Why a Booktrail?
2000s: Local bobby Hamish looks after the small village of Lochdubh…but there’s trouble brewing…
Death of a Gossip (Hamish Macbeth 1)
What you need to know before your trail
Lady Jane Winters joins the local fishing class in the village of Lochdubh in the Scottish Highlands and wastes no time in ruffling feathers of those around her.
Lochdubh constable Hamish Macbeth has also been on the sharp end of her tongue yet not even Hamish thinks someone would seriously want to silence Lady Jane’s shrill voice permanently – until her strangled body is fished out of the river.
Hamish now has his hands full trying to find out who would have done such a thing. With the help of Priscilla Halburton-Smythe, he must steer a course through the choppy waters of the gossip’s life to find a murderer. But no one is willing to talk and ironically, Hamish finds himself wishing for once that the dead gossip could talk once again.
Travel Guide
The Village mystery
A small village in the Scottish Highlands is the perfect place to live it would seem. A few ramshackle houses on the banks of a bonny loch, a community spirit from yesteryear and a way of living off the land that never really seems to go out of fashion. The fictional village of Lochdubh is a lovely place to visit – a nice village community with its own fishing school and a nice friendly local policeman.
But gossips live in the best of villages and Lady Jane’s voice is louder for the village being so peaceful and calm.
Hamish is a unique sort of policeman – he’s the only one for a start in a village so small, blink and you would miss it. He’s the eldest in a family and so looks after his siblings who are much younger. It’s tradition in the highlands to look after your youngest siblings until they can look after the youngest before them and this is going to take a while. He wanders the village and scrouges food, gossips to the locals and lives a nice quiet life most of the time. This village Bobby has his dog to look after and they make a formidable duo.
He fancies Priscilla Hallburton-Smythe, but she doesn’t know. Her family have her destined for great things. Life in this little village is going to get a whole lot of interesting
Hamish Macbeth country
Constable Hamish Macbeth lives in the fictitious town of Lochdubh in Sutherland, Scotland
“The Village of Lochdubh in Sutherland looked like a picture postcard with its row of small eighteenth-century whitewashed cottages facing the sea loch”
The TV version
The series was filmed on location in the village of Plockton, the town of Kyle of Lochalsh and the surrounding area. The booktrail is a mix of the two.
Streetview Maps
A) Lochdubh or Plockton?
A) Lochdubh or Plockton?
Booktrail Boarding Pass Information: Death of a Gossip (Hamish Macbeth 1)
Author/ Guide: MC Beaton Destination: Sutherland, Plockton, Lochdubh (fictional) Departure Time: 2000s
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