Death of a Snob

A Hamish Macbeth Mystery, Book 6

By: M. C. Beaton

Narrated by: Shaun Grindell

Length: 4 hrs and 34 mins

Publisher's Summary

A classic title from M. C. Beaton's New York Times best-selling Hamish Macbeth series.

Believing that someone is trying to murder her, gorgeous Jane Wetherby asks Hamish Macbeth to spend Christmas with her and an exclusive group of friends at her Scottish island health farm. With a cold in his head and no place to go for the holidays, Hamish accepts her invitation. He thinks the lady is a bit daft, but, arriving on the lonely isle of Eileencraig, he feels a prickle of foreboding. The locals are openly threatening; the other guests, especially a terrible snob named Heather Todd, are barely civil. So when Heather meets an untimely end, Hamish knows he doesn't have far to look for the culprit. The only snag in his investigation is that all the guests were in the house when Heather vanished. Now, as mysterious events abound on Eileencraig, Hamish must work through the holiday sniffles to find the killer - or else it will be a very miserable Christmas indeed.

©1992 M. C. Beaton (P)2013 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Outrageous as ever!

A ridiculous plot with an interesting cast of characters in an unusual setting on a barren island off the coast of Scotland make this another fun Macbeth murder mystery.

These stories can be listened to more than once because they are so full of details it's easy to miss some the first time through, and there are so many people, each with their own history, it can be easy to get them confused when just listening rather than reading the print version.

Shaun Grindell does a fine job of narrating. I really like how he portrays Hamish.

Although the mysteries stand alone, this series is best listened to more or less in order. Otherwise the characters and situations might seem crazy. There is some continuation from book to book of the relationships of some of the main characters.

Beaton seems to write these books off the top of her head without a lot of intense analysis. I think a person would have to be a Hamish Macbeth fan to put up with all the fascinating nonsense found in these mysteries. Needless to say, I am one.

A Holiday Mystery!

It's the holiday season, and Hamish Macbeth is heading to the Happy Wanderer, a scottish health farm. The owner, Jane Weatherby, is worried that someone is plotting to kill her and invites Hamish for the holidays to investigate. At the Happy Wanderer Hamish discovers an eclectic group of Jane's friends, none of which would seem to want Jane dead. However, when one of the guests is killed instead, Hamish wonders if it was a case of mistaken identity or whether the snobby, mean woman, Heather, was the intended victim.

I really enjoy the Hamish Macbeth mysteries. They have a beautiful English-Scottish flair to them, and Hamish, as the bumbling police officer is simply adorable. Death of a Snob had a nice holiday setting, and even though it's March I was getting into quite the holiday spirit listening to this one.

I found it interesting, that in Death of a Snob, Priscilla gets to meet Hamish's parents. In the previous books there has been a on-off flirtation between Priscilla and Hamish. While there is no relationship between them, I liked that Priscilla got to meet Hamish's family while Hamish was away. Hamish comes from a big family, and the complete opposite of Priscilla's fancy yet small family and I think she definitely looks at Hamish a different way after spending time with the Macbeths.

The mystery in this one was good and for those us that like mysteries involving authors then you will definitely enjoy the author angle here.

Shaun Grindell voices Hamish Macbeth and he does a superb job on the accents. I love all the Scottish and English and even an American accent! I plan to listen to the rest of the books in this series as audiobooks because this one was that enjoyable. The audiobook is short at just over 4 hours but I think it would be perfect for a car trip! Definitely a good series to discover on audio.

Mr. Grindell can voice many characters with variety to be believeable

I truly enjoy listening to Shaun Grindell as Hamish MacBeth. Mr Grindell’s voice is very pleasant and he has the ability to voice so many other characters with enough variety to be believable. Very enjoyable. I look forward to additional books narrated by Mr. Grindell.

Not MCBeaton’s best effort

I think she just wanted to get him out of town. It’s a flimsy excuse and a rather boring book. I’m not even hard to please, but this is quite dull, and I didn’t care what happened to any of these people

Another enjoyable episode

Another enjoyable episode. Hamish & Priscilla’s timing always seems to be off. Perhaps they should simply decide to be friends.

Good read

Hamish Macbeth finds himself sick and alone for Christmas. When he gets a call from a lady running an inn that someone is trying to kill her, he pulls up his boot straps and becomes her protective detail. In the end, there is murder but it turns out tit’s be the group snob whole alienates everyone she meets. While no one is terribly upset about her death, Hamish is on the case

Oh look, it’s another plot with an evil fake socialist

The author loves to throw politics into her stories, but dear god, how many times is she going to grind the same ax? Yes, we get it, she thinks socialists are just fakers trying to make it into (pick an arena), who really just want money / are as greedy as the worst of them. But that’s the plot of two of the last three books in this series! Come on!!

Oh, and the whiny self insert about how hard it is to write romance. Ugh.

This was a lousy book, rehashing her political dislikes already laid out great length two books before

Vacation Murder

Asked to watch over a woman for a friend . Christmas without anywhere to go he looks at as a vacation.

off colour

like the mystery part, but couldn't stomach the off-color details
I don't need to know yucky stuff the characters are thinking. I don't need to know sexual details. just a closing door or having breakfast the next morning is good enough. have a little tact and discretion, folks. seriously. I will avoid this author from now on.

Cute murder mystery

This was a cute murder mystery. Loved the Scottish accent of the narrator. Simple plot and some basic characters.