JON L. BREEN – The Gathering Place. Walker, hardcover, 1984; paperback, September 1986.

   Well known for a number of years as a critic, short-story writer, and parodist, Jon L. Breen turned to the writing of novels in 1983 with Listen for the Click, an affectionate parody/pastiche of the classic country-house mystery.

   The Gathering Place, his second novel, is quite different — a bookshop mystery that combines the traditional fair-play whodunit with ghosts and other elements of the paranormal.

   When Oscar Vermilion dies of heart failure, his used book store on Santa Monica Boulevard in Los Angeles, a fixture since 1935 and a gathering place for such literary lights as Nathaniel West and William Faulkner, is in danger of closing for good.

   But Vermilion’s niece, Rachel Hennings, inherits the property, and she has both experience of her own in running a bookshop and a desire to maintain her uncle’s legacy.

   That desire may not be easy to fulfill, however: Not long after her arrival from Arizona, Vermilion’s is broken into (although nothing is taken); ghostly manifestations begin to occur in the shop’s dusty confines (something guides her hand to write F. Scott Fitzgerald’s name in a copy of The Great Gatsby, a signature that turns out to be authentic); and she is presented with evidence that The Atlantis Courier, an early novel by leading Hollywood writer Arlen Kitchener, was actually ghostwritten by a man who was found murdered shortly after Oscar Vermilion’s death.

   Breen neatly meshes these diverse elements, and a budding romance between Rachel and newspaperman Stu Wellman, into a suspenseful tale that keeps the reader guessing on several fronts.

   Some may find the supernatural segments of the plot a strain on their credulity; this reviewer and general skeptic had no trouble with them, and in fact found that they add considerable depth and mystery to the story line. Another plus is the bookish lore and information the author weaves throughout the narrative.

   One other recommended title by Jon Breen is Hair of the Sleuthhound (1982), a collection of some of the best of his short spoofs of distinguished crime writers and their works.

         ———
   Reprinted with permission from 1001 Midnights, edited by Bill Pronzini & Marcia Muller and published by The Battered Silicon Dispatch Box, 2007.   Copyright © 1986, 2007 by the Pronzini-Muller Family Trust.

Note: This book was previously reviewed on this blog by Marv Lachman.

JENNIFER LEE CARRELL – Interred with Their Bones. Dutton, hardcover, September 2007. Plume, trade ppbk, August 2008. Published in the UK as The Shakespeare Secret, as by J. L. Carrell: Sphere, softcover, 2008.

   This is yet another in the category of what I call “Dollar Store Wonders,” exceptional books you find remaindered in the local Dollar Store.

   Kate Stanley, the heroine, is a Shakespearean scholar and theatrical director currently putting on a production of Hamlet in the restored Globe Theater.

   One of those ghosts is Kate’s eccentric mentor Harvard professor Rosalind Howard, who shows up acting mysterious, and bearing a box she wants Kate to have. She has made a literary discovery that will rock the world.

   But Kate is busy with the production of Hamlet, and has no time for Rosalind’s fancies, or her drama: “Tis in my memory locked, and you yourself shall keep the key of it.”

    And Kate wishes she had been listening more closely when Rosalind is murdered and someone tries to burn down the Globe to cover it up, after an obvious, and fruitless search — fruitless because Kate had the box with her. And DCI Sinclair isn’t amused by either the crime or the drama surrounding it. The only person Kate can lean on his Sir Henry Lee, playing Hamlet’s father, a Thames River street brawler who grew up to be one of the lions of British theater.

   The box yields a singularly uninvolving clue, a brooch, consisting of jeweled flowers, those found entwined in the dead Ophelia’s hair, and that quote of Rosalind’s was from one of Ophelia’s speeches.

   The clue may be small, but the implications aren’t, and from such small things Kate is sent plunging into a mystery that goes back to Shakespeare’s time, and will set her on a quest across Europe.

