Sergeant Hamish Macbeth returns to protect his sleepy Scottish village of Lochdubh in the latest mystery in M.C. Beaton’s beloved, New York Times bestselling series.
It is February and the Scottish Highlands village of Lochdubh is dealing with heavy snow and freezing temperatures.
Sergeant Hamish Macbeth can handle the weather, but with a surprise influx of high-society visitors for a Valentine's Day wedding at Tommel Castle Hotel, he has bigger problems. The guest list includes not one, but two women from his own romantic past!
And Hamish isn't the only one disrupted by the arrival of the wedding party. The groom - the supposedly suave and sophisticated Darius Palmerston - is involved in a series of incidents in the local pub. Tensions between guests and villagers escalate until, on the night of the wedding, Darius is found dead in the dining room - the cake-cutting sword plunged into his chest.
Hamish suddenly has a murder investigation on his hands, and one with a very long list of suspects.
Release date:
February 10, 2026
Publisher:
Grand Central Publishing
Print pages:
256
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“This wedding cannae go ahead! There must be no marriage in this place! There is evil afoot—an evil no’ seen for five centuries past! The ceremony will summon the Devil himself and Satan will bring death to Lochdubh!”
The old man stood in a patch of sunshine beside a low snowbank that was liberally speckled with gravel, gathered when the snow was cleared from the car park of Lochdubh’s Tommel Castle Hotel. He punctuated his proclamation by pounding the tambourine-like Celtic bodhran drum he held in his left hand, although he had no need of the drum to attract the attention of those standing at the foot the stone steps leading up to the hotel’s grand entrance. His appearance had the small group rapt, none showing any inclination to retreat inside where warming log fires were burning in the public rooms. Outside, despite the sharp glare that had encouraged some of the guests to protect their eyes with designer shades, the sunshine had barely raised the temperature far enough above freezing to melt the frost on the trees. Nevertheless, the hotel guests—a handful of young women accompanied by a couple of young men—remained out in the cold, fascinated by the apparition with the drum.
The man standing before them wore a black velvet skull cap decorated with embroidered gold symbols that looked arcane enough possibly to be genuine runes from some long-forgotten mystic cult. His long, straggly, white beard reached down to his chest, almost concealing a string of dull black beads, and his voluminous, heavy, gray kaftan had snow clinging to the hem where it had trailed on the ground. Now and again, when he raised his arms to sound the drum, the hem rose to reveal a distinctly non-mystical pair of thick-soled, warmly padded, modern snow boots.
“I’m getting married here on Saturday,” a young woman standing on the steps called out. Alannah Hamilton was wearing an expensive Fairisle wool sweater and stood with her arms folded against the cold. From her bemused smile and the twinkle in her eye, it was patently clear that she wasn’t taking the old man at all seriously. “Why do you want me to cancel my wedding? What’s the Devil got to do with it?”
“The Devil has stalked the hills around Lochdubh since the beginning o’ time, forever seeking souls to plunder,” the old man said, with another dramatic flourish on his drum. “It was in this place that he took the witch Jenny Horne as his bride!”
As the storyteller rattled out an uncertain rhythm on his drum, plodding back and forth in a slow march while chanting in a low, incoherent mutter, a small man in a tweed suit appeared at the hotel entrance, pausing at the top of the steps, quite apart from the guests lower down. Colonel George Halburton-Smythe was the hotel’s owner. Anger at the disturbance on his premises had drawn his face almost as tight as the knot in his regimental tie. He was joined by a younger man, wearing a dark business suit.
“I put you in charge of security, Silas!” hissed the colonel. “You used to be a police officer—get rid of that old reprobate!”
“I think kicking him out might be a wee bit hasty, Colonel,” said Silas. “It might not be good PR. Angus is known as ‘the seer’ in Lochdubh and there are plenty who use him as a fortune teller and font of wisdom. It wouldn’t go down at all well with the locals if we flung him out in the snow. Those who believe his auld wives’ tales might think you were in league with the Devil yourself!”
