Summary
Returning from a disappointing foreign holiday, police constable Hamish Macbeth is worried. He learns that a newcomer, Catriona Beldame, is regarded as a witch and that various men have been seen visiting her. Hamish himself is charmed by her until he finds out that she has been supplying dangerous potions. At first the villagers won't listen to him, saying that the loveless Hamish has turned against all women.
When Beldame is found murdered and her home set ablaze, he must clear his own name and then work to solve yet another murder to bring peace and quiet back to his beloved village. His investigations are complicated by a romance with a female forensic expert. Perhaps the Scottish Highlands' most stubborn bachelor will get married at last!
Summary
After a much needed holiday, Constable Hamish Macbeth returns to Lochdubh in the midst of great turmoil. New in town, the seductive Catriona Beldame has men coming and going from her house at all hours. Even Macbeth finds himself seduced by Catriona's charm. However, when she turns up dead, Macbeth is considered the main suspect, despite conducting the official investigation.
M. C. Beaton's real name is Marion Chesney. She was born in Glasgow, Scotland, in 1936. She has written over a hundred books under her own name and other pseudonyms: Ann Fairfax, Helen Crampton, Jennie Tremaine, Charlotte Ward, and Sarah Chester. She started her writing career while working as a fiction buyer for a bookstore in Glasgow.
Working at one time or another as a theater critic, newspaper reporter, and editor, she used her British background to write a series of regency romances set in England and Scotland. Some of her regency romances include The Folly, Colonel Sandhurst to the Rescue, and Regency Gold. In 1986, she was awarded the Romantic Times Award for Outstanding Regency Series Writer.
She has also written two mystery series under the pseudonym M. C. Beaton: The Hamish Macbeth Series, which became the inspiration for a television show in England, and The Agatha Raisin Series, about a retired advertising executive. Her title His and Hers made The New York Times Best Seller List for 2012.
Marion Chesney passed away on December 31, 2019 at the age of 83.
(Bowker Author Biography)