   The brooch leads to a rare Jacobean edition of Shakespeare’s Sonnets, only important if taken not as individual poetry, but as a single story, and from that the book of books in Shakespearean terms: the First Folio.

   A book worth killing for, certainly. A torn page from one once sold in the hundred of thousands, but Rosalin was no mere book collector, and the mystery at the heart of Interred with Their Bones (the quote from Julius Caesar, not Hamlet by the way) is deeper and darker than the heart of any book collector.

   The brooch is a clue that is key in solving the mystery at the heart of this book and literature’s oldest and most fought over mystery: Who was William Shakespeare?

   Cutting across time while following Kate’s quest, Interred with Their Bones develops both an intriguing mystery and a taut and suspenseful tale as Kate’s investigation unfolds along side the historical sidelines, as the Folio leads to even great mysteries and more danger.

   Carrell unfolds her tale with real suspense, excellent writing, and no little skill as Kate finds herself in Spain and learns the hard way that there are literary secrets worth killing for, and she is pitted against as duplicitous a pair of murderers as seen since Sam Spade sought a lead-coated bird.

   Anyone vaguely familiar with the long-running debate over who actually wrote Shakespeare’s plays will doubly enjoy the book, but even if you never heard of Christopher Marlowe, Francis Bacon, or the Earl of Oxford you’ll enjoy this intriguing tale that manages a perfect balance of action, suspense, and revelations — the perfect literary thriller, with equal emphasis on both literary and thriller.

   The solution may not be final: “The problem is it still doesn’t add up to much more than voices in the wind.” But Kate knows what she believes.

   A scholarly and well written account of the various factions in the “who wrote Shakespeare” debate follows the novel and is worth reading on its own.

   Kate Stanley has since returned in Haunt Me Still, another Shakespearean mystery where her production of Macbeth collides with Halloween and the meaning behind the ‘occult Shakespeare.’ Previously Carrell wrote the highly praised The Speckled Monster: A Tale of Battling Smallpox, a non-fiction work praised for its literate and novelistic content.

   I don’t know how many books Carrell can get out of Shakespearean mysteries, but if she manages one from each of the plays, more power to her. I can’t wait to see what she does with the cannibalism and bloodbath of Titus Andronicus. A Dollar Store Wonder has now moved up to one of my favorite contemporary series, with a smart plucky and far from fainting heroine.

   And to quote the book’s perfect last line:

Editorial Comment:   While scouting on the Internet for some cover images to add to David’s review, I found that there is a third book in the series, The Shakespeare Curse. It’s already been published in England (as of last January), and it should be available here in the US soon.

[UPDATE] Later the same day.   David’s right. See the first comment. The Shakespeare Curse is the UK title of Haunt Me Still, so at the present time there are still only two in the series. Nonetheless, by any standard you can think of, there are plenty of other plays for Carrell to choose from to use as a basis for for Number Three.

ALYS CLARE – Girl in a Red Tunic. Hodder & Stoughton, UK, hardcover, November 2005; softcover, August 2006.

Genre: Historical mystery. Series characters: Abbess Helewise/Josse d’Acquin, 8th in series. Setting: England-Middle Ages/1193.

First Sentence: He had to wait until it was dark and everyone was asleep.

   Abbess Helewise has been thinking about her life prior to joining the Abbey. She is surprised, yet concerned, when her son Loefgar, shows up with his wife, who looks pale and ill, and their 14-month son, who is unnaturally shy and won’t speak.

   It is a relief to have her good friend, Josse d’Acquin, who had come to the Abbey ill but is recovered, on hand. When a man, who claims his brother was killed by Leofger in a dispute, is found hanged near the Abbey, Loefgar, and his family, disappear. Helewise fears for her son, and questions how events from the past are impact the present.

   The most important element of a book, to me, is the characters. It has always been the characters which have drawn me to this series. We learn much more about Helewise than in previous books. These were times when an Abbess needn’t have been a nun, so it’s nice to see her as a woman, learn about her past, and how she came to Hawkenlye Abbey.

