First published 2003
Constable Hamish Macbeth tickets celebrity reporter Crystal French for reckless driving when she roars into the peaceful Highland village of Lochdubh in her flashy BMW. Crystal strikes back with a scathing television report that makes Macbeth's policing methods look foolish. She doesn't stop there. Her new show digs up buried local secrets, turning neighbors against each other and exposing old wounds the village hoped to forget. Macbeth realizes Crystal has made enemies beyond himself. Someone wants her silenced permanently. When that someone succeeds with deadly force, Macbeth must investigate a murder that cuts deep into his community's hidden past. The trail leads him through layers of passion and revenge he never suspected existed in quiet Lochdubh. As he closes in on the killer, Macbeth faces his own emotional reckoning about love, duty, and the life he's chosen since his fiancee left him.
Genres: fiction, mystery, crime, contemporary
Vibes: cozy, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: amateur-sleuth, small-town
Setting: Lochdubh, Highlands
Period: Contemporary
274 pages · Mass Market Paperback · Warner Books