M.C. Beaton Death of a Dreamer

Death of a Dreamer

M.C. Beaton

Mysterious, Feb 2006, $23.95

ISBN: 0892967897

Residents of Sutherland County in extreme northern Scotland are used to harsh winters, but this year's series of blizzards was the most savage in memory. Lochdubh constable Hamish Macbeth knows the horrendous weather kept crime down, as few from the south ventured this far, but he also feels guilty for not calling on new neighbor Effie Garrard during the adverse season. Hamish goes to visit Effie expecting her home shuttered tight, and she in the warmer south, but instead he sees she weathered the winter reasonably well.

Effie insists that visiting landscape painter Jock Fleming loves her, while the artist says that is not so as he treasures all the beautiful women. When Jock dines with summer-bird Priscilla Halburton-Smyth, dreamer Effie argues with him that he belongs to her, while he insists no way. Not long afterward, Effie is found dead, a victim of hemlock poisoning. Though some say suicide, as the fantasist could not cope with the end of her relationship with Jock, and others assume the artist killed her, Hamish thinks the case is much more complex. He looks into who turned the dreamer's world into a nightmarish death, even as a second victim dies.

The first half of this fine locality piece is more a character study, as the villagers begin to come out of the wintry cocoon and introduce readers to the key players besides Hamish. About a little more than a third of the way into the fine storyline, the death of the fantasist occurs; at that point Hamish goes into constable mode, and the tale twists into a fine Scottish police procedural, with the villagers offering their opinions until the second death occurs. M.C. Beaton provides another strong Macbeth who-done-it.