Tuesday, Nov. 25 is release date for Traci Hall’s cozy mystery, Murder at the Scottish Games. The mystery is the seventh in Hall’s Scottish Shire mystery series. A copy can be pre-ordered through the Webstore. https://bit.ly/47XJMAP
Critic Oline Cogdill recently reviewed if for the South Florida Sun Sentinel. Thank you, Oline, for sharing the review.
LOTS OF SCOTTISH LORE
‘Murder at the Scottish Games’ by Traci Hall; Kensington; 304 pages; $17.95
Sports can bring out the best — and just as often — the worst in people. The stakes are tripled, and the score even more important, when the sport is wrapped up in tradition, history and family reputation, as is the case in Traci Hall’s lively “Murder at the Scottish Games.”
Hall keeps her light plot churning with bits of humor, a town filled with suspects and lots of Scottish lore.
The Highland Games have come to Nairn, Scotland, and that’s good news for local businesses, especially for Paislee Shaw, who owns a sweater and yarn shop. It’s almost as if Paislee is printing money the way tourists are shopping in her Cashmere Crush store. For extra help, Paislee hires Rhona Smythe, whose salary will go to her parents to pay off her many speeding tickets.
Everyone in Nairn seems to have Highland Games fever. The new dog-herding event is expected to be a big hit. Rhona is in the Highland Dance and her boyfriend, Artie Whittle, is participating in several events, including the caber toss, in which he will throw a tapered log measuring about 16 feet long. Nothing could go wrong there — until someone tampers with the log. A fatality and rumors of steroid use put a damper on the event.
A strength of “Murder at the Scottish Games” is how Hall makes Paislee’s involvement as an amateur sleuth organic to the plot. Paislee’s instincts and eye for detail go further than matching yarn colors. Her home life, including her grumpy grandfather and brooding 13-year-old son Brody, and her interest in D.I. Mack Zeffer add to the believable story.
Hall’s view of Scotland, punctuated by occasional bits of dialect, will make readers want to book a trip there.