Silas laughed. The colonel did not.
“So what do we do about him?” he snapped. “We can’t have him parading around here like this all day!”
“I’ve sent for someone who can handle Angus,” Silas said, looking down toward the driveway, “and here he comes now.”
A silver Land Rover resplendent in the distinctive yellow-and-blue “Battenberg” livery of Police Scotland drew to a halt at the head of the driveway, out of sight of the seer and his audience. Any noise the car made on the gravel was drowned out by an enthusiastic burst of drumming that spurred the old man into an almost energetic bout of hopping from one foot to the other. This brought a cheer from some of the guests, so he hopped some more.
Sergeant Hamish Macbeth stepped out of the Land Rover and paused to take in the spectacle. He was joined by his constable, Davey Forbes, for a few seconds before Hamish approached the gaggle of guests, making his way around them and up the staircase, his long legs easily taking the steps two at a time. He was an imposing figure, standing well over six feet tall and with a shock of flaming red hair over which he crammed his uniform cap before greeting the colonel. A couple of the young women nudged each other, whispered and cast admiring glances in his direction, although the seer was now demanding their attention once again.
“Be warned and be gone from this place,” the seer exclaimed, “afore murder returns to this house after five hundred years!”
“According to the history of the house, that’s not possible,” said a woman with dark hair, standing next to the bride-to-be. Sloane Beaumont was Alannah’s chief bridesmaid and was waving a printed sheet bearing the hotel logo. “Tommel Castle was only built one hundred and fifty years ago, not five hundred.”
“A dwelling has stood on this spot far longer than that,” the seer assured her. “Jenny Horne lived in a much smaller house, but it was here that the Devil and all the most abominable demons o’ the underworld attended the wedding feast. They were served by two local lassies, enslaved under the sorcery of the evil witch! She turned their heads backward so that her master wouldnae be affronted by them laying eyes upon him, and that’s how they were found when their bodies were washed ashore in Loch Dubh the following day.”
“How could they see to serve anything if their heads were on backward?” asked one of the young men, laughing. The seer glowered at him from beneath his shaggy eyebrows, sniffed and silenced the laughter with a rattle of his drum.
“The villagers had long suspected Jenny Horne o’ witchcraft and gathered to march on her house. She warned them to leave her be, lest she call for her husband to rain fire on the village, but they threw her into the cellar beneath her house and locked her there until the sheriff’s men could be summoned from Golspie.
“For two days and nights she screamed and wailed down in the cellar such that the men guarding the house could scarce hear anything else. Then, on the third day, the screaming stopped. The men opened the cellar to see if she was still alive, but found no trace o’ her. What they did find was a tunnel, wi’ walls as smooth as glass, leading out o’ the cellar toward the mountains. One brave soul set foot in the tunnel and barely escaped wi’ his life when the whole thing collapsed. You can follow the route the tunnel took to this day if you look just ower there.”
He pointed to a gulley that ran from the edge of the hotel grounds across the surrounding estate to where the mountains, white with snow, looked down over the village. He then resumed his shuffling, hopping dance as the guests clapped in time to the beat of his drum.
“I want him out of here immediately,” the colonel seethed, glaring at Hamish. “He’s trespassing and surely disturbing the peace! Can’t you just arrest him?”
“Och, there’s easier ways to deal wi’ Angus,” Hamish replied. He took off his hat and waved it above his head, catching the dancing seer’s eye. He then cupped his hand to his mouth in a drinking motion, before pointing to the back of the hotel. The seer gave an almost imperceptible nod, then addressed his audience once more.
“You’ve had fair warning,” he said. “Choose not to heed my words and you will bring death to this place!”
He then headed off round the hotel, a smattering of applause seeing him on his way.
“Silas, maybe you should go see Freddy in the kitchen,” Hamish suggested. “I’ve no doubt a bit o’ lunch and a wee dram would go down well wi’ the seer.”
“Wait a minute!” the colonel objected. “This is my hotel! You can’t just give away my food and drink to that old fool!”
