Starred review from December 12, 2005
Beaton's flawless 21st installment in her popular Hamish Macbeth series (after 2005's Death of a Bore
) boasts amusing local color and singularly savvy sleuthing. Macbeth, constable in the Highlands village of Lochdubh, thinks the apparent suicide of Effie Garrard, an artist who's arrived in town only recently, is suspicious. Following the murder of a nosy American tourist, Macbeth digs a little deeper and learns that Effie couldn't paint to, er, save her life—she was passing off another artist's work as her own. Macbeth's personal life is also consuming: two old flames turn up in Lochdubh within a few days of each other. Of course, Macbeth solves what turns out to be a double murder—but resolution of his romantic contretemps will have to wait for the next novel in this charming series. Beaton, who's also the author of the Agatha Raisin mystery series, will be the British guest of honor at the 2006 Bouchercon.
January 15, 2006
The bodies do pile up in this 21st Macbeth tale, set in the Scottish Highlands. First, a romantic dreamer of an artist is found dead with her ring finger cut off. Then an obnoxious American tourist goes missing, the possible killer of both is shot, and the real murderer dies as well. More melodramatic than most in the series, it still is lots of fun, and Beaton's fans are legion. She is a Scot who lives in England.
Copyright 2006 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
Starred review from December 1, 2005
A wine bottle loaded with antifreeze. A Scottish dance party interrupted by obsessive jealousy. A " Brigadoon"-like setting in northern Scotland that quickly turns Hitchcockian. Beaton is a masterful mixer of disparate elements that result in crime novels that are part police procedural and part psychological thriller. In this, the twenty-first in the Hamish Macbeth series, Beaton positions the stolid Constable Macbeth, sole lawman in the tiny village of Lochdubh in the Highlands, at the end of a winter marked by a series of spectacular blizzards. Macbeth is certain that the newcomer to the village, Effie Garrard, an artist under the influence of the usual romantic baggage about life in the Highlands, will have long abandoned her isolated cottage. But Effie seems to be in fine fettle, even talking about another newcomer artist falling in love with her. Then spring arrives, and Effie is found dead on a hillside. Macbeth's higher-ups rule the death a suicide, but he is bothered by the scene of the crime and the psychology behind the woman's death. A clear-cut case of murder follows, with Macbeth trying to discover a connection between the two. While the plotting itself is intricate and absorbing, Beaton, a Scot herself, excels at giving readers a taste of Highland life and creating a believable character in the lonely, brilliant, continually frustrated-in-love Macbeth. A treat.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2005, American Library Association.)
Starred review from December 12, 2005
Fully developed characters with complex emotional lives enhance the 14 horror stories in Hill's extraordinary debut collection. In "Abraham's Boys," Count Dracula's nemesis, Dr. Van Helsing, tries to teach his young sons his dispassionate methods of vampire slaying, but succeeds only in demonstrating his soullessness. "Voluntary Committal" tells of an idiot savant who applies his uncanny architectural skills to helping his adored older brother find a suggestively sinister way to remove problems from his life. Whether detailing relationships between children and parents or between teenage peers, Hill is flawless in his ability to articulate frailties that humanize his characters and make them vulnerable to intrusions of the strange. This is particularly noticeable in the title story, about a haunted cinema whose young female ghost seduces patrons with unfulfilled lives, and the surreal "My Father's Mask," which disturbs with subtle hints of taboo sexuality. There's not a false note or disappointing effort in this book, which introduces one of the most confident and assured new voices in horror and dark fantasy to emerge in recent years.