Death of a Chimney Sweep (2011)

Drim, a small village in Scotland, gets very few visitors. All of that changes, however, when Milly Davenport finds the body of her husband stuffed in their chimney. Constable Hamish Macbeth is on the case and he refuses to let it go even when his superiors want him to. As Macbeth quietly investigates, the bodies start piling up and Macbeth himself is in danger. Can he stop the killer before he too becomes a victim?

While I've enjoyed all of M.C. Beaton's Hamish Macbeth books, I'm not quite sure how I feel about "Death of a Chimney Sweep". Sure, a lot of the elements I liked were in this book - the Scottish setting, Hamish himself (who isn't quite as lazy as he and the villagers think he is), his love for his animals, his fights with Blair, the various residents of Lochdubh (the Currie sisters actually shine for a brief moment). All of this is familiar and enjoyable. But what I didn't like about this book is the incredible amount of violence - especially for cozy mystery. While the violence isn't graphically described the body count is very high in this book. I actually lost count of how many deaths there were but it had to be close to a dozen. One death in particular, towards the end of the book, was completely over the top even for a book filled with bizarre deaths. As for the mystery itself, the Hamish Macbeth books are never about trying to figure out whodunit, instead the culprit is identified pretty early on and readers sit back and watch Hamish outwit a killer.

"Death of a Chimney Sweep" has some good moments but isn't one of M.C. Beaton's best books in the series. ( )

'Death of Chimney Sweep' by M.C. Beaton is a superb mystery. It is not too bloody, has well developed characters, surprises that I didn’t see coming and now I want to read more M.C. Beaton’s books.

Drim, Scotland is the setting; a place where nothing ever happens except when it does it is a doozy. This is my first time reading a M.C. Beaton and I was really pleased about the pace of the story and the unique characters in this small town. I really felt like I was right there in a small town in Scotland hearing about the weird chain of events! There were the gossipers, the different kinds of police, competent and incompetent, those who saw things as black and white and others who saw the gentle shades of gray. There were also the conmen, conwomen, and the people conned. Greed is the key to this book.

I don’t want to spoil this story for you, I just want to say that things seem simple at the beginning as time goes on they get more and more complicated. Making you laugh so hard that it brings tears to your eyes. There was one place in the book that I gasped at what one of characters did. In fact, I read it over three times! This book is not predictable. I think this book is a “dark cozy”. It is gruesome but the dark humor out shines the bad deaths that I thought it was grand!

I recommend this book to all who love dark humor and some of the cozy fans like myself. ( )

After having read a number of books in this series, my enjoyment of the series was reinvigorated by this volume. This is one of the best books I've read in the Hamish Macbeth series. The chimney sweep's death is actually marginal to the story. The real murder of note is that of a scheming former soldier. His multiple money-raising schemes appear to have cost him his life. The responsible party goes on the run, and Hamish goes on a rather exciting chase.

This was an exciting mystery with a more interesting than usual bad guy. Hamish takes longer than usual to solve this case. I'm glad that Beaton decided to bring some new elements into this series. Hamish still has woman problems, but there are new elements to the crime that I appreciated. ( )

http://www.cozylittlebookjournal.com/2011/06/death-of-chimney-sweep-hamish-macbe...

What the #@*! is this?? Did the real M.C. Beaton DIE and somebody horrible took over her series? It’s the only thing that makes any sense! The book was needlessly gruesome, overly complicated, lacked any mystery or “reveal” and was ANYTHING but cozy! The “chimney sweep” in question is merely the second in a long line of murders (I lost count—ten, maybe?) and he’s not even mentioned by name again after the first few pages! Plus the whole story takes place over several years, from what I can tell, during which time nothing else seems to happen. Every side story is another murder or gruesome death that is all part of the convoluted main story. Quite frankly, M.C. Beaton should be ashamed. ( )

The plot isiImprobable and convoluted, but Hamish Mcbeth is always a pleasure ( )