I read this as a serial and found myself really looking forward to each day's installment. Hamish Macbeth is to follow and the village is full of memorable and relatable characters. I intend to go to the beginning of the series and try a few more.

I have all 18 books leading up to Poison Pen and enjoyed them all; just some more than others. Poison Pen is enjoyable, fun and cozy but not my favorite in the series. a poisoned pen letter writer is afoot in the northern Scottish villages that Hamish must protect as constable. He is warned that the letters could lead to someone getting killed. They certainly have everyone upset (even the ladies with the underwear that has elastic at the knees - picture that!). Anyway, I enjoyed all the colorful village characters, culture, superstitions, weather (ugh) and complicated plot. Hamish has 2 women throwing themselves at him for once. I was somewhat surprised that Hamish shares so much inside police information with the local newspaper woman and another lady visiting from London, but they do assist him. Hamish is once again aggravated by the police detectives from Strathbane who want to come in a quickly lay blame and find a suspect, jealous of Hamish's understanding of the local communities. Lots of people are hiding secrets and it takes a while for Hamish and his lady helpers to get them to tell what they know. Throw in a lovable mutt, Scottish idioms and gossip all around and you will love these books.

I was disappointed in #19 and was going to set Hamish Macbeth aside for a bit. However, driven by curiosity, I grabbed this one and found Hamish to be his own charming self.

M.C. Beaton is increasingly clever in plot lines and murder and the entangled complexity of who-dun-it.

Someone knows something about the locals, details that will humiliate, anger or set one off for revenge. Poison pen letters, details that can injure in a small town. All the ingredients for a murder.

Now, will Hamish ever get his love life together? Just when we're sure he's over Priscilla,some twinge of interest floats through his mind. He's attracted to Elspeth Grant in the last few books but is often rude or bumbling and nothing happens.

After book #20, I do hope M.C. Beaton will allow Hamish a way to develop a relationship with a woman. He is not that inept. And it is what he wants except when he's stumped by cirucmstances and thinks sleeping with Lugs, his dog, is quite perfect.

Exactly what a cozy is supposed to be: cozy, perfect for a lazy afternoon with a cuppa. I'm halfway through Gyorgy Spiro's astonishing "Captivity" and needed to step back for a breather. So, a huge thanks to M.C. Beaton for providing this very cozy cozy.

This was the Barnes and Noble Nook serial read for the month of January.

It's always a bit odd to jump into a series at book 19. I do feel like this did a good job of summarizing the important parts of what happened previously so that I was not lost. I really liked Hamish and would be interested in reading more of this series because of him. But I don't think I have ever read a book with so many characters I just could not stand. Jenny is probably the worst I have ever come across. She is feeling jealous of her best friend, so she decides to secretly travel to said friend's hometown and try to hook up with her ex. Lovely. Pat also falls into the category of horrible people, and I really felt like he and Jenny got off easy in this book. The good news is that I don't think they would be in other books in the series, but I wonder if the others are full of characters like that as well. I'm on the fence with Elspeth and was not a fan of the ending when it came to her, but I've also missed out on all the history in the early books.

The mystery itself was full of twists and turns. I thought the motives were a bit far-fetched when all was revealed, but I still enjoyed the story.

Hamish Macbeth is knee deep in murder and romance. Will he get over Priscilla once and for all? He and many of M.C.Beaton's wonderful characters are back in this tale.
The settings of sea, mountains, and country towns are described skillfully and form an integral part of this book all the Hamish Macbeth novels.

This is my first Hamish MacBeth (serialized by Barnes and Noble), and I suspect it may not have been the best way to start the series. A chunk of the book is from the point of view of Jenny, who has some good qualities, but who is also rather pathetic, which makes the book loses its charm. And the motive is a bit forced.

I can see why folks have affection for the series, although I imagine the slow long term character arcs might be somewhat infuriating.

I love the Hamish Macbeth mysteries by M.C. Beaton! This is my second time through this particular title. I really like reader Graeme Malcolm who just personifies Hamish to me. Hamish is the village bobby in Lochdubh (pronounced Lor-Doo) in Scotland. He is brilliant but is not ambitious, preferring to stay in his little police cottage with his few sheep and hens and his dog. He was once promoted to sergeant and had to move to the drug infested Strathbane which he hated. In this book, poison pen letters have been sent to many villagers-- some filled with wild and laughable accusations such as Hamish having an affair with the paragon wife of the local clergy but some having hit their mark. The town's postmistress is found dead...is it suicide or murder as Hamish's instincts lead him to believe. Who is willing to kill to prevent the truth being known? Mix in the local colorful characters of the village and you are in for a pleasant mystery-filled visit to Lochdubh. Havers!

