Showing results by author "M.C Beaton" in All Categories

What do you do if you are of noble stock, but impoverished, and living in London with a certain style to maintain? One has to work... but One's relatives will be appalled when One turns One's hand to trade - and opens a hotel, The Poor Relation, offering employment to others of the same social standing and in the same awkward situation. This is precisely what Mrs Fortescue decides upon and, together with friend Colonel Sandhurst, transforms her decrepit Bond Street home into a posh hotel, offering guests the pleasure of being waited upon by the nobility.

PC Hamish Macbeth can't help but admire the resourcefulness of the Highlanders during the recession - in tough times they have to lure tourists to their sleepy towns and the quaint village of Braikie has come up with a novel solution. It really doesn't have that much to offer apart from a place of rare beauty called Buchan's Wood, which the clued-up local tourist board director has rechristened "The Fairy Glen" and has had brochures printed with a beautiful kingfisher rising from a lake on the cover.

When Sergeant Hamish Macbeth is sent to investigate reports that the wealthy new laird of the remote Naglar House has disappeared, Scotland is hit by the worst storm in living memory. The road is washed away, phone lines are down, mobile reception is dead and his police radio is out of order. He is trapped with the laird's high-class house guests. Then he discovers the laird's body. Forced to remain overnight at the house, he interviews each of the guests and pieces together an alarming picture of clandestine infidelity, vicious jealousy, deadly revenge, lust, greed and fear.

Local police stations all over the Scottish Highlands are being threatened with closure and this presents the perfect opportunity for Detective Chief Inspector Blair, who would love nothing more than to get rid of Sergeant Hamish Macbeth. Blair suggests that Cyril Sessions, a keen young police officer, visit the town of Lochdubh to monitor exactly what Hamish does every day.

Incomer Gloria French is at first welcomed in the Cotswold village of Piddlebury. She seems like a do-gooder par excellence, raising funds for the church and caring for the elderly. But she has a bad habit of borrowing things and not giving them back, so when she is discovered dead, poisoned by a bottle of elderberry wine, folk in the village don't mourn her passing too intently. Parish councillor Jerry Tarrant hires Agatha Raisin to track down the murderer. But the village is creepy and secretive and the residents don't seem to want Agatha to find who the murderer is.

After a brief and ill-advised dalliance with the Suffragette movement, Lady Rose Summers' debut season in London society turns out to be a complete disaster. Rose's father suspects that her fiancé, Sir Geoffrey Blandon, is a first class scoundrel and calls in Captain Harry Cathcart to investigate. But when a malicious guest is found dead in suspicious circumstances, Rose becomes far more interested in discovering the truth than in landing a more appropriate suitor.

At first, Emily Goodenough and her uncle are exactly what the servants at No. 67 Clarges Street are hoping for: respectable tenants to usher in an uneventful Season.

As usual, the poor relations are in need of money to finance the hotel and this time it is up to Colonel Sandhurst to come to the rescue. After coming across Sir Randolph's daughter Frederica, who is running away to escape an awful marriage to Lord Bewley, the Colonel devises a plan to force Sir Randolph to settle his six month outstanding hotel bill and save Frederica from her terrible fate.

There are many ruined castles in Scotland. One such lies outside the village of Drim. The keening wind explains the ghostly noises, but when Charlie falls through the floor, Hamish finds the body of a dead man propped up in a corner of the cellar. After Charlie is airlifted to the hospital, Chief Detective Inspector Blair arrives to investigate the body, but there is none to be found. Dismissed as a drunk making up stories, Hamish has to find and identify the body and its killer before the "ghost" can strike again.

Morag Merrilea is working at the Shopmark Fashions factory during her summer holidays to earn some extra cash. But when the art student complains to Hamish about the theft of her sketchbook in the pub, he doesn't take her too seriously. After all, she had been drinking and can't quite remember what happened... and then turns out to be snippy when Hamish questions her further. But then her body is discovered - and Hamish is forced to investigate a crime where the only witness has been murdered.

