M. C. Beaton

"Nobody loves an honest man, or that was what police sergeant Hamish Macbeth tried to tell newcomer Paul English. Paul had moved to a house in Cnothan, a sour village on Hamish's beat. He attended church in Lochdubh. He told the minister, Mr. Wellington, that his sermons were boring. He told tweedy Mrs. Wellington that she was too fat and in these days of increasing obesity it was her duty to show a good example. Angela Brody was told her detective...

"Sergeant Hamish Macbeth is alarmed to receive a report from a woman in the small village of Cronish in the Scottish Highlands. She has been brutally attacked and the criminal is on the loose. But upon further investigation, Hamish discovers that she was lying about the crime. So when the same woman calls him back about an intruder, he simply marvels at her compulsion to lie. This time, though, she is telling the truth. Her body is found in her home...

"M. C. Beaton's New York Times bestselling Hamish Macbeth series continues with a new mystery featuring Scotland's most quick-witted but unambitious policeman. James Harrison has recently moved to a restored hunting lodge in Sutherland with his gorgeous private nurse Gloria Dainty. When Hamish visits Mr. Harrison to welcome him to the neighborhood, the old man treats him very rudely. Gloria apologizes for her employer's behavior, and Hamish takes...

"After an evening at a pub sketching the faces of the people around her, art student Morag Merillea wakes up the following morning in the hospital with her sketchbook missing and no memory of what happened the night before. Thinking there might have been foul play (and hoping she's not a common alcoholic), Morag reports to Sergeant Hamish Macbeth that she has been drugged. Hamish doesn't make much of her complaint, however. She had been out drinking,...

Celebrating the twentieth anniversary of everyone's favorite sleuth, M. C. Beaton's Agatha Raisin is as feisty as ever and armed with her famous wit and biting sense of humor. This time, though, there's some biting of a whole other sort going on. Agatha has fallen head over heels in love. Again. This time, she has her eye on the local gardener, George Marston, but so do other women in their little Cotswold village. Shamelessly determined, Agatha will...

Occasionally, the rugged landscape of Scotland attracts dreamers who move north, wrapped in fantasies of enjoying the simple life. They usually don't last, defeated by the climate or by inhospitable locals. But it looks as if Effie Garrand has come to stay. When local constable Hamish Macbeth calls on her, he is amazed to find the small woman still in residence after a particularly hideous winter. Unfortunately, Effie is also quite delusional,

...

When private detective Agatha Raisin comes across a severed leg in a roadside hedge, it looks like she is about to become involved in a particularly gruesome murder. Looks, however, can be deceiving, as Agatha discovers when she is employed to investigate a case of industrial espionage at a factory where nothing is quite what it seems. The factory mystery soon turns to murder and a bad-tempered donkey turns Agatha into a national celebrity, before...

Agatha Raisin has never been one for forced holiday cheer, but her friendly little village of Carsely has always prided itself on its traditional Christmas festivities. But this year the bells will not be ringing out, as Mr. John Sunday, an officer with the Cotswold Health and Safety Board, has chosen Christmas as the time to crack down on safety hazards all around the community. But he goes too far when he rules that there cannot be a Christmas tree...

"Scotland's most laconic and low-tech policeman, Hamish MacBeth, is back and this time he must investigate the death of a gentle lady"--Provided by the publisher.

Beloved New York Times bestseller M. C. Beaton's cranky, crafty Agatha Raisin-the star of her own hit T.V. series-is back on the case again in Down the Hatch. Private detective Agatha Raisin, having recently taken up power-walking, is striding along a path in Mircester Park during her lunch break when she hears a cry for help. Rushing over, she finds an elderly couple, Mr. and Mrs. Swinburn, in the middle of the green-with the body of an old man lying...