Sign up for our newsletters to receive our Most Anticipated Books of 2025!

Summary and Reviews of Death of a Dreamer by M.C. Beaton

Death of a Dreamer by M.C. Beaton

Death of a Dreamer

by M.C. Beaton
  • BookBrowse Review:
  • Critics' Consensus (4):
  • First Published:
  • Feb 22, 2006, 256 pages
  • Paperback:
  • Jan 2007, 288 pages
  • Rate this book

About This Book

Book Summary

Newcomers usually don't stay long in remove Lockdubh, Scotland, but artist Effie Garrard settles in and apart from being a dreamer and a little odd, seems to be fine. Then she's found dead, an apparent suicide, but police constable Hamish Macbeth feels in his bones it is murder - but is he too distracted by his own personal affairs to see the evil that's getting too close to him?

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.

Chapter One

So, if I dream I have you, I have you,

For, all our joys are but fantastical.

—John Donne

It had been a particularly savage winter in the county of Sutherland at the very north of Scotland. Great blizzards had roared in off the Atlantic, burying roads and cottages in deep snowdrifts. Patel's, the local grocery shop in the village of Lochdubh, sold out of nearly everything, and at one point it was necessary for rescue helicopters to drop supplies to the beleaguered inhabitants.

And then, at the end of March, the last of the storms roared away, to be followed by balmy breezes and blue skies. The air was full of the sound of rasping saws and the thump of hammers as the inhabitants of Lochdubh, as if they had awakened from a long sleep, got to work repairing storm damage.

The police station was comparatively sheltered below ...

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $50 for 12 months or $18 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Reviews

BookBrowse Review

BookBrowse

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!..continued

Full Review (372 words)

This review is available to non-members for a limited time. For full access, become a member today.

(Reviewed by BookBrowse Review Team).

Media Reviews

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.

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.

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.

Reader Reviews

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $50 for 12 months or $18 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Beyond the Book



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...

This "beyond the book" feature is available to non-members for a limited time. Join today for full access.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $50 for 12 months or $18 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Read-Alikes

Read-Alikes Full readalike results are for members only

If you liked Death of a Dreamer, try these:

  • Beneath the Abbey Wall jacket

    Beneath the Abbey Wall

    by A. D. Scott

    Published 2012

    About this book

    More by this author

    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.

  • Murder in Montparnasse jacket

    Murder in Montparnasse

    by Kerry Greenwood

    Published 2006

    About this book

    More by this author

    Join Phryne Fisher, the feminist sleuth who always gets her man, on a tightly plotted maze of thrilling adventure set in 1920s Australia.

We have 6 read-alikes for Death of a Dreamer, but non-members are limited to two results. To see the complete list of this book's read-alikes, you need to be a member.
More books by M.C. Beaton
Search read-alikes
How we choose read-alikes

Books with similar themes


Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $50 for 12 months or $18 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

BookBrowse Book Club

  • Book Jacket
    The Frozen River
    by Ariel Lawhon
    From the bestselling author of I Was Anastasia comes a historical mystery inspired by 18th-century midwife Martha Ballard, who investigates a shocking murder.
  • Book Jacket
    The Bluest Eye
    by Toni Morrison
    The story of a black girl in America whose love for its blond, blue-eyed children can devastate all others. First published 1970; won the 1993 Nobel Prize.
  • Book Jacket
    The Wager
    by David Grann
    From the bestselling author of Killers of the Flower Moon, a gripping story of shipwreck, survival, and savagery, culminating in a court martial that reveals a shocking truth.
Who Said...

Show me the books he loves and I shall know the man...

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Members Recommend

  • Book Jacket

    Harlem Rhapsody
    by Victoria Christopher Murray

    The extraordinary story of the woman who ignited the Harlem Renaissance.

  • Book Jacket

    Beast of the North Woods
    by Annelise Ryan

    When a local fisherman is mauled to death, it seems like the only possible cause is a mythical creature.

  • Book Jacket

    Three Days in June
    by Anne Tyler

    A new Anne Tyler novel destined to be an instant classic: a socially awkward mother of the bride navigates the days before and after her daughter's wedding.

Wordplay

Solve this clue:

T the L

and be entered to win..