Short and Sweet Book Reviews # 192 - An Accidental Death by Peter Grainger, Death of an Honest Man by M.C. Beaton

An Accidental Death by Peter Grainger
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Gildart Jackson does a great job on the voices in An Accidental Death. The characters have some expected characteristics. Smith is the older detective who has always done things his way. He is just coming back on duty (this is book one so I never really knew what he had done but he was demoted). He is saddled with a new young addition to the force and he is given a case where it looks on the surface like the death was an accident. Of course it was not and the plot unfolds. I loved the progression of the case and how Smith uses the different events to further the case while giving the young detective a good foundation to use in the future. A good start to a new British detective series.


Death of an Honest Man by M.C. Beaton
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Hamish is back with another mystery to solve. This time he has other things to worry about. He misses his cat, is losing police assigned to help him right and left and Blair is really out to get him. This is another fun story that is light and easy to read. I do wonder if Hamish will ever find true love. Maybe M.C. Beaton is planning that. The book ends with Hamish getting a female police office as his new help. Just have to wait and see what happens next.  Oh and it turns out you can be too honest.

I received a free copy of the book in return for an honest review.

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Short and Sweet Book Reviews #76 - Holden by Delores Fossen, Death of a Ghost by M.C. Beaton, Romancing the Rogue by Erica Ridley

Holden by Delores Fossen
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a new twist on the unexpected baby trope. Holden and Nicky have a history but not a good one. Seems that Nicky kept information to herself instead of sharing and almost got one of the Ryland men killed. As Nicky and Holden were starting a romance that stopped it in its tracks. Now a baby appears and it will take both Nicky and Holden to get to the bottom of who, what, when and where. The who has a lot of candidates and the other issues add to the twist and turns. A nice addition to the series. Once again it takes a baby or make that two to bring about an HEA.

Death of a Ghost by M.C. Beaton
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Hamish has been featured in 32 books so far and he is still looking for that prefect woman. I have not read these in order so I missed his latest. I only know about her because he manages to send her packing as the book begins. Now he is on the lookout again but a new mystery appears. What looked like one mystery was actually two and I was in the dark on who done it until the very last. Beaton always makes a Hamish book fun to read and Death of a Ghost was no execution.

I received a free copy of this book in return for an honest review.


Romancing the Rogue by Erica Ridley
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

What happens when you lose the one person who treated you like a person and how do you get them back. That is the problem for Daniel Goodenham, Lord North Barrows. Daniel comes across as very human. He messed up and has waited years to try to make right. I loved Miss Rebecca Bond. She has made a place for herself by staying out of sight and now that is no longer an option she is being very pro-active in finding a new place even though it means using Daniel to help. It was fun watching the two interact after years apart. They have a interesting journey before getting to their HEA.

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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.