“Angus is no fool, Colonel,” Hamish said, keeping his voice low. “Eccentric, aye, and a charlatan no doubt, but you might want to listen to this lot afore you pass judgment on him.”
The guests were now filing back into the hotel, heading for the warmth of the bar area.
“He was fabulous, wasn’t he?” said one young woman.
“I loved his drumming,” one of men said, laughing and twiddling his hand as though wielding the seer’s double-headed drumstick. “Dum-dabbah-dum-dabbah-dum!”
“He was brilliant,” Sloane said to the bride. “Did you have to pay extra for him, Alannah?”
“I’ve no idea,” Alannah said, smiling. “I bet it was something my father laid on. He’s really into all that folklore stuff.”
The group breezed past in a cloud of chatter. Hamish looked at the colonel and raised his eyebrows.
“Seems like they enjoyed the performance,” he said, smiling.
“Hamish is right,” came the voice of Priscilla Halburton-Smythe, stepping toward them from the small lounge to the side of the hotel entrance. She was, as always, elegantly dressed with not a hair of her smooth blonde bob out of place. Priscilla was tall and beautiful and Hamish had once been so beguiled by her that they had become engaged, much to the colonel’s disapproval. He had found the thought of having a lowly police officer as a son-in-law so degrading as to be almost unbearable. The only thing that had offended him more was when Hamish called off the engagement. That had been an almost insufferable slight and he never found out why Hamish had behaved in such a scurrilous manner. The villagers were equally confused. Hamish and Priscilla, after all, had seemed the ideal couple.
No one else, however, knew Priscilla as Hamish did. Beneath her facade of warmth and charm, Priscilla was devoid of any real affection. She reveled in the attention men showered upon her, but could offer no real love in return. Although he had long since decided that she was not the woman to spend the rest of his days with, Hamish was still entranced by her beauty, wondering almost every time he saw her what life might have been like with a more amorous, more passionate version of Priscilla.
“That was a quaint and entertaining display,” she said. “The wedding party loved it.”
“Aye, he’s quite a character is auld Angus,” Hamish said. “I didn’t realize you were up here in Lochdubh, Priscilla.”
“I got in this morning,” she replied. “One of the bridesmaids, Helen Carter, works with me in IT down in London. I persuaded her to suggest the hotel as the wedding venue and thought I’d best be here to keep an eye on things.”
While her father owned Tommel Castle, having bought it as a private residence and been persuaded by Hamish to turn it into a hotel when he later lost a fortune through poor investments, the colonel had little to do with the day-to-day running of the place. Priscilla, along with the hotel’s manager, Mr. Johnson, oversaw the operation of the business. She now spent more time in Lochdubh than she did in London, since most of her IT work could easily be done from her laptop wherever she was in the world.
“Hamish, would you do me a favor, please?” she asked. “Make sure Angus—Mr. Macdonald—doesn’t leave until I’ve had a word with him.”
“Aye, no problem,” Hamish replied. “I was on my way down to the kitchen in any case to see what Freddy’s got on the stove. Davey and I have been helping to haul sheep out o’ snowdrifts all morning, so I’m fair famished.”
“Macbeth, I will not have you scrounging in my hotel kitchen!” barked the colonel. “And as for that scoundrel Forbes…” He turned to where the Land Rover was parked, but Davey was no longer anywhere to be seen. “Where has he…?” The colonel turned back to see Hamish disappearing through a door that led downstairs to the kitchen.
“Priscilla, you cannot allow these lazy freeloaders to eat and drink us out of business!” he whined to his daughter.
“We’re lucky to have them,” Priscilla maintained. “Don’t forget that Silas was once Hamish’s constable, as was Freddy. Freddy is a far better chef than we could ever have hoped to tempt here to Lochdubh and Silas is our best employee. He covers at least three jobs in the hotel. Without Hamish we wouldn’t have them. In fact, without Hamish you’d have had to sell Tommel Castle for a fraction of its value, if you recall.”
