Death of a Village (Hamish Macbeth Mysteries, No. 19)
by M. C. Beaton
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Book Summary Information
Author: M. C. BeatonEdition: Mass Market Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2004-01-01
ISBN: 0446613711
Number of pages: 272
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Book Reviews of Death of a Village (Hamish Macbeth Mysteries, No. 19)
Book Review: Like The Mystical Art on Her Book Jackets, Beaton's Hamish Opens a Gateway To The Craved High Magic of Irish Village Life
Summary: 5 Stars
In the process of reading this book I felt the tug to return to its Highland villages; I felt like I lived there and didn't want to finish the read and have to leave. That was enough reason to continue on in this series.
Hamish is my type of hero. I warmed right into M.C. Beaton's drawing of his character to appear, and be called, lazy, while she subtly portrayed him, through sauntering village vignettes as the best type of hero. He's a man who gets done whatever needs doing; a constable who gets to the bottom of issues, corruption, and life's daily problems of his constituents. During all that, he unravels mysteries of deep malice and cooks for his dog, Lugs. At the end of the day, or at sunrise or noon, I wouldn't call that lazy.
Ironically (or maybe sanely), Hamish accomplishes all this because of, rather than in spite of his methodical sleuthing, his stepping around the maniacal push of wheel spinning, which we humans have come in recent decades to see as being award-winningly purposeful. The term "looking busy" didn't get coined for nothing. And it can't pay dues for anything, though it is sometimes a necessary (and wise) maneuver.
The easy ways Hamish repeatedly gets around the faultless facades of Detective Chief Inspector Blair, and the ale-bubbling, bumbling boot-dragging of cohort-friend Jimmy Anderson is genius, endearing and simple.
If most people are like me, they read escape fiction of this type to regain and remember what Hamish has never forgotten, never lost; an ability, more like a stubborn commitment, to live in the moment, to see (not flit through, or slide/slither around) what's going on in his world. And based on his slowly, carefully gathered observations, he repairs the off-base while he ferrets and flounders the bountiful wrongs in life. He's not only a true hero; he's a true man and a true village constable. What a guy.
My favorite vignettes were the shenanigans of the geriatric couple sleuthing around on their knees in the wet grass outside the window of their nursing home rooms, struggling to catch, tie, and disable the red hands of evil. Beaton's characterization of this mix-matched pair was as heartwarming and cheer inducing as a fiction world can get. Move over Cocoon, step aside Cuckoo's Nest, we're flying over the Highlands with one (actually a couple of Energizer Bunny oldies in this case) of the best.
Beaton's resolutions are pondering-ly, somewhat playfully, poignant, rather than being painted in over-the-rainbow, Kansas type sunset hues. But, as Hamish sets down his pipe (does he actually smoke one?) and pampers his dog at the end of a day or at the summing of a saga, solitude may twinge with a lonely edge, but the rightness of personal space never felt so cozy. Of course Hamish's spicy, feisty relationship with Elspeth may not have lost its embers.
Throughout the story I wondered WHY Lugs disliked Elspeth with such growling gusto. Was he chust jealous? Or was there something deep, dark and sinister running through her DNA? (Loved the way Hamish scowled and said so in observation of Elspeth's garish dress code, which changed styles subtly yet blatantly through the plots and subplots.)
I feel literally blessed to know that any time I need to settle for a while into a sane, slow, sensual world, and share a mystery beside a roaring, steady fire in a Highland's hearth, I can pick up another novel from MC Beaton's Hamish-Macbeth-Gateway-to-Ireland.
One of the best parts? I don't have to toss my fingernail clippers out of my purse to get through security checks at airports, don't have to slug through jet-lag, and don't have to drag dead-on-my-feet a few days to get there and back.
Easy chair, stay poofed. Lamp be clicked. We are soooo lucky to have these types of books.
Linda G. Shelnutt
P.S. I do like to fly places in reality once in a while instead of exclusively using the ozone.
Summary of Death of a Village (Hamish Macbeth Mysteries, No. 19)
Trouble is afoot in a Scottish fishing village as Constable Macbeth finds the pub empty, the church full, and the air permeated with fear. With the help of a journalist, Macbeth begins to ferret out the truth.Literature & Fiction Books
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