Of Heaven and Earth

This is not a review about the book in question 'The Antisemitic Wars' by Karl Sabbagh - it's to question the review by reviewer 'feeney' already submitted about a totally different 'detective story' book about Scotland that's placed wrongly. One is inclined to suspect 'feeney' may have over-indulged upon a dram or two in their writing while meandering totteringly about their Inverness holiday.

I read this book for Scottish Highlands atmospherics in September 2008. My wife and I were among 20 American Elderhostelers on a 2 1/2 week natiure study and history visit to the Aigas Field Centre (see http://www.aigas.co.uk/) near Inverness. At the end of long days looking for divers (loons), whales, iron age forts and the like, M.C. Beaton's DEATH OF A GOSSIP (1985, 2008) was a fun, relaxing way to unwind and unkink tired leg muscles. ***

The novel's literary genre "detective story" is not much more than a frame for glimpses of Northwestern Scotland (Sutherland), its hills, a sea loch and assorted characters. Eight people: men, women, one boy, have signed on for a few days at a fly casting fishing school run by John and Heather Cartwright. One of them, Lady Jane Winters, seems to know everything bad in the lives of all the rest. There is none who does not come to hate her. So when she is found murdered, they are all suspects. ***

Hamish Macbeth, thirty-something, ungainly not entirely honest constable of the village of Lochdubh is quickly shoved aside in the investigations by higher ups, Detective Chief Inspector Blair, who heads nearby Strathbane CD and his sidekicks Detectives Jimmy Anderson and Harry McNab. ***

In the end, as you will soon come to expect, the case is cracked by the ostensibly bumbling Hamish Macbeth. The local rich man's daughter, young Priscilla Halliburton-Smythe, is Hamish's beloved and chief component of the principal sub-plot. But does she see in him anything more than an old friend she has grown up with? Stay tuned: she will reappear in other novels in this series. ***

Constable Macbeth is a poor man's Sherlock Holmes, with maddening, brilliant flashes of insight weakly grounded in facts and fleshed out by informal syllogisms hard for me, at least to follow. He has, however, fourth cousins scattered all over the world and is able to phone them, especially those in the press, for background on the victim and those suspected of murdering her. ***

I liked the book enough to order dvds via netflix.com showing the British TV series, Hamish Macbeth. Several British nature lovers who were at Aigas Centre along with our American elderhostelers assured me that the TV series is a hoot. And some kind ladies whom my wife and I dropped in upon at a Senior Center in nearby Beuly showered smiles upon us and told us all about the real town in Sutherland on which fictional Lochdubh is based. ***

Bottom line: good, informative, amusing reading before bed, on trains, planes or buses. You can learn a bit as well about the art of fly fishing. -OOO-