   As always, we see the strength of the friendship between Helewise and Josse. Not only Helewise and Josse, but all the supporting characters come to life under Ms. Clare’s hand, even the ones you don’t trust. I do appreciate that we’ve see a transition in characters since the beginning of the series. People come and go in life ad Clare handles it in a way which works.

   In most of the previous books, there has been a strong element of the metaphysical. I am one who, if done well, enjoys that. It is an element of this book as well, and it works. These were times when, even with the dominance of the Catholic Church, people, including the clergy, were highly superstitious and believed the ancient powers and abilities. Although it is quite clear that Ms. Clare is no fan of the Church, I would suspect any book set in this time, which did not include some reference to the metaphysical.

   Which leads to the third thing: I love English history. Not only did Ms. Clare include a map and genealogical chart at the beginning of the book, she clearly does her period research. Early in the story, Clare talks about King Henry being captured for ransom and the impact the levies was having on the lives of the people.

   She paints a vivid picture of people’s lives, including the hunger and cold due to lack of money. A slight misstep is in the plotting. I did figure out the motive and villain before the end, which reduced my rating, but it didn’t spoil the read for me.

   In fact, I was so drawn into the book, I never wanted to put it down, and found the ending quite sad, but rather lovely. I look forward to continuing with this series.

Rating:   Good Plus.

Editorial Comment:   There are now 12 books in this “Hawkenlye” series, with the most recent appearing in 2008. Since then Alys Clare seems to have switched gears a bit, with two books in her “Aelf Fen” series being published in 2009. These novels are set in the reign of William II (1087-1100), with the series itself named after the imaginary area in which they take place.

HERBERT BREAN – Wilders Walk Away. William Morrow & Co., hardcover, 1948. Hardcover reprint: Unicorn Mystery Book Club, 4-in-1 edition, June 1948. Reprint paperbacks include: Pocket #582, 1949; Collier, 1962; International Polygonics, 1988.

   Free-lance magazine writer Reynold Frame comes to the Vermont village of Wilders Lane to do a series of articles on the colonial town and its history. The village’s founding family, the Wilders, are a decidedly curious bunch:

   It is said that no Wilder ever died of old age; they just disappeared. In 1775 patriarch Jonathan Wilder walked down into the cellar of the family house and was never seen again. Another Wilder was a mate on the Mary Celeste. Still another vanished from a sandy beach in 1917, in full view of witnesses.

   But Wilders “walking away” isn’t a phenomenon relegated to past history, as Frame soon learns. First young Ellen Wilder and then Aunt Mary also vanish from watched rooms inside the house, while he himself is on the premises.

   There is plenty of eerie mystery here, a fine sense of small-town New England life circa 1948, and some fascinating bits and pieces of colonial history woven in. Plus a Revolutionary War treasure, secret passages and hidden rooms, an array of offbeat characters, and of course a love interest for Frame (Constance, one of the few Wilders who does not walk away).

   The solutions to the “impossible” occurrences are well set up, if not particularly ingenious — the trickiest is the sandy-beach disappearance — but that doesn’t spoil the book’s appeal.

   Reynold Frame appears in three other novels — The Darker the Night (1949), Hardly a Man Is Now Alive (1950), and The Clock Strikes Thirteen (1952) — all of which likewise make good use of unusual settings, strange doings, and past crimes.

   Brean also created another journalist detective, William Deacon, for The Traces of Brillhart (1960) and The Traces of Merilee (1966).

         ———
   Reprinted with permission from 1001 Midnights, edited by Bill Pronzini & Marcia Muller and published by The Battered Silicon Dispatch Box, 2007.   Copyright © 1986, 2007 by the Pronzini-Muller Family Trust.

Editorial Comment:   This title is one of those compiled in John Pugmire’s profusely illustrated article “A Locked Room Library,” to be found here on the main Mystery*File website. (Follow the link.)

