It's Christmas in the wintery highlands of Lochdubh, Scotland, but its Calvinist population declines to decorate; Constable Hamish Macbeth has two mysteries on his hands: the theft of the village Christmas decorations in a neighboring town, and the disappearance of Mrs. Gallagher's beloved cat.

Sergeant Hamish Macbeth pays no mind to a bothersome woman who had been out drinking and forgot all the events of the previous evening, until she turns up murdered.

Surprised that a newcomer to the Scottish Highlands has remained steadfast to her new home in spite of an inhospitable winter, constable Hamish Macbeth learns that the woman has deluded herself into believing that she is engaged to a local artist.

From the author of the Agatha Raisin television series...
Death of a Cad: A Hamish Macbeth Mystery
When Priscilla Halburton-Smythe brings her London playwright fiance home to Lochdubh, everybody in town is delighted . . . except for love-smitten Constable Hamish Macbeth. Yet his affairs of the heart will have to wait. Vile, boorish Captain Bartlett, one of the guests at Priscilla's engagement party, has just been found murdered-shot...

As a series of poison pen letters sweeps through the town of Lochdubh, Hamish Macbeth begins to suspect a sinister motive, a suspicion that is justified when the local postmistress is found hanged, a supposed suicide.

Announcing his engagement to associate Josie McSween, police sergeant and once-confirmed bachelor Hamish Macbeth struggles with prenuptial jitters while investigating the murder of a woman whose complicated case introduced him to his fiancée.

Local police stations all over the Scottish Highlands are being threatened with closure. This presents the perfect opportunity for Detective Chief Inspector Blair, who would love nothing more than to get rid of Sergeant Hamish Macbeth. Blair insists that Macbeth does nothing most of the time and he's determined to prove it to everyone once and for all. The chief inspector commands Cyril Sessions, a keen young police officer, to visit the town of Lochdubh...

Scottish sleuth Hamish Macbeth investigates the murder of Fergus Macleod, the irascible, tyrannical head of Lochdubh's new recycling center, while coping with the bizarre edicts of Freda Fleming, a member of the Strathbane Council, his lazy new constable, and increasing labor unrest at the new oceanfront hotel.

"When Police Sergeant Hamish Macbeth hears reports of a haunted castle near Drim, he assumes the eerie noises and lights reported by the villagers are just local teenagers going there to smoke pot or, worse, inject themselves with drugs. Still, Hamish decides that he and his policeman, Charlie "Clumsy" Carson, will spend the night at the ruined castle to get to the bottom of the rumors once and for all. There's no sign of any ghost...but then Charlie...

Despite her interest in a handsome new Frenchman, Agatha Raisin cannot get her mind off her ex-husband James Lacey, especially when his young bride is killed right before saying "I do" and Agatha becomes the prime suspect.