Green provides us with a terrific Foreword in which he not only pays fine tribute to Beaton but also talks about Sergeant Hamish Macbeth, perhaps her greatest fictional creation ... Beaton and Green do a superb job keeping the red herrings coming and the plot twists jumping out at you until the finale. You’ll just have to strap on your favorite kilt and visit scenic Lochdubh to find out exactly what is going on here.
The fact that Macbeth has a new recruit makes for some terrific comic moments ... It also expands the reader’s world beyond Lochdubh to all around the Highlands, as Macbeth and Dorothy explore castles, lochs, and mountains. In a foreword, writer R. W. Green explains how he collaborated with Beaton on this book before her death in 2019; he indicates that Beaton left him (and fans) with more ideas for the series. Long live Macbeth, Sergeant of Scotland!
... lackluster ... without humor to buoy the outlandish plot, the story becomes a tiresome muddle. In the foreword, in which Green shares his memories of assisting Beaton in her final years, he says she 'wanted to provide her readers with some gentle escapism for a rainy afternoon read.' This entry doesn’t quite attain that modest goal.
