Hamish's biggest fish is drug baron Jimmy White. To reel White in, Hamish poses as a drug supplier, with a beautiful, standoffish detective inspector from Glasgow playing the part of his wife. The pair go off on a whirlwind trip to Amsterdam to maintain their front, leading to a comic mishap and the beginnings of a romance--one that nearly comes to a very bad end when White is tipped off by Hamish's enemy, Detective Inspector Blair.

Mystery buffs new to the series will find this Highland fling easy to follow, and those who are already fans will delight in the hint of a new long-term relationship for their laconic hero. --Barrie Trinkle

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In the far north, isolation drives some men to drink and shelters others from the temptations of modern life. The drink might explain the reports of a sea monster near the dour village of Drim. The latter led young, recovering addict Tommy Jarret to rent a chalet from a local crofter. Despite the fears of some Lochdubh citizens, Hamish Macbeth didn't believe the fresh-faced lad would go back to drugs willingly...even when Tommy was found dead, apparently of an overdose.

Suspecting the Loch Drim monster is a hoax, and unable to forget Tommy's death, Macbeth goes to Strathbane, a nearby town, to infiltrate the local heroin trade. It's a daft scheme-and perhaps the most courageous thing Macbeth has ever attempted. It may also be the last thing he ever does.

Strathbane's chief superintendent is thrilled with Hamish's plan, so thrilled, in fact, that he brings up a notorious detective inspector from Glasgow to run the operation. The copper in question is Olivia Chater-aka "concrete knickers." Beautiful but cold, the tough-talking Olivia will pose as Macbeth's wife.

Thus begins a charade that would push two stubborn personalities into a war of wills and put an intractable Highlander in an Armani suit among the circling sharks of the underworld. And in either chilling situation it would be fatal for the constable to show vulnerability. Or fall in love.

M. C. Beaton again gives readers a Highland fling of a mystery, filled with intriguing red herrings, authentic characters, and a place as unforgettable, and magical, as Brigadoon.

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Tommy Jarret is a young former heroin addict from Strathbane. Happy about his drug-free future, he had rented a chalet and was writing a book about recovery. Hamish Macbeth is surprised to hear of his sudden death from an overdose because Tommy had seemed so happy and his life had even taken a spiritual bent after he had joined a local New Age group, the Church of the Rising Sun. Macbeth pokes around and becomes suspicious of the church. Posing as homeless and depressed, he joins the church and volunteers his services as a handyman. Although he doesn't find anything strange other than the church's belief that all troubles stem from sexual oppression, his superiors have been separately investigating the source of widespread drug infiltration into the Highlands and have also been poking around the church. Hamish is asked by the commanding officer, Detective Inspector Olivia Chater, to go undercover as a husband and wife team, posing as large-scale drug barons. In their new Armani-clad, chauffeured existence, they travel to Amsterdam and uncover an operation that is strangely ordinary, but hardly an ordinary case.