HERBERT BREAN – The Traces of Brillhart. Harper & Brothers, US, hardcover, 1960. Willliam Heinemann, UK, hc, 1961 (shown). Paperback reprints include: Collier, 1965; International Polygonics, 1988.

   I thought I was reading The MYSTERY FANcier again when I read Herbert Brean’s The Traces of Brillhart and found he had a detective whose first name is Bill and who is called “Deac.”

   This winner of the Bill Deeck sound-alike contest is Bill Deacon, a magazine journalist, like his creator. Brean’s first series character, Reynold Frame, had the same profession. He appeared in four undeservedly forgotten books, including Wilders Walk Away, one of the best first mysteries ever.

   The Traces of Brillhart is a good puzzle about a sleazy musician who keeps dying and returning to life (without the help of anything supernatural), keeping the reader off guard until the end. As Deacon says, “I felt surrounded by Brillhart. He was dead but he was everywhere.”

   The ending is not as good as it might be, leaving some unraveled threads. Still, this is a fine book, even if Deacon’s girl friend is called “Twit-Twit.” As Jack Paar used to say, “I kid you not.” (Her real name is Twickenham.)

CAROL KENDALL – The Black Seven. Harper & Brothers, hardcover, 1946. John Lane/The Bodley Head, UK, hc, 1950.

   First of all, Tobias Twigg was too mean to commit suicide. He also enjoyed his family, particularly tormenting them and observing how Twigg-like they were turning out to be. But die of poison by his own hand he did, or so the authorities conclude.

   Five years later, Casper Twigg, following closely in his father’s footsteps, gathers the more or less odious Twigg family together to announce that he has been accumulating “the follies, the foibles, the flagrancies — or better still, the outcroppings of Twiggisms.”

   He is particularly interested in the disappearance of the Seven Black Babies, whatever they may have been, following his father’s death.

   Roderick Random — no, not that Roderick Random — twelve years old, exceedingly precocious, and better known as “Drawers,” has set up a home away from home in a shed on the Twigg Terrace property. Thus he is involved in the excitement and the deaths caused by Casper Twiggs’s embracing of a new way to amuse himself.

   Indeed, Drawers finds the first corpse on his adopted premises and discovers the meaning of the Seven Black Babies.

   Drawers unmasks, almost literally, a murderer in this well written and amusing novel. The author is convincing in her portrayal of Drawers’s intelligence, along with the youth’s corresponding lack of common sense.

   However, some doubts, at least on this reader’s part, do arise in regard to the boy’s keen interest in pornography and corresponding apparent uninterest in and possibly repugnance to sex.

    Bibliography:    [Taken from the Revised Crime Fiction IV, by Allen J. Hubin.]

KENDALL, CAROL (Seegar). 1917- . Series character: Roderick “Drawers” Random. Setting in each: Ohio.

       The Black Seven (n.) Harper 1946; Lane, 1950.
       The Baby-Snatcher (n.) Lane 1952.

   From Contemporary Authors:

    “Carol Kendall is best known for her award-winning children’s books The Gammage Cup and The Firelings. A writer with diverse interests and abilities, Kendall has collaborated with Yao-wen Li on translations of Chinese folktales in Sweet and Sour: Tales from China and has retold six stories of Japanese origin in Haunting Tales from Japan.”

AGATHA CHRISTIE – And Then There Were None. Washington Square Press (Pocket Books), hardcover, July 1973; 173 pages. ISBN 0-671-70466-4.

   If you haunt used book stores (ever dwindling numerically) like I do, you occasionally come across something unexpected. Such was the case with this particular edition of an Agatha Christie novel:

   This is a hardcover version of the mass-market paperback (and there is no mention anywhere in this edition of the book’s original, politically incorrect title).

   What makes this version special is the 48-page “Reader’s Supplement” inserted in the middle of the text. Clearly, the supplement is aimed at students, probably in high school.

