Customer Reviews
Hamish Tests His Limits - By: Donald Mitchell, 03 Mar 2007 
Don't read this book yet if you haven't read any othersin the series. At least go back to Death of a Glutton & follow that with Death of a Travelling Man before taking on Death of a Charming Man. But if you can go to the beginning, Death of a Gossip, that would be best.
At the end of Death of a Travelling Man a false rumor spreads that Hamish & Priscilla Halburton-Smythe are engaged. Faced with everyone believing so, Hamish & Priscilla agreed to a sort-of engagement . . . just to see how things go. Hamish is wildly happy, & Priscilla is pleasantly open to the experience.
At the start of Death of Charming Man, Priscilla's well-organized ways are driving Hamish a bit batty as a new electric cooker is installed to replace his old wood-burning stove at the police station. Matters are made worse by Superintendent Daviot's wife who is out searching for homes that Hamish & Priscilla can buyin Strathbane. Hamish wants to stayin Lochdubh & livein the police station with Priscilla (without the cooker).
Wanting relief from all this, Hamish heads on Drim (a dreary place on his beat) to meet the new English arrival, a gorgeous young man named Peter Hynd who knows how to turn on the charm. There's something about Hynd that bothers Hamish. Those concerns grow when Hynd begins flirting with all of the middle-aged womenin Drim who turn a bit batty themselves over the attention. Hamish is less pleased when Hynd invites Priscilla for dinner & later makes trouble over wanting to buy her scarf.
Matters are made worsein the Hamish-Priscilla relationship when the receptionist at the Tommel Castle Hotel decides to thrust herself on Hamish & create a scandal. Finally, Hamish warms Priscilla up a bit when police business intrudes.
When Peter Hynd leaves Drim, the men cheer & the women weep before going back to the old ways. Hamish is suspicious that there's foul play involved but cannot prove anything. An apparently accidental death follows that makes Hamish even more suspicious. But he's alonein his concerns. Feeling abandoned, Hamish takes his vacation to sleuth on his own. Before the book ends, Hamish finds that he's met his matchin more than one wayin this entertaining mystery.
Hamish Macbeth fans will find this to be one of the top booksin the series. The development of the Hamish-Priscilla relationships is very find. The portrayal of the Peter Hynd character is well done. The villagersin Drim become interesting as well. The mystery is a challenging one, & most people probably won't get it until M.C. Beaton drops two clues to get you on the right track. The ending is full of interesting humorin which M.C. Beaton makes fun of her typical Hamish Macbeth endings.
Savor this one. It's very fine.
A wry commentary on menopause and a darned good mystery! - By: , 14 May 1999 
Beaton seems to like to include childrenin her stories & has created an exceptional one here, twelve-year-old Heather who can raise the power of Celtic gods when needed. This is a wry commentary on the vulnerability of menopausal women ("the men's pause," it's calledin these pages) & a darned good mystery to boot, which you won't fully appreciate until the very last page!
A 'Dread Scot' Decision! - By: , 10 Feb 1999 "Death of a Charming Man," as a novel, is just that--"charming"! And probably this is an apt word to describe all the Hamish Macbeth books by British sleuth writer M.C. Beaton (who also writes the popular Agatha Raisin series). Beaton's Macbeth books (all beginning with "Death of a ...") takes us to the Scottish Highlands & the village of Lochdubh. Hamish is a low-keyed police constable who'd rather be out poaching salmon or chasing the odd deer than tending to his constabulary duties;in fact, most of the townspeople consider him a bit lazy & unmotivated. He refuses to work toward promotion within the police department & often lets his superiors take credit for his solutions, which are always the correct ones by the books' endings.. No matter. Hamish is happy. He loves the Highlands, his dog Towser, & small town life (and here we are talking of VERY small town life!); however, even small towns fall prey to murderers and, as it has beenin all the Macbeth stories, it is the constable's slow, plodding--but accurate--detective work that brings the murderer to justice. Beaton's works are not like the complex books of P.D. James or the skilled stylistics of Ruth Rendell or the literary awareness of Martha Grimes (all tremendous writers themselves), but they are worth reading. She captures, indeed, an essence of Scotland rarely seen since that earlier Macbeth,in thunder, lightning, & rain, managed to flood the stage with all those bodies a few centuries ago!). Beaton manages to incorporate just enough romance into her stories so that readers find themselves genuinely interestedin whether Hamish will EVER be able to settle down & marry Priscilla, a high-born lassie with a mind of her own & who often as not assistsin the investigations. Beaton, too, is able to add touches of wry humor here & there, and, granted, after getting into the series, the reader is generally able to predict much of the action. Still, this is a series that is a delight & shouldn't be missed. The Brits have begun filming a Hamish Macbeth series, which should hit the PBS circuit, too, we hope!
