I actually like this book series by the author. Periodically I will pick one up. I have not read them in order or all of them. Hamish McBeth is a fun character as the constable. A bit stubborn, maybe lazy too but smart. He always figures out the mystery at the end, who done it!

The characters are always quirky. I can just imagine the setting from the author’s descriptions.

I did have a hard time getting into the characters who are involved in the murder mystery. One thing the author does is she can really make some of her characters very distasteful. She doesn’t mince words and isn’t afraid to show the real truth of human nature.

For a shorter book it is a quick read maybe not as satisfying as a lengthy and in-depth mystery but just the right touch for something lighter.

If anything I think this book offers the best view of the authors personality. I may be reading too much into this, but Death of a Scriptwriter was written around the same time the Hamish Macbeth series was being turned into a TV show and the authors own frustrations seem to shine through. In many ways this may be the most personal book in the series, yet that kind of passion for the subject seems a bit weighty.

5/7/22 - Re-read: anyone who has had a favorite book adapted for television or movie will appreciate the agonies of seeing a beloved story...totally trashed. The experience that the author goes through here, seeing her beloved creation warped out of all recognition feels a little...personal. I did like all the twists and turns, but the murderer here is too obvious ;).

Überraschend, aber dringend nötig: Bei dieser Geschichte hat Beaton endlich mal eine andere "Formel" gewählt, die wir so bis jetzt (glaub ich) noch nicht hatten. Es geht hauptsächlich um eine Autorin, deren Krimi verfilmt wird, sowie um die Geschehnisse rund um das Filmteam, die Darsteller und den Drehort samt Bewohnern. Die Handlung erstreckt sich diesmal nicht über ein Wochenende oder einen Monat, sondern über ca. ein Jahr und auch Hamish wird zunächst nur sparsam eingesetzt, bis er dann durch den Mord wieder zur Hauptfigur des Buches wird.

Eventuell verarbeitet die Autorin ihr eigenes Leben als Schreiberin und ihre Erfahrungen mit Buchverfilmungen in dieser Geschichte, vielleicht auch nicht. Auf jeden Fall ist sie dabei wieder gehässig wie eh und je und auf so gut wie jedem Charakter wird mal zu recht, mal zu unrecht rumgehackt. Vorurteile hier, Eifersucht da, etc. etc. - typisch Beaton eben. Das ist etwas, das ich an ihrem Erzählstil nicht mag, aber damit muss man leben, wenn man ihre kleinen Schottland-Krimis lesen möchte.

Alles in allem wieder eines der besseren Bücher der Reihe (auch wenn ich es nicht mehr sehen kann, dass Frauen aus Dorf X wegen dem Auftauchen von Person Y anfangen sich die Haare zu färben und Makeup zu tragen - gähn!).

So many of the characters who die in this series seem to "come from" somewhere else into the rather gloomy and wild area of northern Scotland. And always there is the conflict between Hamish Macbeth and his superior, Blair--and in this book, we learn of an equally obnoxious police Lieutenant Lovelace. As always, Hamish has his fling with romance and as usual, nothing comes of it. And in the end, the mystery is solved by Hamis Macbeth's great intuition and good investigation.

The Hamish Macbeth series are set in the Highlands of Scotland and are traditional police stories about the village policeman, the locals and their life. This one was about a film crew filming a tv show in the village when 2 murders happen and Hamish goes about finding the murderer even though he has been taken off the case. This was an enjoyable story, easy to read but very basic. Probably not suited to everyone's taste as they are very tame - but myself, loving everything Scottish find them very entertaining.

I think I'm sick of this small town mystery with quirky characters genre. At least done straight this way -- it feels the wirter is sleepwalking through these things.

The Sookie Stackhouse series is a better take on this -- Dead Until Dark is a nice twist on the genre -- if you're looking for a readable evolution of the genre, try that out instead.

This just wasn't my cup of tea. I found the intermittent use of dialect confusing and unnecessary. The murder mystery was a bit juvenile, expected, and not very thought out. And even though I was able to guess the ending (mainly because it was the obvious answer), the author didn't give the reader a lot of clues to help them figure it out. I will not be reading any more of this series. But it got a 2 star because I did finish it and I could see others liking it. I guess I just prefer something with a little more grit.

When the boastful scriptwriter winds up murdered, it's up to Highland Police Constable Hamish Macbeth to figure out who could have done it. The suspects are many, from the author of the book, to the producer, to the lead actress's husband. This cozy mystery series is really fun and I am working my way through the whole series and enjoying myself very much!

I have an affinity for cozy mysteries. They generally aren't written in pursuit of a spot on the bestseller list; rather, cozies are written to give the reader a sense of comfort and calm (ironically, by way of murder).

My mom read cozies to escape her three eccentric young daughters and grumpy husband: one daughter, the artist, painted five-foot tall green flowers on the side of the freshly painted rental when she was four; the adventurous daughter asked which way north was, and was found by neighbors five hours later walking up the beach, wearing a backpack, in pursuit of Santa in the North Pole (we lived on an island--she wasn't the brightest of the three of us); and the oldest daughter (that would be I) caused her first-year kindergarten teacher to quit by demanding that all classroom toy soldiers and toy weapons be removed from the classroom so that her classmates would not become violent adults, and that the teacher immediately stop smoking on her breaks because she would surely die of lung cancer. As to my mother's husband, he had some strange notion that feeding 40 stray cats, a stray goat, a duck, and 4 turtles (not stray) out of a 2-bedroom apartment was odd. He also became irrationally upset when the cat gave birth in his shoe. So you see, for my mother, it was either read a cozy or drink (or possibly dispose of the children and husband).

Years later, when my grandmother came to live with us (bigger house, different country, revolving pet door, dad retired and usually lost in Best Buy, girls now goth, theater geek, and raver) we slowly replaced her true crime books with cozies in order to keep her from roaming the house at night after taking her pain pills, looking for the Son of Sam whilst armed with a shoe horn.

And all this is how I came to read cozies myself, because they were always there to help me escape my crazy family, you could carry on a screaming match with a sibling and not miss much in the book, and thanks to grandma's Dahmer intervention, there were always a shitload in the house. (Serious reading was done away from the insane people.)

An easy, gentle read.

Another good story in the series. Comforting and fun!