmas shift in freezing Lochdubh. A cranky old lady kicks off the holidays by reporting her cat missing. Then the Christmas lights and tree in a nearby village disappear soon after the local council voted to allow decorations. As Hamish finds a way to bring Christmas to the Highlands and make a little girl's dreams come true, he finds, to his delight, that he has the best Christmas ever.

You can read an excerpt on the amazon.co.uk page.

It's Christmas Crime (again) (1) - M C Beaton (a)

Last year I posted synopses of a few books set at Christmas and New Year time and I propose to add a few more to the list this year.

Starting with Agatha Raisin and Kissing Christmas Goodbye.

Synopsis (from amazon.co.uk):
Agatha is dreaming of a white Christmas, with plenty of mulled wine and roasting chestnuts in an open fire - but who will be joining her under the mistletoe? During the dark, grey days of early December Agatha is obsessed by only two things - Christmas, and her ex, James Lacey. Although she says she feels nothing for James now, she feels sure that planning the perfect Dickensian Christmas for all her friends will somehow reanimate her love. Even the murder of a Mrs Tamworthy, poisoned with hemlock at the local manor house, does little to distract Agatha from organising her perfect yuletide celebrations. And yet it should do, as Mrs Tamworthy had written to Agatha, telling her that one of her family wanted to see her dead before the year was out. Slightly guiltily (and belatedly), Agatha sets out to solve the case with the help of her new recruit, young Toni Gilmour.

You can read an excerpt here and also my review on Euro Crime.

M C Beaton Interview

From the latest newsletter from Hachette Books (I can't find the actual newsletter online but you can sign up here):

M.C. BEATON has won international acclaim for her bestselling Hamish Macbeth mysteries, and the BBC has aired six episodes based on the series. Also the author of the Agatha Raisin series and Regency romances, M.C. BEATON lives in a Cotswold cottage with her husband. When asked about her path to becoming a successful writer, she responded:

I first started writing when I was working as a fiction buyer in a bookshop in Glasgow and became, by a freaky chance, theatre critic for the Scottish Daily Mail. After that I was fashion editor for Scottish Field and then crime reporter for the Scottish Daily Express. I moved to Fleet Street and became chief woman reporter of the London Daily Express.

I moved to the States after marrying Middle East Correspondent, Harry Scott Gibbons. I had been reading a lot of Regencies and criticising them and he urged me to write one and then found me my present agent, Barbara Lowenstein.

I think George Orwell was right in that one is influenced by what one reads in one's early teens. I was reading Georgette Heyer, Jane Austen, Sir Arthur Bryant's Age of Elegance, biographies of Wellington and Beau Brummell. I also read every Dorothy Sayers and Agatha Christie book I could get my hands on.

Six weeks after Barbara sold my first Regency, I was contracted by Dell to write three Edwardians and then subsequently two other Regencies for one publisher and two for another. That is why I used to have so many names. Marion Chesney is my maiden name and I made up the rest.

I was inspired to write the first Hamish Macbeth while I was with my husband and son in Sutherland at Lochinvar, learning to fly cast for salmon. There were eleven of us in the Sutherland wilderness of mountain and moor and I thought the setting would be a great idea for a traditional whodunit. I was then encouraged by my editor at St. Martin's Press to write a Cotswold series.

How did I become M.C. Beaton? I was asked to find a Scottish name which would divorce me from the Regencies. I said, "The queen she had four Marys/The nicht she'll hae but three/There was Mary Beaton, Mary Seaton, Mary Carmichael and me." Beaton was picked and the initials M C for Marion Chesney.

Agatha Raisin books special offer

The Book People are offering the first ten titles in the Agatha Raisin series for £9.99 (plus P & P). I just wish I hadn't already read them!

Go to the offer here and do visit the Euro Crime bibliography page for M C Beaton and read the reviews.