Well told tale! Over the course of 20 books, Sargent Blair has escalated from trying to destroy Hamish's idyllic life to trying to end Hamish' life. (That isn't a spoiler alert unless you haven't started this series at the beginning as you should have.) What would be a spoiler is if I told you how Hamish repays all of Blair's evil machinations. I will leave the sub-plot alone except to say that even for Hamish, five women trying to seduce him in the same episode is a bit much.
Very cozy mystery: no one nice dies; very little blood no guts; lovely scenes on the hillside and in the villages; some romances that make you cringe, some that make you wish you were still 16 or 20, and equally important are the cat and dog over whom Hamish fusses and takes much verbal abuse for loving.

Death of a Gentle Lady A Hamish Macbeth Mystery --- by --- M. C. Beaton.

M.C. Beaton is quite a prolific writer: she has written over a dozen Hamish Macbeth novels alone. They are as well loved as they are well written. Set in the north of Scotland immersed in the brooding, ever changing Scottish weather with its mists and gales, its crofts and heather her novels feature a lone, non-conventional copper, Macbeth, singularly lacking in ambition, smitten by his little village and obdurately resistant to any promotion that would see him forced to leave his beloved Lochdubh. Extremely competent at his calling, Hamish is called upon two solve two different murder, somehow connected, while his own life too is in jeopardy. An excellent plot and a good read.

The best part of the story how Hamish got back at Blair.

Enjoyable, but not as good as the others I've read in the series.

Always enjoy her Hamish MacBeth series. The characters and storyline are carried on book-to-book, so it can seem odd if you hop into the series halfway along. The series isn't Conan Doyle or Agatha Christie, but is along those lines. I still can't find a good agatha replacement...

Never start a series at Book #24. I might try one of the earlier mysteries - I think the author is just going through the motions at this point.