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Death of a Perfect Wife (Hamish Macbeth #4)
by M.C. Beaton - 4/5
Having seen the title of the book of today, it came to me that for once we'll be having a truly nice person as the deceased. I anticipated, and I sat back, began to read, and wondered how this change would be handled. But, maybe the author just wants to people her books with victims that are only getting their just dessert. I adjusted my expectations and was satiated from the moment the perfect wife keeled over to the end.
The story reminded me of another series starring a Scottish cop. That's the Inspector Rebus series. Apart from their nationality, they don't have much in common, and shouldn't. But both policemen's creators began their careers in the 80's, and surprisingly Hamish's village has a domesticity that reminded me of Edinburgh. Such as the presence of a carpet in one of the locals' house. Is a carpet indicative of the 80's? Does it belong to that decade? It certainly seem so to me, at least for the fiction I've read.
Not everyone is created equal. It's true for M.C. Beaton's writing style, and that's a good thing. Anonymous characters, such as the dentist, don't get fleshed out much. Even Towser, Hamish's pet mongrel, has an arc of its own. E.g we get to know that the dog is a coward, but hates to disappoints its master, for whom he lives to please. There's quite a lot of character work on the slim book that I read, and I found myself paying attention. There's also a mention of a book within the book. John Parker, the made up writer, is writing fantasy. His synopsis seems fine, but maybe M.C. Beaton finds the genre ridiculous. Such type of details rescued the book from other forgettable fare. But this book scores high because it made me care about a character driven story and also because there's a lot of minutiae in such a short book.
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