   The supplement breaks down as follows:

       1.   Portrait photo of Agatha Christie (1 page)

       2. “Biographical Background” (3 pages)

       3. “Historical Background” (2 pages)

       4. “Pictorial Background” (22 pages)

       5. “Visual Glossary” (2 pages)

       6. “Literary Allusions and Notes” (5 pages)

       7. “Critical Excerpts” (13 pages).

    “Pictorial Background” (all photos are B&W and grainy):

“A View of the Terraces at Torquay” – “Agatha Christie with Her Husband at Their Devonshire Home” – “A Third-class Coach on an English Train” (sketch) – “A Striking View of the Plymouth Shoreline” – “The Devonshire Countryside” – “An English Village Similar to Sticklehaven” – “A Flashy Sports Car of the Period” – “The Occupants of the Motor Boat to Indian Island” (scene from the 1945 movie) – “A ‘Correct’ English Butler” (sketch) – “Harley Street, London, Where Numerous Doctors Practice” – “The Guests Enjoy Their First Dinner” (1945 movie) – “A Gramophone—1905” (sketch) – “A British Courtroom Scene” – “Some of the Guests on the Terrace” (1945 movie) – “A Rocky Coast in Devonshire” – “Vera and General MacArthur at the Shore” (1945 movie) – “A Tea Tray and Service” – “Another Shocking Warning” (1945 movie) – “The Latest Victim” (1945 movie) – “The Last Two Survivors in a Showdown” (1945 movie) – “… And Then There Were None ….” (1945 movie) – “Scotland Yard, Viewed from Westminster Bridge—1940s”.

    “Visual Glossary” (artist’s sketches):

Cosh, truncheon, stiletto, torch, grandfather chair, siphon, gimlet, heliograph.

    “Literary Allusions and Notes”:

Thirty-seven entries including “cairngorm,” “trional,” “pukka sahib,” “red herring,” “chloral,” “Caesar’s wife,” and “had one over the eight.”

    “Critical Excerpts” (published comments from critics of various eras about mystery fiction, including a few about this particular book — and how many of these people have you heard of?):

R. Austin Freeman (1924) – Willard Huntington Wright (1927) – Dorothy L. Sayers (1928) – George Godwin (1929) – P. G. Wodehouse (1929) – Ronald A. Knox (1929) – H. Douglas Thomson (1931) – Stephen Leacock (1939) – Times Literary Supplement (1939) – The Spectator (1939) – Ralph Partridge (1939) – M. L. Prevost (1940) – Will Cuppy (1940) – Marian Wiggin (1940) – Saturday Review of Literature (1940) – Isaac Anderson (1940) – The New Yorker (1940) – The Pocket Book of Great Detectives (1941) – Edmund Crispin (1961) – Fredric Wertham, M. D. (1926) – Current Biography (1964) – Harry Shefter (1964) – Colin Wilson (1969).

   The characteristically arch Wodehouse excerpt comes from his article “About These Mystery Stories” in the Saturday Evening Post (1929):

   The next time you’re in a used book store, you might want to look for this edition of And Then There Were None, but you might have to search the children’s section to find it.

SHADOW OF THE EAGLE. Mascot, 12 episode serial, 1932. John Wayne, Dorothy Gulliver,Kenneth Harlan, Walter Miller, Edward Hearn, Richard Tucker, ‘Little Billy’ (Rhodes), Ivan Linow, James Bradbury Jr. Directors: Ford Beebe & B. Reeves Eason (the latter uncredited).

   Shadow of the Eagle was John Wayne’s first Serial and a highly enjoyable effort, in its own way, for those prepared to spend four-and-a-half hours of their Precious Youth with a low-budget, low-brow movie no one ever heard of.

   According to Tuska’s book on Mascot, the Duke was offered more money at this time to appear in Nothing Parts for major studios, but he wanted to play Hero Parts, and Nat Levine, King of Cheap Thrills in the early Thirties, told him it was a Lindbergh-type part.

