Death of a Gentle Lady by M.C. Beaton

Audio Book/Mystery

Death of a Gentle Lady, a Hamish Macbeth mystery, by M. C Beaton was one of the three audio books I listened to on a recent trip to Florida. Unlike Agatha Raisin where I have read the entire series, I have skipped around with Hamish Macbeth and have missed many of the books in the series.

I don’t know where Death of a Gentle Lady falls in the series but it is the second book I have read/listened to where Hamish has a Scottish Wildcat as a pet. As a great cat lover I started wondering about Scottish Wildcats so I looked them up on the web. The information and the pictures were very revealing. The Scottish Wildcat is about the same size as our domestic cats but when you look at their picture you can tell this is no tame pussycat. Even in a picture the look in their eyes gives them away. While Hamish has one that is tame all the information I read says that they are impossible to domesticate. They can breed with domestic cats but even then much of the wild behavior remains. You only find them in the Scottish Highlands and they are the last wild cats that remain in any part of Britain. If you want to see what how our house cats looked in the past go to the web and take a look at any of the Scottish Wildcat sites.

Some books are great to listen to and some are not. Death of a Gentle Lady is one that makes a good audio book. Hamish is still having woman trouble. Everything starts where the Mrs. Gentle’s maid comes to Hamish because she is in the country without a visa. Hamish offers to marry her so she can stay but she is murdered on the day of the wedding. Of course Hamish does solve the murder and gets some revenge on his nemesis Blair in the bargain.

The CD-Rom audio version of Death of a Gentle Lady by M.C. Beaton was released in 2008 and was narrated by Graeme Malcolm.