“Actually, I have a very good memory, my dear,” her father replied. “I remember, for example, the callous way he treated you when—”
“We’ve moved on since then, Daddy. If I can let bygones be bygones, then so can you. Now, there’s something I need to do.”
Priscilla hurried off in the direction of the bar, leaving her father with an uncomfortable surfeit of unspent ire. He spotted Mr. Johnson working in the office behind the reception desk and marched across the hall, confident he’d find something or other about which to berate him.
Down in the kitchen, Freddy had persuaded Silas to trade his suit jacket for an apron and help a young woman, a local who worked as his part-time assistant, to prepare a mountain of vegetables needed for that evening’s dinner.
Hamish, Davey and the seer were seated at a table in the corner of the kitchen enjoying steaming bowls of Cullen skink with hunks of freshly baked bread and mugs of tea. Hamish and the seer also had glasses of whisky to hand. The seer, having started before the other two, was mopping up the last of his soup with a final swab of bread when Hamish turned to him.
“So what was all that stuff about the Devil, Angus?” he asked. “I’m fairly sure I’ve no’ heard that tale afore.”
“Whether you’ve heard it or no’,” the seer assured him, “doesn’t mean it’s no’ true. The evidence is there to see. You cannae deny the track o’ the collapsed tunnel.”
“The gulley’s there, plain as day,” Davey said, “but there are gulleys like that all over the northwest. Geologically, we’re sitting on a fault line called the Moine Thrust and…” He looked up from his soup when he realized Hamish was staring at him, giving him a slight shake of his head. The seer scowled at the young constable.
“Macbeth probably thinks I didn’t see him shutting you up,” the old man growled. “He kens very well how unwise it is to ignore the auld ways. Folk around here live in tune wi’ their surroundings. They ken the waters o’ the loch, the changes in the wind and feel o’ the hillsides wi’ a knowledge that runs far deeper than mere science.”
The seer took a deep breath, clearly about to launch into a lecture about ancient values, when Priscilla walked into the kitchen.
“Might I have a word with you outside, Mr. Macdonald?” she asked, then continued walking past the group and out the back door to where the small courtyard area was bright with frigid sunshine. Immediately recognizing the shape of the tissue-wrapped package she was carrying, the seer rose from his seat, downed what was left of his dram and followed her outside.
“That was a fascinating recital you gave us earlier,” Priscilla said, once they were alone. She held out the package. “I thought you might like this as a small token of our appreciation.”
“You don’t understand what you’re dealing wi’…” the seer began, taking the package and peeling back a fold of the wrapping, spotting the stylized gold stag’s head logo and swiftly secreting the bottle of Glenfiddich deep in a pocket somewhere in the folds of his kaftan, “… but your token o’ appreciation is also much appreciated.”
“I was thinking,” Priscilla said slowly, “that the Jenny Horne story happened a very long time ago, and—”
“Five centuries have passed,” the seer intoned, as though about to launch into his sermon once again, “yet the danger remains ever present, merely dormant, not purged, even to this day.”
“Yes, five centuries and not much in the way of purging,” Priscilla agreed, “but there are no real records going back quite that far here in Lochdubh, are there? There are no documents stored in the church or anywhere else to prove that the two girls were found dead on the beach or that Jenny Horne was locked in her cellar—or precisely when this all happened. I mean, you can’t be sure that the fifth centenary of the Devil’s wedding is this coming Saturday, or in three weeks’ time, or indeed a month after that.”
“The precise day will matter not if the evil should be awakened,” warned the seer.
“My point entirely,” Priscilla said, nodding. “I’m so glad we’re seeing eye-to-eye on this, Mr. Macdonald. The thing is, we have another wedding coming up in three weeks and I wondered if you could be persuaded to stage a repeat performance.”
“It would be wise to offer the same warning to your new guests,” the seer agreed, carefully considering the request, “but I am sore troubled wi’ the many demands on my time.”
“Maybe this will help ease your troubles,” Priscilla said, offering him a white envelope, which the seer opened, assessing the collection of £10 notes inside with a keen, sharp glance before the envelope, like the bott. . .
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