Sign up for our newsletters to receive our Best of 2024 ezine!

Book Summary and Reviews of Death of a Witch by M. C. Beaton

Death of a Witch by M. C. Beaton

Death of a Witch

Hamish Macbeth Mysteries, No. 25

by M. C. Beaton

  • Critics' Consensus (0):
  • Published:
  • Feb 2009, 256 pages
  • Rate this book

About this book

Book Summary

Returning from a foreign holiday, Hamish Macbeth is worried because he senses a dark cloud of evil hanging over the Highland village of Lochdubh. He learns that a newcomer, Catriona Beldame, is regarded as a witch and various men have been seen visiting her. Hamish himself is charmed by her until he finds out she has been supplying dangerous potions. At first the villagers won't listen to him, saying that the loveless Hamish has turned against all women. He threatens to kill her so that when she is found murdered, he must clear his name and then work to solve yet another murder to bring peace and quiet back to his beloved village. His investigations are complicated by a romance with a female forensic expert. Perhaps he'll get married at last!

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Reviews

Media Reviews

"As usual, Beaton's crisp plotting and effervescent humor complement Macbeth's deft crime solving." - Publishers Weekly.

"A sound mystery featuring a generous portion of Hamish's complicated relationships and the usual delightful Highland descriptions." - Kirkus Reviews.

"Lochdubh has a ridiculously high homicide rate for a tiny village, but it provides readers with a great deal of atmospheric fun." - Booklist.

This information about Death of a Witch was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Author Information

M. C. Beaton Author Biography

M. C. Beaton has written over twenty Hamish Macbeth mysteries (starting with Death of a Gossip 1985). She is also the author of the Agatha Raisin series (starting with Agatha Raisin and the Quiche of Death 1992) and is a film commentator on BBC television. She lives in a Cotswolds cottage (mid-west England) with her husband, journalist Harry Scott.  A former journalist for daily newspapers, she now devotes her time to writing fiction.  Under her own name, Marion Chesney, she also writes Regency romances, and has also written under a variety of other pseudonyms: Sarah Chester, Helen Crampton, Ann Fairfax, Marion Gibbons, Jennie Tremaine, and Charlotte Ward.

Link to M. C. Beaton's Website

Other books by M. C. Beaton at BookBrowse

8 more...

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

More Recommendations

Readers Also Browsed . . .

more mysteries...

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Top Picks

  • Book Jacket: Small Rain
    Small Rain
    by Garth Greenwell
    At the beginning of Garth Greenwell's novel Small Rain, the protagonist, an unnamed poet in his ...
  • Book Jacket: Daughters of Shandong
    Daughters of Shandong
    by Eve J. Chung
    Daughters of Shandong is the debut novel of Eve J. Chung, a human rights lawyer living in New York. ...
  • Book Jacket: The Women
    The Women
    by Kristin Hannah
    Kristin Hannah's latest historical epic, The Women, is a story of how a war shaped a generation ...
  • Book Jacket: The Wide Wide Sea
    The Wide Wide Sea
    by Hampton Sides
    By 1775, 48-year-old Captain James Cook had completed two highly successful voyages of discovery and...

BookBrowse Book Club

Book Jacket
In Our Midst
by Nancy Jensen
In Our Midst follows a German immigrant family’s fight for freedom after their internment post–Pearl Harbor.
Who Said...

Anagrams

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Wordplay

Big Holiday Wordplay 2024

Enter Now

Your guide toexceptional          books

BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.