Scottish Mystery

Death of a Gossip by M.C. Beaton
Reviewed by Jason Koivu
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Question for Beaton/Hamish Macbeth fans: Are they all like this?

I like a good murder mystery/detective story, and with the Hamish Macbeth series at 32 books and still going strong, I thought this might be my next favorite series to launch myself into. So I started at the beginning and gave Death of a Gossip a go.

This book is a jack of all trades and a master of none. It's a little bit romance, a little bit mystery, and a little bit comedy. It does all of them adequately to erratically, and never does it wow on any level. The romance is trite, the mystery is all right, and the comedy oh so light.

Some of the characters are only just sketched out and some come off like stereotyped caricatures. It seemed like Beaton was still feeling her way around the town constable and central figure of Macbeth. I'm guessing (hoping) that with such a long series, Macbeth eventually gets fully fleshed out.

I'm not a big romance fan to begin with, so take this review with a grain of salt. I love Austen's stuff, but I really dislike modern romances. A rom-com I can manage now and then, if the com is particularly strong. Unfortunately the com was almost nonexistent in Death of a Gossip. Irregardless, I vowed to give it the ol' college try and I've already started on book two!

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