Hamish Macbeth:Relaxing Murder Mysteries

 by M.C.Beaton

There are times in life when a book should be soft and soothing. No intellectual efforts. No drama. This is especially so when your own life is full of thinking and drama. An emotion overload in real life needs the remedy of a simple paragraph and a simple storyline. This series of murder mysteries is just the thing, as paradoxical as this seems.

 These are quiet and relaxing murder mysteries. The stories take place in Lochdubh, a remote (fictional) town in the Scottish Highlands. They are neat and tidy stories, with interesting village characters such as old ladies putting out fires, twin spinster sisters, nosey neighbours, and bizarre cat and dog. The main character is Constable Hamish Macbeth, described by a Russian investigator in Death of a Gentle Lady as:

 “something likeable about the man with his flaming red hair, gangly figure, and gentle hazel eyes.”

He goes about solving murders in an unassuming, seemingly nonchalant manner. (He reminds me of the television Columbo with Peter Falk, with his bumbling ways. Coincidence:Hamish Macbeth was turned into a television series by the BBC in 1995)

Hamish is single, a very eligible bachelor, and he manages to stay unmarried throughout the series, although he comes close several times. Aside from the murders, his romantic life is an important part of the storyline and the subject of much speculation in the town…and by the reader.

In Death of a Valentine, published in 2010, book 26 of the 27 in the series to date, this is the opening paragraph:

“Over the heathery flanks of the mountains, over the lochs, over the vast tracts of land that make up the county of Sutherland in the very north of Scotland, down to the fishing boats bobbing at anchor along the west coast, the amazing news spread. That most famous of highland bachelors, Police Sergeant Hamish Macbeth was to be married at last.”  

Read the book to find out how that wedding ends.

The descriptions of the countryside are simple and low-key in keeping with the writing style of the series:

 ‘Hamish noticed with a sort of gloomy surprise that the rain had actually stopped falling and the pale twilight sky of a Highland summer where it hardly ever gets dark stretched above his head.” (Death of a Macho Man)

“Hamish breathed in all the familiar scents of the Scottish Highlands: peat smoke, wild thyme, pine and salt air blown in on the Atlantic gales from the coast.” (Death of a Witch)

Rarely does a paragraph startle the reader, except perhaps the ones describing the murder and who did it. Even then, it is never a brutal discovery; it is a quiet leading up to a conclusion. The only paragraph I found incongruous with the writer’s usual quiet descriptive is this one from Death of a Macho Man, where there is a description of how Hamish feels after a breakup with his fiancée.

“He experienced a stabbing pain of hurt and loss in his gut. He marvelled that the pain could still be so intense. He didn’t feel like a drink or a pill to ease it, but rather thought of taking a shotgun and blasting a big hole in his stomach, not to kill himself, but, like a cartoon animal, to leave a nice clean round hole where the hurt had been.”

These are the harshest words I have read so far in my journey through the list of “Death” books and I wonder if the author wasn’t dealing with her own pain at that point. Experiencing my own personal grief, I understand and identify with this description. It, however, does seem out of place in these novels.

Apart from this one paragraph, the writing in this series is pleasant, clean,straightforward and descriptive. It is delightful storytelling.

So if you are allergic to the diet of anguish and anxiety that many novels feed us, feast on these numerous titles.

An added literary pleasure in these novels is the quote at the beginning of each chapter. It may be from Shakespeare, Kipling, Andrew Marvel, Robert Burns, Ogden Nash, Samuel Jackson and more.

Here are a few examples:

Death of a Bore:
No man, but a blockhead, ever wrote, except for money. (Samuel Johnson)

Death of a Dreamer: truth is never pure, and rarely simple. (Oscar Wilde)

Death of a Poison Pen: What’s gone, and what’s past help, Should be past grief. (Willliam Shakespeare)

Death of a Maid: I would any day as soon kill a pig as write a letter. (Alfred, Lord Tennyson)

I highly recommend these books. Get the list and start crossing off the titles.

And, finally, to quote from one of the book jackets: have a Highland fling with M.C.Beaton.

**If you want a suggestion for similar stories, try the same author’s Agatha Raisin series. The stories are delightful, involving a woman amateur detective and set in various locales.

Here is a link to a biography and interview with M.C.Beaton. http://www.agatharaisin.com/?section=author