   He signed on, and the next day was carted off in the wee small hours of the morning to arrive at some remote location in time to start shooting at Dawn. (Mascot paid their Actors bv the day and in order to economize they started filming with the first Light of day and often didn’t finish till Midnight.)

   It was a career gamble that paid off, but there must have been times when Wayne wondered about it, what with long days, grueling conditions and short pay.

   Whatever the case, Levine managed to churn out three highly entertaining serials over the next year with his new star before the Duke left for the Wide Open Spaces at Monogram.

   Shadow of the Eagle concerns itself with the efforts of the mysterious “Eagle” to blackmail the Directors of an Aircraft Factory and cast the blame on an innocent Circus Owner, who happens to be the Heroine’s father and Duke’s employer.

   John is allegedly a stunt-flier here, but the closest he probably ever got to a plane in this thing was watching the grainy old stock-footage of Mascot’s Bi-Plane and being chased across a field by it in a scene that looks to have inspired North by Northwest.

   Still, it’s an entertaining film, in its way, with Wayne or some other sympathetic character apparently getting killed off at the end of each chapter, only to be miraculously “saved” in the opening of the next installment — often by the most outrageous cheating or unlikely contrivance.

   There’s even some convincing Circus atmosphere, with various carnival denizens coming to the rescue at odd moments, including Ivan Linow as the Strong Man, James Bradbury Jr. as a rubber-limbed ventriloquist and Little Billy as — you guessed it.

   Watching this thing, I find myself consistently amazed by the sheer quantity (if not Quality) of Thrills that Levine managed to pack in his film for peanuts. The Mascot serials may be a long way from Artistry, but they have an un-self-conscious innocence and energy that I find totally captivating.

JUKE GIRL. Warner Brothers, 1942. Ann Sheridan, Ronald Reagan, Richard Whorf, George Tobias, Gene Lockhart, Alan Hale, Howard da Silva, Donald McBride, Faye Emerson, Fuzzy Knight, Willie Best. Screenplay by A.I. Bezzerides, based on a story by Theodore Pratt, adapted by Kenneth Gamet. Directed by Curtis Bernhardt.

   History adds a touch of irony to this Warners social drama since in it Conservative icon and Republican President Ronald Reagan plays a radical left wing itinerant farm organizer, sort of an Anglo Cesar Chavez.

   It’s the depths of the Depression and Reagan and pal Whorf have just wandered into the farming town of Cat Tail, California (“population 3,000 nine months a year, 30,000 the other three”) where shipper Gene Lockhart and his tough manager Howard da Silva are using their monopoly to break the farmers, like Greek George Tobias.

   Whorf takes a job with Lockhart, but Reagan sticks up for Tobias and thus is set up a classic rivalry between buddies — pal against pal.

   Enter Ann Sheridan, the dance hall girl of the title (a ‘Juke Girl’), a tough brassy broad who is no better than she has to be and not as bad as her face is painted — a typical Sheridan role, and a typical Warners leading lady — smart, self sufficient, tough, but with a heart of gold, and more morals than she lets on.

   She and Reagan only need one look and the sparks fly (“You been burnin’ to get out of everywhere you ever been,” Reagan tells her). They teamed again more effectively in the classic King’s Row, but this one is closer to B territory, and they have more fun with it.

   Reagan takes up with trucker Alan Hale, a two-fisted fellow also battling Lockhart and da Silva to help get Tobias and the other farmers in the cooperative’s crops to market — I told you this was an ironic role for Reagan — but Lockhart murders Tobias and frames Reagan and Sheridan for it.

   As the lynch mob marches on the jail to take the lovers, Whorf and Hale coerce a confession from Lockhart, and save the lovers. Reagan and Sheridan end up with their own farm, Lockhart goes to jail, Hale is now in charge of helping the farmers, and Whorf hits the road again — but he’ll see them in nine months when the crops come in.

