Death of an Outsider (1988)

     M. C. Beaton Death of an Outsider (1988) Some years ago, we viewed a series of crime stories set in Lochdubh, a Highland village overseen by an amiable and somewhat lazy copper, Hamish MacBeth. The makers of the series exaggerated the eccentricity and cheerful paganism of the villagers, but not by much, and used Beaton’s hints of the darker nooks of the human psyche to remind us that evil is real, even in the most bucolically innocent places. This book is a nicely done addition to the series. I enjoyed reading it. Mainwaring, a deliberately annoying incomer to Cnothan (a  valley or two over from Lochdubh) is bashed over the head and falls into a lobster tank, where he is quickly reduced to a skeleton. The drunk set to guard the fish plant discovers the skeleton, and hauls it to a ring of standing stones. MacBeth is pushed aside from the main investigation by his enemy Chief Detective Supt. Blair, but of course manages to find all the clues that lead to the murderer. His love life is complicated (it always is), he misses his lovely Priscilla, assorted subplots confuse the cops if not the reader, and it all ends more or less happily, with justice of a sort being done. A good read, made better by having seen the videos: it helps to be able to imagine a face and a voice. **-½