Book log: MC Beaton -- Death of a Cad
Oct. 2nd, 2010 05:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
julesjonesBook 64
Second in the Hamish Macbeth series. In this one, Priscilla Halburton-Smythe, Hamish's friend and object of adoration from afar, brings her new fiance home to meet her parents and assorted house guests, most of whom have cadged an invitation because Henry Withering is a successful playwright and thus has snob value. Unfortunately one of the house guests is Captain Bartlett, boor, ladies' man, and all round cad. Bartlett is found dead by shotgun on the morning of a grouse shoot, apparently having made an all too common mistake of using the gun as a prop to get over a fence without making sure it was unloaded first. Hamish is unconvinced by this explanation, but Priscilla's father is determined to believe that it was an accident, and Priscilla's father is chums with the Chief Constable. Even when Hamish provides evidence that can't be ignored, he's initially pushed out of what has now become a murder investigation. But wiser heads prevail, and Hamish finds himself on the trail of a killer.
An enjoyable piece of light reading, though as with the first not one that inspires me to hunt down the titles I don't already have.
LibraryThing entry
Second in the Hamish Macbeth series. In this one, Priscilla Halburton-Smythe, Hamish's friend and object of adoration from afar, brings her new fiance home to meet her parents and assorted house guests, most of whom have cadged an invitation because Henry Withering is a successful playwright and thus has snob value. Unfortunately one of the house guests is Captain Bartlett, boor, ladies' man, and all round cad. Bartlett is found dead by shotgun on the morning of a grouse shoot, apparently having made an all too common mistake of using the gun as a prop to get over a fence without making sure it was unloaded first. Hamish is unconvinced by this explanation, but Priscilla's father is determined to believe that it was an accident, and Priscilla's father is chums with the Chief Constable. Even when Hamish provides evidence that can't be ignored, he's initially pushed out of what has now become a murder investigation. But wiser heads prevail, and Hamish finds himself on the trail of a killer.
An enjoyable piece of light reading, though as with the first not one that inspires me to hunt down the titles I don't already have.
LibraryThing entry
(no subject)
Date: 2010-10-03 07:47 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-10-03 08:29 am (UTC)Either way, it's a significant factor in why I'm not going looking for any more than the four I picked up in The Works, and expect to move them from the "consider weeding" to the "disposed of" collection on LibraryThing when I've finished those four. I'm willing to give the first one some leeway because the first of a long running series often isn't representative, but the second doesn't show any sign of learning curve happening.