A Hamish Macbeth Short Story (A Hamish Macbeth Mystery Book 32)

I enjoyed reading this entertaining and original Hamish Macbeth story but wished it were not so short. (It is less than thirty pages.)
I don’t mind the editing flaws the others mention since this is not really the author’s fault but the editor’s. When an author writes so many books, especially so many different series, it is human to confuse the characters or names sometimes and I am just grateful someone so creative takes the time and the effort to keep writing for the readers’ enjoyment. These errors are more common than you would think. (In two of the books by bestselling authors I read recently, a character who had been killed was attending meetings and such only two pages later and in the other one the name of a character kept changing back and forth.

I should have listened to the other reviewer(s). It's a cute, but VERY SHORT story. Fun if you are a Hamish Macbeth fan, but short. Did I mention it was short? I would have enjoyed a little more development. The editing was poor. On one page, a character's last name is changed within a few sentences. That threw me for a a few minutes. A cute read, but really not worth the price as it is over so quickly.

So obviously Beaton has bowed to the recent book marketing technique of publishing a short story or novella in between full-length novels of popular series to tease Chapter One of the author’s upcoming latest. Hence we have “Knock” (precursor to “Death of a Nurse”), a story so short, we think we polished it off in little more than five minutes! Despite that, it follows the usual formula of a death (at one of the croft cottages) near Lochdubh, with police supervisor Blair accusing the first reasonable suspect with the murder and closing the case. Our hero Hamish Macbeth, the village bobby who almost always knows better, doesn’t agree and proceeds accordingly.

It’s hard to say much more about one of the shortest tales we’ve ever read – but as a devoted fan of the set, we enjoyed it. That said, the 2-star rating reflects the cost/value situation!

Love Hamish Macbeth stories! Sometimes I feel the stories continue too long after the case is solved, but this one was really short. Glad I borrowed it for free from the library, so didn't waste money.

Love Hamish Macbeth stories! Sometimes I feel the stories continue too long after the case is solved, but this one was really short. Glad I borrowed it for free from the library, so didn't waste money.