Death of a Hussy

Death of a Hussy by M.C. Beaton


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Margaret Baird is another of M.C. Beaton's deliciously evil murder victims. She is obnoxious to everyone and almost insures that she will be murdered. She has the usual poor relation ward whom she browbeats in the most obnoxiously patronizing way. Eventually the poor relation tries to break loose with mixed results. Add in a group of ex-lovers who have been invited by Margaret as prospective husbands and you have a perfect mystery for Hamish Macbeth to wade around in.

An unusual additions is that a different Detective Inspector is in charge of the case and Hamish has mixed feelings about him. He seems to be an improvement, but is he? This is a nice quick read and is very satisfying.

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Death of a Dentist

Death of a Dentist by M.C. Beaton


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
In this Hamish Macbeth mystery, he winds up with several mysteries on his hand all seemingly interconnected, but how? A thoroughly unpleasant dentist is murdered, but no one who hated him seems to have been near the place. This book has a particularly quirk bunch of characters.

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Bones To Pick

Bones To Pick by Carolyn Haines


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This is my first by this author, and I really enjoyed it. It's hard to separate my feelings for the Mississippi of my childhood pleasures from the actual book, so my rating may be a combination of nostalgia as well as the quality of the book. I did enjoy the use of the spectral. Jitty as a companion of the main character. I thought it was well done...not too ghostly and all knowing, but enough to add spice to the mystery. I'll be reading more of this author.

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Death of a Macho Man

Death of a Macho Man by M.C. Beaton


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I've been listening to this series on audiobooks I downloaded from the St. John's Library and have enjoyed them thoroughly. The reader's accent adds to the scenes created by the author and it saves me trying to figure out how some of the Scottish names are pronounced. It also gives me a better picture of Hamish Macbeth. While I have enjoyed the BBC version of the stories, their Hamish is a far cry from the descriptions in the books.

Macho Man is on par with the rest of M. C. Beaton's book. The characters are well drawn even if their personalities are often extreme. The situation is again misjudged by the incredibly dump Inspector Blair and Hamish, with his deep sense of right and wrong has to solve the mystery and yet not risk being promoted away from his beloved Lockdubh.

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Biggie and the Devil Diet

Biggie and the Devil Diet: A Mystery by Nancy Bell


My rating: 3 of 5 stars
I haven't read any of Nancy Bell's books in years and yesterday I longed to hear a little Southern talk. I am downloading audiobooks from the St. John's Co., FL library and get to hear the story with the accented voice of the reader. Certain books are especially good this way and while this book is a lightweight, I love it because the down home dialect reminds me of many summer vacations in Mississippi.

Biggie is the grandmother of J. R., who came to live with her when he was small and has grown up in the series. In this book he is 13. Biggie has a lot of soul searching when she find that there is a ranch outside town for overweight girls and she recognizes the name of the owner. She tells J. R. some old secrets and embroils them in cauldron of emotion which surrounds the camp.

The book is a little slow at first, unless you just plain enjoy a bit of slice of life, deep South style, you may wonder why it was called a mystery. I was too busy enjoying to wonder, but it may bother some. The preliminary actually does set up the mystery, so it isn't wasted. All in all, a pretty good read.

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Death of an Outsider

Death of an Outsider by M.C. Beaton


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
In this early Hamish Macbeth book, he ha been sent to the unpleasant village of Cnothan to take over from their Police Constable. An obnoxious Englishman goes around the village wreaking havoc with his acerbic tongue. He is a champion "know-it-all" and causes strife wherever he goes. Inevitably, there is a murder, disguised in a seemingly clever way. Of course, Inspector Blair is involved and he makes Hamish stay on the outside as he rushes to his conclusions.

You have to wonder if the main plot element could ever happen. You bet I will be thinking about it next time I go to a fancy restaurant! This is a pleasant mystery with the usual cast of quirky characters. The ending is a little bit of a stretch, but good, tying up all of the loose ends.

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Death of an Addict

Death of an Addict by M.C. Beaton


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
In this book, Hamish Macbeth wanders far afield of the original death of a reformed drug addict. The problem is that Hamish doesn't feel the boy killed himself. With his Highland sensitivity and almost second sight, Hamish feels like there is more to this and it adds up to murder. Solving the case leads him into the arms (sort of) of a beautiful police inspector and on a trip to Amsterdam. The plot twists and turns and even involves a Loch Ness type monster, drug smuggling, and even undercover work. While these plot elements find Hamish outside his normal location, the romantic threads while convoluted are all to predictable.

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The Sacrifice

The Sacrifice by William X. Kienzle


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This Father Koestler mystery has all the elements found in most of Kienzle's books...murder, the Catholic Church, Detroit and a Catholic aspect to the crime. Father Koestler is aging just as the author has, but the topics are as current as ever. This one involves a married Anglican priest who wants to become a Roman Catholic priest. Twenty years ago, this might have been facetious, but the Episcopal/Anglican church has so lost her bearings that many of the faithful are looking for a spiritual home that still has the form of the Episcopal church but without the wild and radical changes in the new "anything goes" Episcopal Church.

But, of course, there is a problem with the Roman Catholic church. An Anglican who wants to remain true to the tenets of the church as laid out in the "Thirty-nine Articles" almost has to look elsewhere and that would obviously be the Roman church, but there are very strong feelings about this. Obviously, the church can't expect the candidate to abandon his family, but the church is desperate for priests. If the authorities of the Roman Catholic church are ambivalent, many of the parishioners are not and that is the plot of this book.

There is a time bomb in the Sanctuary of the church set to explode just as the ordination should have started, but the procession is late and only one person is at the altar. The obvious intended victim is the Anglican convert, but there are other possibilities to be considered. The tale weaves round and round until we seem to have 3 different crimes with possibly more than one perpetrator. The books gets somewhat convoluted before it winds on to the conclusion, but is very interesting and satisfying.

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