Scotland, murder, and Macbeth - Hamish Macbeth, that is.

Hamish has been driven to see the dentist with unbearable toothache but he finds the dentist dead in his chair with some amateur dentistry accomplished. Was the murderer a dissatisfied customer or a disappointed lover? Hamish himself is in danger when he investigates. Fun, but a bit darker than most Hamish Macbeth novels. ( )

Macbeth and the Tooth Puller
Review of the Blackstone Audio Inc. audiobook edition (2020) of the Mysterious Press hardcover original (1997)

Death of a Dentist finds Lochdubh village constable Hamish Macbeth having to solve the murder of a dentist whose speciality was cheap rates and tooth pulling instead of repair. The suspects are numerous but Macbeth is up to the task as usual.

After discovering M.C. Beaton's Hamish Macbeth cozy mystery series due to the Estonia cameo in "Death of Yesterday", I started to seek out the earlier books by finding several at Toronto's Sleuth of Baker Street. I enjoyed those and found them to be an especially delightful diversion during this continuing pandemic. My next plan was to go back and read the series in order. I then discovered the rather terrific bonus that most of the books are available for free on Audible Plus, a service that I had previously been underwhelmed by (some early attempts with longer books had audio difficulties, with book narrations freezing in midstream). Beaton's shorter books (usually 4 to 5 hours on audio) seem to be perfect for this medium.

This edition on Audible Audio has the excellent narration of series regular Shaun Grindell. ( )

Another enjoyable instalment of the story of Hamish Macbeth and his policing in Lochdubh which seems to suffer a disproportionate number of murders. ( )

I've been going for mindless escape reading lately. M.C. Beaton's books fit the bill and I'm making quite a dent in her body of work. ( )

Beaton can’t be beaten. First read this one soon after published, to great delight, in cold New England weather that resonates in the Scottish snowstorms. Crofter cottages, illegal stills of course for Scotch, fishermen and the loch, salmon-poaching from streams of the great shooting estates, the barren city vs rich country, the seer firmly grounded in gossip: these populate the Hamish MacBeth novels. Especially the gossip, which “would have been running rife all over the Highlands. At first people would be discreet because the man was so recently dead, but…tongues would begin to wag”(68).
Beaton writes with wit, Hamish himself often also witty, and with irony:
“As he took the long road to Inverness, putting on the police siren so he could
exceed the speed limit, he reflected that it would be nice to be one of those private
eyes in fiction before whose wisdom the whole of Scotland Yard bowed”(35)
Ironically, Hamish is exactly this, a detective in fiction before whom the Scotland Police
bow—the smartest ones, anyways, but not his boss, the drunken loudmouth DCI Blair.
Under Blair is Jimmy Anderson, who looks to MacBeth for insights into suspects, and who over the course of the next few novels becomes a sidekick. He technically outranks MacBeth, but that’s because Hamish hates the bigger, barren city and refuses or avoids promotion, even crediting Jimmy with his own discoveries.

Both Beaton and her avatar Hamish show irony, say about the great police-criminal divide. Researching where the deceased lived in a pretentiously named Culloden House, suggesting a country villa at least—and not what’s now called a villa, of condo’s—Hamish’s companion suggests,
“ ‘You could say you were investigating a break-in.’
‘So I could,” with one brisk blow he smashed the glass…leaned in and
unfastened the latch. ‘So there’s the break-in, and here am I investigating it.’”(126)
Beaton ironically includes American icons, like a picture of Billy Graham on a single lady’s wall, or this exchange between a young pub flirt and Hamish’s boss Blair:
“Kylie, who was fed on a steady diet of American movies, plead the
First Amendment.
‘This is Scotland,’ growled Blair, ‘and no’ Chicago’ (193).
Although this is a failed love story, where MacBeth gains one night with a tourist, but also her hacking skills that make up for Blair’s not telling him a thing about the case, and she abandons him sans farewell, she did save his life by telling his city superiors his intent to visit the illegal whiskey distillery brothers, who turn out to have a large trade and no qualms.
MacBeth satirizes the locale he loves. When people wonder what England was like in the thirties, he says, “Try the Scottish Highlands. Bad teeth, stodgy food, and the last corner of Britain where women’s lib had not found a foothold.”(81) (Astonishing to think that the Humpster-President’s party in the US is as backward as the Highlands about women.)

PS Beaton also authored Agatha Raisin, now a TV series as well. ( )