Death of a ghost

The thirty-third entry in this popular series starring the perennially unhappy and unlucky-in-love Hamish Macbeth, now a sergeant in the Scottish Highlands village of Lochdubh, will engage series fans but may leave newcomers bewildered. Beaton does very little here to catch new readers up with the characters, unlike, for example, the graceful way Alexander McCall Smith starts each new book in the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series. But Beaton fans will recognize Macbeth's Highlands beat and his difficulties with bosses and lovers. The mystery hinges on sightings of a ghost in a ruined castle on a loch (Beaton does little with the visual possibilities). Macbeth and a constable spend the night. No ghost is sighted, but the constable's fall into a cellar reveals a corpse, which disappears after Macbeth and his subordinate leave the castle for some food. The novel boasts good plotting that expands outward from the body in the castle cellar, as well as intriguing bits concerning a minister and a seductive married woman with whom the minister is involved, but it lacks Beaton's usual evocative use of landscape.--Fletcher, Connie Copyright 2016 Booklist

When Hanover "Handy" Ebrington, the new owner of ramshackle Castle Drim, hears ghostly noises, Sgt. Hamish Macbeth investigates, in Beaton's atmospheric 33rd mystery featuring the Lochdubh, Scotland, policeman (after 2016's Death of a Nurse). Hamish is inclined to think that Handy is being "haunted" by vandals, so he and his partner, Constable Charlie Carter, arrange to spend the night in the castle tower to catch the miscreants red-handed. Instead they find a body and a likely smugglers' drop. When more bodies turn up, Hamish's superiors are eager to seize upon easy solutions. But as usual, Hamish's senses tell him the answer is far more complicated than it seems. Few fictional detectives are more appealing than fey, redheaded Hamish with his taste for unsuitable women and no desire to leave his peaceful Scottish Highland home. Series fans and newcomers alike will enjoy spending time with Hamish and the beguiling inhabitants of Lochdubh. Agent: Barbara Lowenstein, Lowenstein Associates. (Feb.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.