Death of a Chimney Sweep

By: M. C. Beaton

Narrated by: Graeme Malcolm

Length: 5 hrs and 37 mins

Publisher's summary

In the isolated villages in the north of Scotland, the villagers rely on the services of the chimney sweep, Pete Ray, and his old-fashioned brushes. Pete is always able to find work in the Scottish highlands, until the day that Police Constable Hamish Macbeth notices blood dripping onto the floor of a villager's fireplace, and a dead body stuffed inside the chimney. The entire town of Lochdubh is certain Pete is the culprit, but Hamish doesn't believe that the affable chimney sweep is capable of committing murder. Then Pete's body is found on the Scottish moors, and the mystery deepens. It's up to Hamish to discover who's responsible for the dirty deed--and this time, the murderer may be closer than he realizes.

©2011 Marion Chesney (P)2011 AudioGo

Hamish Mcbeth!

I hope to read all the Death of:::books by MCBeaton. I like being in Loh Dub with all the villagers..Graeme Malcolm is the perfect reader.

another grand read

I like the Hamish series because they don't leave you hanging all the mystery and murders are solved before the story ends I am happy for that I will be reading more from this series

Timeless!

In MC Beaton's Death of a Chimney Sweep, Hamish Macbeth is better than ever! The cozy Scottish mystery at its best!

Hamish, Anderson and Blair -- As Usual

I enjoy the books that M. C. Beaton writes. The Hamish Macbeth books (as well as the Agatha Raisin books) all follow a sort of "formula." For Hamish, Blair kicks him off the case immediately, Priscilla Halburton-Smythe and/or Elspeth Grant show up to complicate things romantically but also help solve the mystery, Jimmy Anderson wants whiskey in return for information of how the investigation is going, Sonzy and Lugs follow Hamish and try to mooch food around Lochdubh, and the crazy residents of this often dreary (weather-wise) Highland village add comic relief, and lots of possible suspects, though this time Hamish focuses in rather quickly on a set of possibilities, etc.
Fluffy, fun reads. Not great writing of "literature" level -- but pleasant, quick read. It's easier to forget the whodunit-culprit than with an Agatha Christie novel, so I often relisten to the Hamish Macbeth stories after about a year.
Some reviewers may claim Hamish is lazy or bumbling. He is neither. He isn't lazy. He just likes his life too much to let anything change it -- especially any kind of promotion that would move him out of the village police station or force him to get rid of his beloved pets.

One of the most exciting Hamish Macbeths yet!!!

There is a really terrible villain in this volume! He keeps turning up, creating mayhem. There are also lessons in friendship and in the value of self-assertiveness. A very interesting and hair-raising story for so many reasons! I couldn't stop listening! Oh, and everyone gets what they deserve by the end of the book. Quite satisfying!

Something is up with this book. . .

The Hamish MacBeth series is one of my favorites, but this book is a Hamish MacBeth mystery inside a comment (or perhaps, a fit?) by MC Beaton, I guess about publishing today. It seems to have a murder and some kind of non-lethal accident or crime in each chapter! By the end it's almost tongue-in-cheek humor. Odd.

❤ Hamish McBeth...but this book not so much😕

Just a little disappointing. no spark. lack of humor.
Good detective story though. But that's only my opinion.

IPod was freezing up

What did you like about this audiobook?

I love all the Books in this Series. But for some reason this one was freezing up my IPod. And everytime at the same Spots in the Story. I'm going to delete the book from my computer and IPod and downloading it again. I'm hoping this will fix the Issues. This is the first time this happenend with any books from Audible.

Terrible waste of time

First, the narrator. Sounds like a proper English gentleman. Pleasant voice that barely changes modulation no matter what is going on in the book. Plus, his inflection falls at the end of every sentence, as if even he is bored with what he is reading. When he switches from narration (English) to speaking (Scottish, apparently two different dialects, and/or English), his accents get sloppy.

The story is formulaic and seems as if it was written by a person with an outline, but not much imagination. There is some red-haired cop hero that no one at HQ takes seriously. There are murders, including of the chimney sweep (who was just there to move the story forward one pace and is quickly forgotten). Extremely unpleasant characters are introduced solely to get comeuppance. The characters are confusing and inconstant: first one falls in love with a woman, wooing her for months, loses her, gets her back, then suddenly starts ignoring her and drinking too much. He's there just so the woman can dump him, presumably so readers can cheer that she has grown a spine.

There are random side stories, I suppose because this is a series and the author wanted to give updates on favorite characters. But they are a distraction. A love interest shows up, but then the cop decides "eh." Then another love interest shows up, and the cop persuades her to do something so ridiculous and out of character for everybody that I actually wanted to spit.

The story is stupid. The characters are inconsistent and one-dimensional. The mystery is hardly a mystery. This was a total waste of my time.