Book Review: Murder at the Highland Games (Ally McKinley Mystery #4) by Dee MacDonald @bookouture

Murder at the Highland Games
(Ally McKinley Mystery #4)
by Dee MacDonald

Amazon / B&N / BB

When a fun day out in the Scottish Highlands turns fatal, there’s only one solution: call for Ally McKinley!

It’s the annual Locharran Highland Games, and Ally McKinley has never seen her little village so busy or excited. Everyone’s enjoying the Scottish dancing, the bagpipes, and cheering the competitors on. But there’s a hitch in the proceedings when champion challenger Archie Armstrong drops dead in the middle of tossing the caber. Rushing to the scene, Ally is the first to spot that Archie’s death was no accident – this was murder!

Ally flings herself into a new investigation and soon discovers that more than one person may have had a murderous motive, including some of the current residents of her cosy little guesthouse. Patti, Archie’s glamorous wife, seems intent on acting like the perfect widow, but rumours of infidelity have been flying. Is her performance too good? Could her uncle, cranky gamekeeper Angus, have finally snapped, furious at Archie’s treatment of his niece? Or was it one of the frustrated local competitors, desperate to end Archie’s winning streak?

Determined to crack the case and fuelled by more than one piece of her famous shortbread, Ally begins to narrow down her list of possible culprits, but is thrown for a loop when her chief suspect is found dead by the loch, a mysterious and threatening note clutched in their fingers. With a killer at large, can Ally finally uncover the truth? Or, as the sun sets over the highlands, will this game be her last?

My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

Angus had a way of looking at you as if you were completely deranged.

Ally got out the biscuit tin and placed it, open, on the table alongside Morag’s chair. Morag took out a biscuit and dipped it into her tea, then got it into her mouth a split second before it was about to disintegrate into her mug. This was a feat which must have taken Morag years to perfect because she loved these biscuits, and Ally had never seen her drop one crumb into her tea yet.

See you in the mornin’ if the Lord spares us…

My Review:

I was a fast fan of Ms. MacDonald’s clever wordcraft soon after starting the first chapter of Book 1, and have enjoyed each subsequent installment of this delightful series. I live in hope she has no plans in saying goodbye to this quirky Scottish village of gossips and snoops, as I adore the main characters and enjoy their adventures as well as their misadventures, and revel in my time spent with them.

In addition to being well entertained by a puzzling murder mystery, I picked up two new additions to my British Isles Word List with ghillie, which is a gameskeeper, and plus fours, which Mr. Google informed me is a type of knickerbacker: baggy, knee-length trousers that extend four inches below the knee. I plan to continue gathering such important knowledge by perusing this talented scribbler, as I’m a lifelong learner.

About the Author

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Aged 18, Dee arrived in London from Scotland and typed her way round the West End for a couple of years before joining BOAC (forerunner of British Airways) in Passenger Services for 2 years and then as a stewardess for 8 years.

She has worked in Market Research, Sales, and at the Thames TV Studios when they had the franchise.

Dee has since relocated to Cornwall, where she spent 10 years running B&Bs, and only began writing when she was over 70!

Married twice, she has one son and two grandsons.