Hollywood in the Highlands

With the lovely Priscilla Halburton-Smythe away in London, Lochdubh Constable Hamish Macbeth pines for company during the long Scottish winter. He gets his wish—and more—when a troupe of flashy, urbane filmmakers clambers 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 furious that her musty old cozies are getting a risqué face-lift for their television reincarnation. Yet, going behind the scenes, Hamish 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, Hamish must quickly find the right killer—or script the wrong finale to a show gone murderously awry.