A few disclaimers before I go on with this review. 1. This was a free Barnes and Noble serial read so I didn't choose it, it chose me. 2. This is the 19th book in a series (great starting point B&N!) so I do not know all the nuances of the life and times of Hamish Macbeth overall, just this little slice of it. 3. Spoilers obviously follow. 4. On to the review.

This is titled Death of a Poison Pen, but I think it really should have been called Everyone in this book is lousy at their job and should be fired (or every woman wants to hop into bed with Hamish Macbeth and everyone in this book is terrible at their job).

The premise here is that in a little Scottish town called Lochdubh (pronounced Lockdoo) there is someone writing awful letters about people, threatening to expose some secret or other of theirs. The letters are basically based on hearsay or just flat out made up material. Hamish Macbeth the local detective is on the case and is going to stop this letter writer and catch the person doing it before the letters drive someone to suicide. Hamish, our local hero has recently broken up with his fiance. The fiance has a friend who has heard so much talk about Hamish that she thinks it's a good idea to go to Lochdubh and basically try and snag Hamish for herself. So bad letters and a chance for romance. So far so good. What crime the letter writer is committing unless maybe blackmail, was unclear.

Jenny, the woman who is going after Hamish because of some stories she heard decides to basically be MIA from her job for a few weeks and try to land the guy. She's pretty dumb though considering she never looked at a picture of the guy and is super disappointed when she sees him yet she still tries to date him because, um, I dunno it wasn't clear. There's also a reporter named Elspeth who wants to date Hamish and doesn't like the new girl because obviously a rival. Jenny's boss should definitely fire her.

Hamish is really bad at his job because bodies start dropping all over town and he can't figure out who the hell is writing these letters. He takes the letters to a handwriting expert which I thought was good idea until I realized what that meant in this book. I thought they would be like ok, we will take writing samples of things we see around town and try to match the handwriting and stuff and then we will know who the criminal is. NOOOOOOPE. The handwriting expert is like "because the O's are this way, this person has something to hide", etc. This is dis-proven junk science people! I mean I know this is the 19th book in a detective romance series but come on, do a little more research than a really bad Law and Order episode please.

Also, Jenny decides to stick around to try and date Hamish more even though she hates the town, can't really get into Hamish and doesn't seem to understand that when you are outside of London there might be people who don't wear high heels. There was also a completely ridiculous incident involving thong underwear and old ladies finding said underwear that I refuse to get into right here.

Then, in the least ethical move ever, Hamish decides to basically take Jenny around town with him while trying to interview people about these deaths. Uh, dude, I am pretty sure you should fire him for that alone. This leads to Jenny being kidnapped because, well, she is dumb and thinks she can help this other reporter guy to get a job and be his wife by solving a case and getting a story for him. Good luck with that. That guy, I think his name was Joe or John or something. Definitely with a J. Look that doesn't matter, he plagiarized Elspeth to get hired by national newspapers and blamed everyone else. Elspeth on the other hand plagiarizes the cooking column in her paper but apparently that is less of a fireable offense than the other guy doing it. The Joe or John, let's just call him Mr. J cause I wasn't caring to pay that much attention at this point, helps Jenny to steal a doctors note (illegal apparently) so she can fake sick longer and not go back to work. Hamish finds out and decides to do nothing. Awesome police work Hamish!

Ok but onto the really weird stuff. One of the people who dies is a teacher who is really mean to most students except for a couple of girls. She seems to have gotten close to one girl, then stopped helping her and also decided to get close to this other girl. Hamish and Jenny and Elspeth seem to come to the conclusion that this makes the teacher a lesbian and the way that this was written it makes you think that everyone in town thinks lesbians are evil. I really hated that aspect of this book, flat out, no apologies, could not stand that. In one part Hamish asks Amy (I think it was her), one of the girls the teacher got close to, if she knew the teacher was a lesbian. Amy says no, I didn't know she was Greek. So Hamish thinks, ah well at least Amy is still an innocent girl. So a few things to unpack here. 1. That means that if you know of, or have met a lesbian, you are not "an innocent" person. 2. Amy was supposed to be an A student and really bright. I mean I know Scotland is more remote than some countries but lesbians exist there too, and not just the kind from Greece. If she had any brains in her head, she knew what Hamish meant.