   Reagan’s “Maybe I just don’t like to see a man kicked around,” is no Tom Joad’s speech from The Grapes of Wrath, but Sheridan has ‘oomph’ to spare, and if she is a thousand times better looking than the best looking dance hall girl who ever went to bed complaining about her aching feet, she had real skill at playing the kind of tough, human, and believable women Hollywood films too often turned into cliches.

   Claire Trevor and Barbara Stanwyck were among the rare actresses who did it as well. Their working women had a way of making you think you might actually find them in a diner or dance hall — however unlikely that might be in real life.

   Juke Girl lacks the righteous anger of Grapes of Wrath and the tragic eloquence, nor is it as emotionally tough as other Warners social drama classics such as I Was A Fugitive From a Chain Gang and Black Fury or the bright comedy/drama of films like Manpower, Slim or They Drive By Night. It’s also lacking a Paul Muni, Edward G. Robinson, James Cagney, or even George Raft, though Whorf does well in the Raft role in the film.

   Reagan is a perfectly good lead, but he lacks the passion or the conviction this one calls for, the quiet dignity of a Henry Fonda, the caged power of a Cagney, or the depth and anguish of a Paul Muni — you keep half expecting him to mount a plough horse and ride off into a Republican sunset — exit stage right, of course. (In all fairness this was probably less a stretch before we knew his politics).

   The film gets a good deal of good will though from fine contributions by Hale, Lockhart, da Silva, Tobias, Willie Best, and particularly from Sheridan’s famous ‘oomph.’ Whenever she is on screen, the film sparkles and threatens to become something more than what it is.

   Juke Girl doesn’t have the head or the heart to be what it wanted to be, though it at least has the ambition to be something more. The seeds have been sewn, but all they bear are the grapes of mild indignation. It needed John Steinbeck and John Ford to turn social injustice into an American tragedy. Here we have a western with trucks and crops substituting for horses and cattle.

M. C. BEATON – Death of a Witch. Reprint paperback: Grand Central Publishing, January 2010. Hardcover edition: February 2009.

Genre: Police procedural/cozy. Series character: Hamish Macbeth, 25th in series. Setting: Scotland.

First Sentence: Police Constable Hamish Macbeth, heading home to his police station in the village of Lochdubh n Sutherland, heaved a sigh of relief.

   Constable Hamish Macbeth is back in the Scottish village of Lochdubh after his less-than-restful vacation to Spain. He is greeted with the news that a witch has moved into town. But she’s not there long and she is murdered shortly after Hamish’s return. As Hamish’s investigation proceeds more die.

   The Hamish books lie somewhere between traditional mysteries and cozies. On the traditional side, by the end of the book there are a lot of bodies and the protagonist is a policeman. However, rather than there being a detailed investigation, it’s almost as if, when Hamish appears, people confess and everything falls into place.

   On the cozy side, there is an awful lot of time spent dealing with his relationships with women. He has better relationships with his pets. As for characters, Hamish is a little too good to be true. He’s tall, red-haired, good looking to the point where every woman but the one he wants throws themselves at him, and can run like the wind.

   I was a bit annoyed that Hamish’s superior, CI Blair, is portrayed as so incompetent but at least it’s balanced by Hamish’s friend, DS Jimmy Anderson, and Blair’s boss, CS Davoit

   The style is a bit simple for my taste, almost as if written for young adults. I do like that the dialogue is written with an indication of people’s accents without it becoming laborious.

   The element I most enjoyed was the sense of place. Beaton’s descriptions of the highlands and the weather, which can be a critical element in living in, and navigating around, the highlands, is well done. This was a light, enjoyable read but it’s a series I’ve put behind me.

Rating: Good.

Editorial Comment: Say welcome to LJ Roberts and her first review for the Mystery*File blog. Her reviews previously graced the pages of both the printed version and the M*F website, but in the space of time between the latter and the blog, she moved them elsewhere, but only temporarily, I’m pleased to say. Here she is again.