"Death of a Hussy"

This Hamish Macbeth mystery introduces us to Maggie Baird, a wealthy middle-aged and somewhat unlikeable woman, who has moved to Lochdubh with her niece (who is recovering from cancer treatment). Maggie has purchased a luxurious cottage and hired one of the local women to be her housekeeper then she proceeds to invite four former lovers to visit intending to choose one of them to be her husband and inherit all her wealth. Police Constable Hamish Macbeth has his work cut out for him when Maggie has an accident in her car that appears to be no accident! While the out-of-town police experts are brought in to solve the murder, Hamish works on his own to figure out who the culprit is.
In this book (I can't remember if M.C. Beaton does it in the other Hamish Macbeth mysteries.) Beaton has quotes at the beginning of the chapters and there were two that I especially liked. At the beginning of Chapter Eight is one by George Bernard Shaw: "Assassination is the extreme form of censorship."

Chapter 9's quote by Walter Bagehot is: "Poverty is an anomaly to rich people. It is very difficult to make out why people who want dinner do not ring the bell." Haven't you known people who just don't get poverty? I think this says it all!

Time to find the next book is this series!

pazt