Then there is this other incident at an old folk's home where they show people movies. Without even pre-screening it the worker there puts in a video that shows one of the murders. I'm sorry, I have worked in both old folk's homes and schools and there is one thing I know. Do NOT put in a video unless you have pre-screened the thing. Anyway, panic ensues, old people are detained and grilled and Hamish is still as dumb as a brick about who did it.

Turns out that this girl Amy was adopted and apparently that is so shameful that her adoptive parents are willing to kill people to hide it. It was never really clear to me why that would drive someone to multiple murders but I can let that slide a little because, hey, real people in real life do murder people for idiotic reasons at times. What I can't let slide is the scene where they are caught because they have kidnapped Jenny and take her out to this quarry, Hamish and Elspeth following and the wife is afraid of faeries. Yes, you read that right. The murdery criminal wife is defeated by a reporter who shouldn't be there in the first place (sign my fire Hamish Mcbeth petition below) making spooky ghost noises to sound like a faerie. It somehow works, Jenny is saved, bad guys are arrested and only like three people in town had to die before Hamish could get it together enough to have a reporter help him arrest people.

Then at the end of the book, Priscilla, the ex-fiance (you knew this was coming) comes over to see Hamish because she read about her friend being kidnapped. Guess what he is doing? Yes you got it, he was doing Elspeth. Despite being told by like six people that she should come back at a different time, Priscilla walks in on them. That ended the book and really, really did not make me want to continue the series to find out who wants to marry Hamish next.

Petition to Fire Hamish Macbeth

I hereby petition that Hamish Macbeth should be fired for the following reasons:
1. He brings civilians out to do investigative research who have no qualifications and are not authorized to even be there.
2. He lets crimes he actually sees and has proof of slide.
3. He doesn't even radio in where he is going half the time and never takes police backup although, he might bring civilians.
4. He seems to have been dating so many women, he is probably most guilty of spreading social diseases around town, and possibly into London
5. He can't even make his own scary ghostlike faerie noises. What kind of cop is that?

Sign here if you agree____________

This is an amusing book with strange characters and a straightforward plot. It's the second Hamish MacBeth book I've read and it's a nice change from some of the heavy books I've been reading lately. The end of the book is something of a romantic cliffhanger...I'm intrigued enough to get the next book in the series and see how the constable explains having been caught in flagrante delicto.

Continuing my reread via the free Audible versions. I missed some of this one through falling asleep or getting distracted but wasn't engaged enough to want to rewind; it might deserve more stars than I'm giving it.

People in Lochdubh are receiving nasty letters, which it just now occurs to me is an old timey version of internet bullying. They seem to be random accusations. When someone is killed, Hamish figures out she was the one sending the letters, so there are plenty of suspects. Of course he sorts through the complicated plot and finds the killer. Meanwhile, a girl who works with Priscilla in the city and is jealous of her has come to Lochdubh to seduce Hamish; after seeing him, she changes her mind about the seduction but decides to help him solve the murder instead. A local reporter named Elspeth is in the usual Priscilla role in this story. There's another complication with another reporter who gets involved with Jenny (the girl from the city) and tries to steal credit from Elspeth so he can get promoted; it's sort of an Inspector Blair/Hamish subplot.

I read this one out of order, which I thought was only going to affect the romance storyline that runs across the series, but I think I must have also missed something in the continuing Inspector Blair story. I'm going back to #9 now.

Hamish Macbeth once again attracts trouble, as well as admiring women. A coworker of Hamish’s ex decides she wants to go to Lochdubh to meet Hamish and for him to become romantically interested in her. Meanwhile, someone in the nearby village of Braikie has been sending letters of blackmail all around the village. And one of these letters ends up under the postmistress’ hanging body. It turns out the death is not a suicide, and there is a murderer and accomplice on the loose. The letter has a reference to someone in the village who is related to a woman who had a baby out of marriage. Hamish finally finds the culprits, with a little help from his lady reporter friend.