Death of a Dreamer: Summary and book reviews of Death of a Dreamer by M.C. Beaton, plus links to an excerpt from Death of a Dreamer and a biography of M.C. Beaton.
Death of a Dreamer
by M.C. Beaton
Hardcover: Feb 2006,
256 pages.
Paperback: Jan 2007,
288 pages.
Most newcomers don't stay long in remote Lochdubh. They arrive filled with
romantic notions of life in northern Scotland until boredom, dampness, and nosy
villagers send them running back to civilization. Hamish Macbeth is surprised
when artist Effie Garrard sticks it out through the winter, especially since her
cottage is so far up in the hills that it might take weeks before anyone would
know if something happened to her.
By spring Macbeth fears something has. He takes his Land Rover out to check
on her, and for once his uncanny sixth sense is wrong! Effie is fine - if being a
dreamer and a little odd don't count. That problem off his mind, Macbeth's
attention turns closer to home. His old flame Priscilla Halburton-Smythe has
returned to Lochdubh for a long visit, not that Macbeth still cares. And a
landscape painter, up from Glasgow, is charming all the ladies in the area,
including the elderly twins Nessie and Jessie Currie. Macbeth's famous intuition
tells him trouble is in the air. And this time Macbeth is spot-on.
Effie Garrard is found dead, an apparent suicide. Although his superiors
close the case, Macbeth feels in his bones it is murder. Worse, things begin
going haywire in his own life. Another of his old girlfriends turns up in
Lochdubh, his heart is being tugged toward an unwise passion, and he may be
dreaming too much himself. Distracted by his personal affairs, Macbeth may not
see an evil that's getting too close to him…or a ruthless killer whose violence
will give everyone nightmares.
The prolific M.C. Beaton's 22nd novel in the Hamish Macbeth series is one part cozy, one part police procedural and one part psychological thriller - and really rather good! (Reviewed by BookBrowse Review Team).
Kirkus Reviews
Can [Hamish] solve the crime without winning the promotion that will ruin his quiet life? The faithful won't mind that Hamish's amours this time take second place to his detecting skills.
Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Beaton's flawless 21st installment in her popular Hamish Macbeth series (after 2005's Death of a Bore) boasts amusing local color and singularly savvy sleuthing.
Booklist - Connie Fletcher
Starred Review. A Brigadoon-like setting in northern Scotland that quickly turns Hitchcockian. Beaton is a masterful mixer of disparate elements that result in crime novels that are part police procedural and part psychological thriller... A treat.
M.C. Beaton is a pseudonym of Marion Chesney, an extremely prolific
author of Regency romances, who also writes the Agatha Raisin and Hamish Macbeth mystery series under
the name M. C. Beaton. A former journalist, she now writes full time, under her
own name and a variety of pseudonyms including Sarah Chester, Helen Crampton, Ann Fairfax,
Marion Gibbons, Jennie Tremaine, and Charlotte Ward. She was born in Scotland
but now divides her time between
the English Cotswolds and Paris.
At a rough count, since 1979 she has published more than 100 titles as Marion
Chesney and more than 40 as M.C. Beaton - that's about five a year! 140
titles is impressive if quantity matters to you, but no where near the output of
the doyenne of the romance novel, Barbara Cartland (who published her first
novel at 22 and died aged 98). Cartland's publisher estimates her total
books at 723 (even they can't keep count) with more than a billion in print!
TV Series: Even if you have not read a Hamish Macbeth novel you...
As a decade of change comes to a close, murder hits close to home in a small Scottish town...
On a dark, damp Sunday evening, a man taking a shortcut home sees a hand reaching out in supplication from a bundle of sacks. In an instant he knows something terrifying has happened.
Join Phryne Fisher, the feminist sleuth who always gets her man, on a tightly plotted maze of thrilling adventure set in 1920s Australia.
These are 2 of the 6 readalike suggestions for Death of a Dreamer. Members have full access to all readalikes. If you are a member, please login. To find out more about membership, click here.
A bold, mesmerizing novel about the woman known as "Typhoid Mary," the first known healthy carrier of typhoid fever in the burgeoning metropolis of early twentieth century New York.
Z, the novel about the life of Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald is at points charming and; like another reviewer, I kept thinking of the movie, "Midnight...
read more
Although heavy on the scientific details, which slowed down the story for me (OK, I admit, I was one of those liberal arts majors who skipped out on...
read more
Loved this book. Magical, quirky, enchanting I could go on. All books do not have to be literary fiction, sometimes it is just so comforting to read...
read more
British Parliament asks Amazon to clarify why it pays $9 million in income tax on $23 billion of UK sales.(May 20 2013) Amazon will be called back to give further evidence to members of the British Parliament "to clarify how its activities in the U.K. justify its low corporate...
Full Story
BookBrowse
(518 words).
Kirkus Reviews
