Off the Shelf at the Swampscott Library

This article was submitted byr Alyce Deveau.

Every month a group of dedicated mystery readers meet for the Dinner Detectives Book Club.  This is not a closed society and new members are constantly joining our group of detectives.

The idea for  this book group is that everyone reads a mystery on a topic rather than everyone reading the same mystery. This allows the group to share their opinions on multiple authors and gives everyone a great list of books that they may want to read or not.

This month’s topic for Dinner Detective is “Slaying Scots”. All of the books selected are either set in Scotland, involve a Scot or somehow fit into the topic. 

One mystery author who seems to have a title to fit every topic that the Dinner Detecticves discuss is  M.C. Beaton. This month her titles that involve the character of Hamish Macbeth fit the bill.

Hamish is the local bobby in the sleepy Scottish Highland village of Lochdubh. Macbeth is a quiet, artfully lazy man who often wonders why no one else "understands the happiness and contentment of the truly unambitious man."

Hamish is a very likeable character despite his laziness.

Her other major series of books involve her character Agatha Raisin. Agatha is an amateur detective who lives in the Cotswolds and always seems to manage to find herself involved in some crime.

As her story progresses through many titles, Agatha decides to open up her own detective agency because she feels that she can solve a crime better than the local police.

People who read the Agatha Raisin books either really love or hate this nosy, grumpy, man-crazed character.

If you are looking for a light, humorous mystery join the myriads of readers who come into the library to take an M.C. Beaton title “off the shelf."