M. C. Beaton and R. W. Green. Death of a Traitor. Read by Graeme Malcolm, Hachette Audio, 2023. A Hamish Macbeth Mystery.

We have enjoyed and reviewed several Hamish Macbeth mysteries. This one, Death of a Traitor, we listened to on CD. The reader’s smooth accent and varied voices helped make the tale come alive. It has many of the elements that have made these mysteries popular: Hamish’s fluster over women, suspicious outsiders, hostile insiders, Hamish’s pets, and some exciting action.

The mystery this time is quite complicated. Kate Hibbert, the outsider, has lived in Lochdubh, Macbeth’s remote Scottish village, for about a year. She does occasional housekeeping and odd jobs for people, but for reasons that become clear only during the investigation of her murder, she has rubbed a number of people the wrong way. At one point even MI5 comes into play.

She disappears with her suitcase. Her only relative, a cousin from down south, files a missing person report after a few days. The cousin, one of several attractive females in this story, is concerned because Kate is a silent partner in her up and coming fashion business. Kate has promised to invest half a million pounds. Where does a transient who does mostly odd jobs get that kind of money?

After missing for three weeks, Kate’s body washes ashore on a small island in the loch. The locals associate the island with a medieval tale (which begins the story) about a woman who commits suicide after being accused of witchcraft. A couple of researchers examining the flora of the island discover the body. While Kate was last seen wearing the coat on the body, her face and limbs are disfigured beyond recognition—a combination of three weeks in the water with various crabs and fish and of the apparent tortures she endured before being killed. It requires dental records to insure the identity.

Some of the regulars in the Hamish stories help to complicate things. Inspector Blair, as usual, is trying to make Hamish look bad and take credit for himself. Hamish’s friend, Inspector Anderson, was taken off the case because he drove a car while drunk and is laid up in the hospital recovering from broken bones and other injuries. As a result, Chief Inspector Daviot, who holds an ambivalent opinion of Hamish, supervises things more closely than usual.

Without giving away too much of the story, Hamish learns that nearly everyone Kate worked for or knew her had a reason to dislike her. The title suggests a general reason, that she betrayed people’s trust. Let us just say it is much more than mere gossip. Many people had a reason to see her gone. There is a kind of refrain in the story: I am glad she’s dead, but I did not do it. Curiously, one document found near her body contains the encrypted names of Daviot, Anderson, and Blair. What exactly is going on?

Hamish himself has some trust issues. He is assigned a new constable for this case by Blair. So, he wonders, can he trust this young recruit or is he spying for Blair? Jimmy Anderson swears by him, tells Macbeth that the young man is his godson, that his father was a distinguished police officer, and that he can be trusted. The new constable adds some humorous relief as he gets distracted and perhaps smitten by several of the women they encounter on the case including Kate’s fashionable cousin and Hamish’s former fiancée Priscilla.

Priscilla’s father, a minor nobleman, never forgave Hamish for being engaged to his daughter. He saw Hamish as beneath their status, and now his daughter is acting friendly towards another policeman. Let us just say that he keeps a very close watch on the two of them to a humorous effect.

Green’s preface to the first Hamish Macbeth mystery that he completed after the death of Mrs. Beaton, the author, made it sound like that Death of a Green-Eyed Monster was going to wrap up the series and that Mr. Green merely fleshed out what Beaton had already started. The ending of that book seemed to tie up a lot of loose ends. Clearly, there was at least one more book. And the preface to this one makes no suggestion that we have heard the last of Sergeant Macbeth.