Death of a Gossip (1985)

Can't make up my mind about this. Unconventional village bobby, in a Scottish village, solving the murder of a bitchy newspaper gossip writer, just ahead of the police heavyweights. I suppose, once, I have to read more of the series, to appreciate it more. ( )

The very first Hamish Macbeth in which a fishing school comprising a varied number of suspects and one very unpleasant victim are gathered together. Constable Macbeth proves himself to be more expert in solving a murder than nasty Detective Chief Inspector Blair. ( )

Author: M. C. Beaton
Published By: Grand Central Publishing
Age Recommended: Adult
Reviewed By: Arlena Dean
Book Blog For: GMTA
Rating: 4

Review:

"Death of Gossip" by M. C. Beaton was a excellent fast pace mystery read. This is a first Hamish Macbeth novel in a series for this author. "Death of Gossip" was of a famous gossip columnist (Lady Jane Winters) who was a 'pompous, bulling gossip columist' has been murdered at a fishing school and it seems that no one is willing to talk but it looks like it is up to the local constable Hamish Macbeth will be the only one that will be able to get to the bottom of this and unveil the murderer. This gossip columnist was from a big London newspaper gathers information on the potential scandalous behaviour of other guests and manages to make everyone of them wish her dead. And now she was dead....Who had done this? How will this all go down...now, this is where I say you must pick up the good read "Death of Gossip" to find out. I found this read very interesting, funny..... and will definitely will keep you guessing to who, what, how and why of it all. This author will send you on a ride from Scotland, England and New York.

"Death of Gossip" was a good murder mystery that was a fast read and yes, I would recommend this novel as a good read. ( )

First let me say I love Davina Porter her accents are so perfect in the Outlander series but this one left me wondering if it was recorded long before she had perfected her Scottish accent. I also have to question the choice of Davina, as much as I love her, the lead character in this book is male and don’t understand the reasoning behind a female narrator, I see at book 21 they switched to a male narrator and that the reviews/ratings get higher after the switch. I guess this is hard for me to separate the story and the narration because this is my first disappointment in Davina Porter.

But I will try to get on with a review of the story itself. I had read one other Hamish book “A Highland Christmas” and enjoyed it very much and thought I should go back and start this series from the beginning. I must say this book didn’t really grab me, I felt I had read this before it is very formula cozy mystery set in the Scottish Highlands I like it but didn’t love it, it is however the first in a series that has 28 books so I am assuming they get better from here or there wouldn’t be so many books so I will try others maybe not reading them in order I may skip ahead to the male narrator, whoops there I go again back to the audio production. Anyway, I would say if you like Poirot, Gamache, or Lynley give this series a try I will read more of this series even though this one fell a bit flat for me. This was just ok.

2 ½ Stars ( )

Because I enjoy M.C. Beaton's Agatha Raisin series, I decided to try her Hamish Macbeth series. In this first in the series book I was introduced both to Macbeth and to the village of Lochdubh. Macbeth's investigation of the murder at hand allowed for a great introduction to, shall we say, his idiocyncracies. While a terribly clever and unique character, Hamish has yet to charm me. I must read on in the series.. ( )