There’s not a cloud in Hamish Macbeth’s sky - just plenty of warm sunshine but not quite enough of the lovely Priscilla Halburton-Smythe. But as eight hopeful members of the Checkmate Singles Club converge on Tommel Castle Hotel for a week of serious matchmaking, the clouds roll in. The four couples, carefully matched by dating director Maria Worth, immediately dislike one another. And the arrival of Maria’s gross, greedy business partner, Peta, kills the last vestige of romance. And as love goes out the window, murder comes in the door.

Now that Priscilla Halburton-Smythe has agreed to marry him, Police Sergeant Hamish Macbeth can't imagine a more perfect life. There's not much crime in his remote Scottish village of Lochdubh, nothing much at all to do but fish, drink coffee, and slouch around. And now to spend time with lovely Priscilla. But his days aren't as tranquil as his dreams. For one thing, Priscilla's renovation schemes are driving him out of his cottage. Not to mention her ambitious plans for his career as a policeman away from Lochdubh. This might be a good time to find out why Peter Hynd's arrival in nearby Drim was causing so much trouble....

When Jane Wetherby offers PC Hamish Macbeth a holiday at her "Happy Wanderer" health farm on the isle of Eileencraig, he is more than happy to accept. Unfortunately the visit doesn’t prove to be the pampering experience he had been hoping for. Windswept Eileencraig is inhabited by hostile islanders, many of whom would be more than happy to be rid of the Happy Wanderer and its proprietor. And the company at the health farm is hardly better. The volatile party includes an ex-husband, an illicit lover, and Morag Todd, an unadulterated snob who criticizes everybody and everything.

When police constable Hamish Macbeth receives the news that there has been a murder at Arrat House, home of the relentless practical joker Arthur Trent, he doesn’t race to the scene of the crime. After all, last time he was called to investigate a death at the isolated Scottish manor, the "victim" turned out to be Trent’s manservant covered in fake blood. Thus prepared for another prank, Hamish arrives to find that Trent has been most decidedly murdered and for suspects there is a houseful of greedy relatives, all of whom are more than interested in the contents of the will than the crime at hand.

The unconventional Hamish Macbeth finds that his own impetuousness places him at the center of a murder investigation. Everyone in the Scottish Highlands village of Lochdubh called Randy Duggan 'the Macho Man'. Duggan went around the village and bragged about everything he had done and said he once was a wrestler in America and an explorer in the Middle East. At first his outrageous stories drew an admiring crowd at the local pub, but soon his bullying ways lead to anger and violence.

Hamish Macbeth is savouring the delights of a Highland summer. But as fast as the rain rolls in from the loch, his happy life goes to hell in a handbasket. The trouble begins when his beloved Priscilla Halburton-Smythe returns to Lochdubh with a new fiancé on her arm. His miseries multiply when clouds of midges descend on the town. And then a paragon of housewife perfection named Trixie Thomas moves into Lochdubh with her cowed husband in tow. The newcomer quickly convinces the local ladies to embrace low-cholesterol meals, ban alcohol, and begin bird-watching.

Just when Hamish most needs him - the dentist turns up dead... In Scotland, where thrift and a 'nice set of dentures' are generally admired, dental surgeon Dr Frederick Gilchrist's cheap rates and penchant for pulling teeth have gained him a clientele. However, wiser Highlanders (like Hamish Macbeth) opt to steer clear of this reputed womanizer's all-too-busy hands. Only jaw-throbbing agony drives Hamish to Gilchrist's surgery, but what he finds is the dentist's dead body - putting several angry husbands in the frame for murder...

Amazing news is spreading like wildfire across the Scottish countryside: the most famous of all Lochdubh, remotely nestling in the Highlands, is perfectly anonymous... until well-known TV reporter Crystal French races into town in her bright new BMW. And PC Hamish Macbeth, dourly wed to duty rather than the fiancée who dumped him, promptly gives her a ticket for reckless driving. Outraged, Crystal makes Macbeth's life a misery with a TV report on policing in the Highlands...

Patricia Martyn-Broyd, now in her seventies, has retired to the Highlands. She hasn't written a word in years and her books are out of print. But now a television company is about to film her last detective story, featuring the aristocratic Scottish detective Lady Harriet Vare. Even better, a London publisher is bringing the book into print. Even though the snobbish Miss Martyn-Broyd doesn't care to mix with the locals she can't help but share her excitement with local policeman Hamish Macbeth.

Maggie Baird is neither kind nor generous, but she is very, very rich. So when her car catches fire, with her inside it, there are five likely candidates for the role of murderer. All five had been houseguests at her luxurious Highlands home - Maggie’s timid niece and four former lovers, one of whom Maggie had intended to pick for a husband. All five are utterly broke and all had ample opportunity to tamper with Maggie’s car. So finding out, who did it will require all of PC Hamish Macbeth’s extraordinary common sense and insight into human nature.

When Fergus Macleod, Lochdubh's abusive, drunk dustman is put in charge of the local recycling centre and is dubbed the 'Environment Officer', Hamish Macbeth smells trouble. Sure enough, Fergus, imbued with his new powers, becomes a bullying tyrant and when his body is found stuffed in a recycling bin, no one is sorry - including his long-suffering family.

Recovering addict Tommy Jarret has rented a chalet to check out reports of a sea monster near the village of Drim. Then he turns up dead, apparently from a drug overdose, and constable Hamish Macbeth finds the lad's demise particularly fishy. Deciding to go undercover, Hamish infiltrates the local drug dealing trade. But his plans looks doomed when he's teamed up with a tough Glaswegian detective inspector named Olivia Chater, aka Concrete Knickers. For the Lochdubh lawman it would be equally dangerous to flounder...or fall in love.

In dark, wintry Lochdubh, Christmas Cheer is about as welcome as a flat tyre on a deserted road. The Calvinist element in town has always resisted what they view as secular frivolity, so for most of the townsfolk there'll be no carols, feasting, gifts - or even whisky on Christmas Day! And for PC Hamish Macbeth there's no holiday from crime - he finds himself hunting for a missing cat belonging to a lonely spinster.

Trouble is afoot in the remote Scottish fishing village of Stoyre, where the inhabitants are acting kind of... fishy. On a routine visit, Hamish Macbeth finds the pub empty, the church unexpectedly full, and the very air permeated with fear. Then an explosion levels a holiday cottage which the locals call 'an act of God'. Hamish has another theory, one that will make the national news. With the help of sharp-eyed journalist Elspeth Grant and Lugs (his dog) he begins to winkle out the truth.

Not bored to death but murder most foul... Celebrated author John Heppel is known in Lochdubh as a self-important bore, prone to belittling the scribblings of the locals in his creative writing class. So when he's found dead, his mouth oozing ink, it seems a fitting fate. But for PC Hamish Macbeth, the murder is more than a disruption of idyllic village life - especially when the media arrive, trailing in their wake DCI Heather Meikle, a maneater with a taste for bachelor police constables.