Death of a Cad

The second in the series featuring Hamish Macbeth, Death of a Cad, focuses on the richest family in Lochdubh and the people they've invited to their home to meet their daughter's fiancé. This is one of those police procedural stories where the majority of the action takes place in a drafty castle with a cast of characters that are truly hard to root for...especially the guy that ends up biting it. (Imagine if you went to read this and discovered that he had died from biting into something truly heinous. I will neither confirm nor deny this is how he came to his sticky end. (See now you're wondering if he was smothered by honey.)) The dearly departed in this story is a pretty deplorable person who seems to have slept around with every show more woman in a 10 mile radius while offending every man he came into contact with...so the pool of suspects is WIDE. (Is that supposed to be deep?) The underlying plotline of the book is Hamish and the lord of the manor's daughter having a somewhat complicated relationship. Hamish is hopelessly in love but knows that he would not be accepted by this hoity toity family while the lady in question has never seen him as a possibility until she's seen him in direct comparison to the man she's supposed to be marrying. DRAMA. ROMANCE. MURDER. What more do you want in a mystery?! show less

Priscilla Halburton-Smythe is engaged, again; this time to Henry Withering, a rising playwright on the London scene. The pair travel back to Priscilla’s home of Tommel Castle near the Highland village of Lochdubh, in order to meet Priscilla’s parents. They, of course, have invited a selection of guests, most of whom begged for an invitation because they wanted to meet the celebrated playwright. Amongst the houseguests are two men there mainly for the grouse shooting, two young women who claim to be best friends but spend all their time spiting each other, and various other rich hangers-on. When one of the grouse-hunters is murdered, it is clear to Police Constable Hamish Macbeth that the killer must be one of the people in the show more house; the problem is that every one of them has good reason to hate the man…. The second Hamish Macbeth tale continues to delight: the characters are all well-drawn (many of them downright obnoxious), the murder is juicy and the relationship between Hamish and Priscilla continues apace. I figured out the culprit fairly early on but was unsure of the motive until the end - a good sign in a cozy mystery, I think! I’m hoping that the romance aspect is dealt with early in the series because I find the “will they/won’t they” teasing quite tedious (I feel that way about pretty much all romantic subplots in series, so this is not a criticism against Ms. Beaton); in the meantime, I’m looking forward to reading the next in the series. Recommended. show less

Macbeth vs. the London Playwright
Review of the Blackstone Audio Inc. audiobook edition (2016) of the St. Martin's Press hardcover original (1987)

After discovering M.C. Beaton's Hamish Macbeth cozy mystery series due to the Estonia cameo in Death of Yesterday, I started to seek out the earlier books by finding several at Toronto's Sleuth of Baker Street. I enjoyed those and found them to be an especially delightful diversion during this continuing pandemic. My next plan was to go back and read the series in order. I then discovered the rather terrific bonus that most of the books are available free on Audible Plus, a service that I had previously been underwhelmed by (some early attempts with longer books had audio difficulties, with show more book narrations freezing in midstream). Beaton's shorter books (usually 4 to 5 hours on audio) seem to be perfect for this medium.

Death of a Cad is the second of the series and continues building the characters in the fictional town of Lochdubh (pronounced Lock-Doo) in the Scottish Highlands. Macbeth's crush on Priscilla Halburton-Smythe is derailed with her engagement to a London playwright and the engagement party is the occasion for the arrival of numerous guests, including the boorish Captain Bartlett. The cad is murdered and Macbeth proceeds to solve the crime with especial satisfaction. show less

I can easily see these books becoming my favorite cozy mystery series. I’ve listened to the first two as audiobooks read by Anthony Ferguson and found them both to be humorous and entertaining. In this one Constable Hamish MacBeth attends a large house party where one of the guests is found dead the following day. Was it an accident? Macbeth thinks no. All of the characters are so well described it was easy to keep track of who’s who and the big reveal was a complete surprise. The next audiobook has a different narrator so I don’t know if I’ll go with it or try the print version instead but I do know I’ll be going on with this series.

Death of a Cad is the second book in the Hamish Macbeth mystery series. Macbeth is the village constable in Lochdubh, Scotland. He's got a bit of a thing for the daughter of a local wealthy resident, Priscilla Halburton-Smythe. Imagine his disappointment when she brings home a fiance, a playwright from London with all the personality of a dead fish. Upper Class Twit basically. Priscilla's parents are glad to see their daughter not making goo-goo eyes at the local constable and settling down to a marriage within her own class, so they throw a party for Henry Withering. The upper crusties gather to meet the fiance. One of the guests, Captain Bartlett....a total womanizing cad....ends up dead. At first it appears to be an accident.....but show more then it becomes apparent that someone shuffled Bartlett off the mortal coil with extreme prejudice. Murder. So.....which upper crustie is a killer??

I love the Hamish Macbeth series mostly because Hamish reminds me of the Scottish version of Columbo. Everyone thinks he is a bumbling, lazy, stupid village bobby.....but he is actually very observant and skilled at his job. While everyone else is observing social lines and graces, he's out looking for clues. For Hamish it's more important to find out who killed Captain Bartlett than to suck up to the local wealthy residents of Lochdubh. I was shocked at how they talk about how lazy and stupid he is when he is still in the room!! I found myself disliking Priscilla.....she uses Hamish when it suits her and teases him....then abandons him with she needs to kiss her family's asses to keep her money. Ick. He would be better off with another woman. Let her marry off to someone like the awful playwright she hooked up with to please her parents.....LOL....

I listened to the audiobook version of the story. The audio is just over 5.5 hours long and narrated by Antony Ferguson. Ferguson's voice and acting are perfect! He reads at a nice steady pace....and his accent is sublime! I have partial hearing loss but was easily able to hear and understand the entire book. All in all, a great listening experience!

There are 33 books in the Hamish Macbeth series. I have a lot of reading to do! M.C. Beaton also writes the Agatha Raisin series. show less

MCB writes a cracking story. This one romped along, I couldn't put it down. Huge cast of characters, took a a while trying to get them straight in my head, but gave up after a while because it's Hamish we're interested in. MCB's heroines seem much of a muchness - practical but innocent and quick to jump to the wrong conclusion.

Enjoyable tale, narrated by the excellent David Monteath. I was doubly startled by the ending. Firstly, appropriately, by the revelation of the murderer, but less happily by the unbelievably easy confession that was provided. That bit just didn’t ring true.