Death of a Scriptwriter

With the lovely Priscilla Halburton-Smythe away in London, Hamish Macbeth, the constable of the small Scottish town of Lochdubh, pines for company during the long Scottish winter. He gets his wish-and more-when a troupe of flashy, urbane filmmakers clamors into the nearby town of Drim. Before long bedlam erupts around their make-believe mystery-and culminates in the sudden appearance of one very real corpse.

The initial suspect in the killing is one Patricia Martyn-Broyd, the aging mystery writer who is furious that her musty old cozies are getting a risque face-lift in their television reincarnation. Yet, going behind the scenes, Macbeth soon finds a town full of locals bitten by the movie bug and a cast of quarreling show business types, all harboring their own secrets, lies, and hidden agendas. And as the culprit strikes again, Macbeth must quickly find the right killer-or script the wrong finale to a show gone murderously awry.