Barbara’s rating: 4 of 5 Stars
Series: Agatha Raisin #33
Publication Date: 10/27/22
Period: Contemporary – Cotswolds
Number of Pages: 256

I’m not sure what adjectives to use to describe Agatha Raisin. She is obsessed with how she looks – hair, makeup, fashion. She definitely has anger management issues. Also, if she were a man, I would describe her as a womanizer – what is the female equivalent of that? She cannot maintain a close ongoing relationship with any man, yet she never quite lets go of them either. I really disliked her in the earlier books and wasn’t going to read any more in the series – but – things change. M.C. Beaton passed away and someone else is now writing the books, so I wondered if I would like her any better. While I didn’t come to like her in this book, she did seem a tad more vulnerable – softer – so she was more tolerable. I enjoyed the mysteries in the book – I think there were three of them and each of them was well presented – but you sort of knew who the culprits were before the case was solved. However, it was nice to see how Agatha and her team solved them – and proved them with evidence.

The first mystery involved thefts at a plant. The thefts were getting bigger and bigger and there seemed to be no clues. Cameras weren’t picking up anyone at the plant when they weren’t supposed to be. What use could anyone have for those particular items? Is it an inside job? How could anyone remove those bulky items without being noticed? Simon Black, a twenty-something with strange looks was assigned to solve the case – can he do it?

The second mystery is to be solved by Patrick Mulligan, a retired police officer. Patrick needs to discover how drugs are getting into a very prestigious girl’s boarding school. How can he solve a drug problem at a school with all female students and almost no male staff? He’ll need someone inside the school. Who can he recruit? Certainly not a sixteen-year-old girl.

The primary mystery begins with a naked young man running down the road as fast as he can go. Yep – a good start, right? The young man, Edward Carstairs, is a member of the Mircrester Naturist Society (nudists), and he has just found a dead body. He manages to stop Agatha and Toni’s car and convince them to help him, but when they arrive at the monolithic stone known as the Lone Warrior, there is no body to be found. Agatha believes the tale the young man tells – but with no body and no signs of any crime, the police can’t/won’t help. Agatha is determined to find out what happened to the body and who murdered whoever it was. That determination drags Agatha and Toni into many strange goings on within the Naturist Society and outside of it. You’ll know who is guilty early on, but you won’t be sure – and you’ll wonder how Agatha will ever manage to prove it. When danger comes to both Agatha and Toni – and more murders are unveiled – it becomes a twisted tale indeed.

Nestled within the investigations are the tales of Agatha’s romantic life. She struggles with relationships with former lovers and husbands – and even brings a couple of new men into her wake. Will she ever make a mature decision about any of these men? Honestly, she reminds me of a fourteen-year-old girl with crush after crush, but no staying power.

In spite of my feelings about Agatha, I gave this book a 4-star rating because the mystery is excellent. Should you require a deep, meaningful romance in your mysteries, you won’t find this book or this series to your liking – but if shallow romance and bed play is good for you, you’ll like both the series and the book.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an Advanced Reader Copy (ARC) of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

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Barbara’s rating: 3.7 of 5 stars (Rounded up)
Series: Hamish Macbeth #34
Publication Date: 2/15/22
Period: Contemporary – Lochdubh, Scotland
Number of Pages: 241

It was so bittersweet to read this book knowing that M.C. Beaton had passed away and that she’d had assistance with writing this book before her death. IF this had been my first read in the Hamish Macbeth series, I’d probably have rated the book a solid 4 or 4.5 stars. However, it was NOT my first book in the series – I’ve read them all. It was a good mystery and it was well written – it was just a little ‘off’ somehow. Hamish just wasn’t quite Hamish – I still loved him, but he wasn’t exactly the character I’ve come to know and love. I also didn’t get the book I had so very much wanted. I have to wonder if this is really the last book of the series or not because nothing was really wrapped up in the book and lots of ‘hints’ were there for things to come. The book I WANTED would have had a happily settled Hamish in his sweet Scottish village – and DCI Blair having been dropped in the deep ocean somewhere. That is definitely NOT what I got. So now, do I go on picturing our sweet, lovable Hamish spending a long, lonely life in Lochdubh – OR – will there be another book and another? If there are more, will they satisfy my Lochdubh hunger and my desire to see Hamish happily settled and living a life that isn’t lonely?

Hamish Macbeth is very, very happy being the police Sergeant in remote, breathtakingly beautiful Lochdubh, Scotland. He’s been engaged twice and both times he’s broken those engagements because he realized those ladies just weren’t the right match – neither of them wanted to stay in Lochdubh. They wanted a big city life – and he definitely did not. So, imagine his delight when his new constable, Dorothy McIver, is not only as beautiful as his beloved Highlands – she wants to live there – with him. They work together for several months and grow closer and closer until he finally asks her to marry him – and she says YES.

They work well together solving the few crimes that happen in ‘their patch’ as Hamish refers to it. Then, there is a murder, and ‘special’ investigators from Strathbane and even Glasgow descends on their peaceful little world. One of those investigators is DCI Blair who hates Hamish with a passion. Blair is the epitome of a dirty cop – Hamish knows it – Blair knows Hamish knows it. Hamish just can’t prove it – yet. Hamish and Dorothy conduct their own investigation since they’ve been told to stay out of the official one. It really gets personal for Hamish when Douglas (Dougie) Tennant is beaten and left to burn to death in his cottage near where the murder happened.

There are so many things that don’t make sense to Hamish. Is all of it related to gangs bleeding over from the big cities into the Highlands? Who is the blonde woman in the blue car? What does the soldier, Keith Bain, have to do with any of it? His alibi certainly doesn’t hold up. Then, there is the American, James Bland. Who is he really and why is he in Lochdubh? We all know DCI Blair is up to no good – but what is it he is actually up to?

To tell you this book broke my heart and left me terribly, terribly sad for Hamish would be putting it mildly – especially if there are no future books. I’m not sure if I’m glad I read it or not because, if it is the last book, my imagination was so very much better than where this went. That said, it was a good mystery and a good read even if it wasn’t the same as it would have been had M.C. Beaton written all of the words.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an Advanced Reader Copy (ARC) of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

View all my reviews