Hamish Macbeth is the lone policeman in Lochdubh. He lost his last constable to the kitchen at the Tommel Castle, where he’s putting his culinary skills to use as the chef. For now, it’s just him and his dog Lugs and his pet wild cat Sonsie. And then Constable Dorothy McIver walked in the door.
Possibly the most beautiful woman Macbeth has ever seen, Constable McIver says she chose this posting especially, to get away from the chaos of Glasgow. She wants a quieter life, so she requested Lochdubh and can’t wait to win over the hearts and minds of the locals. Macbeth knows that it would be awkward for her to live there with him, so he makes a deal with the owner of Tommel Castle for her to have a room there instead.
Macbeth starts her training by showing her around the town and introducing her to the locals. Those who aren’t falling under the spell of her beauty are charmed by her intelligence and willingness to help them with whatever they need. The Currie sisters think there is someone spying on them from outside their house? She’ll spend the evening with them to see if he comes back to flash them again . . . with a flashlight. There’s a four-year-old boy stuck up a tree? She’ll climb up and pull up a photo on her phone of how a koala carries her kids to convince him to climb on her back as she makes their way back down.
And when a daring driver sped past them in an attempt to run the North Coast Five Hundred, a risky race along the North Coast that’s a dangerous road at high speed, and Macbeth has his friend Dougie stall the driver at his filling station, McIver is impressed at the ingenuity he relies on to keep his corner of Scotland safe. Dougie holds the driver there, saying that the pumps aren’t working, until Macbeth can get there and convince him to stop driving so fast on the Scottish roads.
As the weeks of training go by and Macbeth introduces Dorothy to more of the Highlands, he finds himself falling for her. Late summer turns into fall, and then to winter, and Dorothy needs a few weeks to head back to Glasgow.to tie up loose ends there. In those lonely weeks where Dorothy is away, Macbeth decides that he wants to marry her. And when she gets back to Lochdubh, he asks her, and she says yes.
The next day, Macbeth sees another racing driver go by and calls Dougie to delay him at the filling station again. By the time they can to Dougie’s, it’s too late. The man is in his car, but he is dead. Someone shot him. Now, Macbeth has to call in the crime scene detectives, and his quiet town will be overrun with big-city officers trying to solve this while he’s trying to plan a wedding. And if that’s not enough to juggle, two of his former fiancées are also in town, wanting to get to know Dorothy better.
There are rumors of ties to organized crime in Glasgow, there’s a mysterious American who is clearly lying about something, Macbeth’s archenemy Detective Chief Inspector Blair is part of the murder investigation and throwing his weight around Lochdubh, and despite his love for Constable McIver, Macbeth knows that there are things about her time in Glasgow that she’s not telling him. Will Macbeth put all the pieces together to solve the murder before his wedding, or will something happen to keep him from getting his happy ending?
Death of a Green-Eyed Monster is the latest Hamish Macbeth mystery from M.C. Beaton and R.W. Green, and it’s filled with all the things that we want from Hamish Macbeth—his love for his corner of Scotland, his particular style of police work, his relationships with the other officers, and his enduring belief in love.
I really enjoyed Death of a Green-Eyed Monster. Reading Hamish Macbeth feels like taking a vacation somewhere familiar, or like taking the time to catch up with an old friend. And while the ending may not be the one I had been hoping for, it still fits the story and the series. You don’t need to read the entire series to understanding what’s going on in this one (which is good for Hamish newbs, as this is book 34!), but the more time I spend in these Highlands of Hamish’s, the more I fall in love with Scotland. And let’s face it, the more I fall in love with Sonsie.
Egalleys for Death of a Green-Eyed Monster were provided by Grand Central Publishing through NetGalley, with many thanks.
