Death of a Gossip is the first Hamish MacBeth novel. I liked the TV series for its offbeat humor, as well as that it had a low-key approach. As I recall, there was a crime of some sort in most episodes, but it never amounted to much (one episode was about a thief who leaves a pint of raspberry ripple ice cream at the scene of every crime).
The novels, however, seem to center around murder, from the descriptions. As a general rule, that would irritate me, since part of me is saying "that would make Lochdubh the per-capita murder capital of the world, given that it has only a few hundred inhabitants)." But that's neither here nor there for the first novel in a series.
More importantly, M.C. Beaton seems to follow the Agatha Christie school of mystery writing. In the pool of suspects, there are only one or two without a motive (really, only one), and so that's the one who must've done it. Beaton's writing is humorous enough, and the novel is short enough (less than 5 hours on audible), that I can see myself reading another one, but I don't seem that time coming soon.
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