Death of a Perfect Wife

Title: Death of a Perfect Wife
Author: M.C. Beaton
Published: 1989
Genre: Murder mystery
Pages: 175


This is one of the earliest Hamish Macbeth -books, and I am reading the list the right way this time! I wanted something completely different after Fool's Quest, and these books always deliver.

Peace of little Lochdubh is broken again, this time by newcomers Trixie and Paul Thomas, who have bought a house and decided to turn it into a bed & breakfast. It's not easy or cheap, though, and Trixie is soon circling the houses of the village, looking for spare furniture, enchanting the ladies with her wifely skills. She manages to make a few enemies along the way, not in the least in the husbands whose wives are suddenly transformed, and as you can guess by the name, death comes knocking. Hamish has to solve the mystery, once again without attracting too much attention and dodging promotions.

The TV-series based on these books -which I love- is pretty independent from the books, but this has quite obviously inspired one of the episodes! Come to think of it, there's a lot less death in the series...

I haven't had a lot of time to read lately: I have two new colleagues at work, third starting tomorrow, and quiet lunch-breaks are pretty much a thing of the past. No reading, socialising! Ugh. And then I relapsed into Dragon Age: Inquisition. And started three new knitting projects. At once. Well, one is almost done, another halfway through.


   Mrs. Maclean was down on her knees, scrubbing her stone-flagged kitchen floor with ammonia. Not for her the easy road with mop and up-to-date cleanser.
   The radio was blaring out Scottish country dance music. He called to her, but she didn't hear him so he switched off the radio and she looked up.
   "What do you want, you glaiket loon?" she said, wringing the floor cloth savagely and throwing it into the bucket.
   Hamish sighed. The trouble with being a policeman in a small, normally law-abiding village was that you did not strike fear or terror into the heart of anyone.