Death of a Scriptwriter (Hamish Macbeth Mysteries) (Mass Market Paperback)

Set in the Scottish Highlands, in the village of Lochdubh, this series is a nice read--nothing too complicated, full of local Scottish color (with both its characters and its setting), lots of delightful red herrings, and logical solutions. This series, the titles of which always begin with "Death of a...," is quite a successful one and one which takes little time to read. Macbeth, the local constable, is proud of the fact that he is not an ambitious soul. Despite the fact that he has solved thirteen previous murders, he is still a constable. He refuses to be promoted as he claims he is too happy in Lochdubh to want to advance to a larger city. He is filled with lots of common sense and while often the villagers give him a hard time ("He's too lazy," they claim.), they highly respet him and have come to his rescue more

than once.

He's not so lucky with his own love life, however, and seems to fall in love with any woman who shows interest. The real love, Priscilla Smythe-Halliburton, has moved to London, after he had broken off the engagement, and appears intermittently in all the books of the series.

In "Death of a Scriptwriter," a television crew appears in Macbeth's bailiwick to film a novel written by an English spinster who has moved to Lochdubh. Her books were never much of a success, but this one was picked up by the BBC. She is delighted that at long last, fame is coming her way. She is so overjoyed that she fails to retain the complete rights to her book; a screen writer is hired to "modernize" the plot and characters (in other words, to add lots of sex and violence to the rather staid Victorian tale). Disagreements among the TV crew members erupt and, viola, the screenwriter (an impossible sort, unliked and unloved by anybody, and quite impossible to work with) is found dead; shortly thereafter, the star of the film (who is to appear nude in some scenes) is killed when she "falls" off a boulder; her alcoholic husband has also been found dead! (Bodies seem more plentiful than the last act of "Hamlet"!) Everyone seems to be a suspect! Macbeth, in his plodding, but thorough way, of course, leads us to the conclusion, wherein all deaths are solved, and the reader then is set up to await the next installment.

This book is a fun-read. Ms Beaton is in her element--she's writing about what she seems to know a lot about herself--authors, screenwriters, and television crews (this series is being filmed in England and we can only hope that A&E or PBS will bring it to us over here!). Beaton devotees will love this one!

The characters remain quirky and complex enough to sustain reader interest. But after nearly 200 pages of suspects, the literary landscape littered with a corpse here and there, it seems the author gives up and opts for a quick answer