Not bored to death but murder most foul... Celebrated author John Heppel is known in Lochdubh as a self-important bore, prone to belittling the scribblings of the locals in his creative writing class. So when he's found dead, his mouth oozing ink, it seems a fitting fate. But for PC Hamish Macbeth, the murder is more than a disruption of idyllic village life - especially when the media arrive, trailing in their wake DCI Heather Meikle, a maneater with a taste for bachelor police constables.

Cotswolds inhabitants are used to bad weather, but the night sky is especially foggy as Rory and Molly Harris, the new vicar and his wife, drive slowly home from a dinner party in their village of Sumpton Harcourt. They struggle to see the road ahead - but then screech to a halt. Right in front of them, aglow in the headlights of their car, a body hangs from a lightning-blasted tree at the edge of town. But it's not suicide; Margaret Darby, an elderly spinster of the parish, has been murdered - and the villagers are bewildered as to who would commit such a crime, and why.

A sudden outbreak of maliciousness strikes the town of Lochdubh in the form of a rash of poison pen letters. Things turn deadly when the local postmistress is found hanged in her room... with a vicious note beneath her dangling feet. Though his superiors call it suicide, PC Hamish Macbeth pronounces it murder. But Hamish is soon distracted by Jenny Ogilvie, a friend of his ex-fiancee, who arrives in Lochdubh to seduce him. And then he's ambushed by local reporter Elspeth Grant, who sets out to land the story - and Hamish - for herself.

All Hamish Macbeth ever really wants is a quiet life in the peaceful surroundings of his home in the Highland village of Lochdubh. Unfortunately for him, the time he would normally find most relaxing, after the tourists have gone and before the winter sets in, turns out to be far from peaceful. The new love in his life, Claire, is keen for them to take a holiday and Hamish is mulling over the idea when his newly-assigned constable arrives, presenting Hamish with both a surprise and a secret.

Certainly the two should never have met. The handsome, wealthy Marquess of Rockingham was the most notorious man in London, as infamous for his violent temper as he was for his intemperate ways. Miss Lucinda Westerville was a country vicar's daughter, as innocent as she was lovely and as proper as a young lady could possibly be. Yet when this improbably matched pair met at a glittering social ball, they had struck the dubious bargain to become man and wife - in name only!

When police constable Hamish Macbeth receives the news that there has been a murder at Arrat House, home of the relentless practical joker Arthur Trent, he doesn’t race to the scene of the crime. After all, last time he was called to investigate a death at the isolated Scottish manor, the "victim" turned out to be Trent’s manservant covered in fake blood.

Amazing news is spreading like wildfire across the Scottish countryside: the most famous of all Highland bachelors, police sergeant Hamish Macbeth, is planning to marry at last! Everyone in the village of Lochdubh adores Josie McSween, Hamish's newest constable and blushing bride-to-be. While locals think she is quite a catch, Hamish has a severe case of pre-nuptial jitters... after all, if it wasn't for the recent murder of a beautiful woman in a neighbouring village there wouldn't be a wedding in the first place.

In the south of Scotland, residents get their chimneys vacuum-cleaned. But in the isolated villages in the very north of Scotland, the villagers rely on the services of the itinerant sweep, Pete Ray, and his old-fashioned brushes. Pete is always able to find work in the Scottish highlands, until one day when Police Constable Hamish Macbeth notices blood dripping onto the floor of a villager's fireplace, and a dead body stuffed inside the chimney.

Modern notions were all well and good - but where did one find a man to share them? Though Frederica chafes at the restricted life she lives as the adopted daughter of an infamous bluestocking, she does agree with the philosophy: until men learn to appreciate women as intellectual equals, Frederica is better off without them! But her sister’s recent elopement sparks fires of romance in Frederica’s well-educated head.

A dead employer's legacy of 5,000 pounds allows spinster Hannah Pym to resign from housekeeping and find adventure travelling the English countryside by stagecoach. But adventure soon finds Miss Pym in the form of Miss Emily Freemantle, a spoilt violet-eyed beauty fleeing an arranged marriage to a rake she has never met. When the girl's darkly handsome betrothed boards their stage, Miss Pym is certain Emily was rash to bolt from this aristocratic catch! And so as soon as the travellers repair to an inn, Miss Pym begins her matchmaking....