DEATH OF A SMUGGLER

The charming latest collaboration between Beaton, who died in 2019, and Green (after Death of a Spy) finds Scottish police sergeant Hamish Macbeth dreaming of a peaceful winter with his sweetheart, Claire, in the tiny village of Lochdubh. Those dreams are quickly dashed, however. After Davey Forbes, an old friend of Hamish's, returns to the village from Edinburgh to work as Hamish's constable, the men attend the reopening of the local pub. There, they learn that a man named Mick Gallagher has gone missing, and soon catch wind that Gallagher may have been involved in whiskey smuggling. When a local woman turns up dead shortly after Gallagher's disappearance, Hamish and Davey assume it's no coincidence, and eventually uncover a sinister smuggling operation with much more than liquor on its mind. Beaton and Green stuff the novel with vivid side characters, high-speed chases, cozy visits to the pub, and fair-play clues, never letting the pace flag even as they work in plenty of amiable chats between the sergeant and his constable. Series fans will be well pleased. Agent: Barbara Lowenstein, Lowenstein Assoc. (Feb.)