The Highland Fling Murders: A Murder, She Wrote Mystery by Jessica Fletcher & Donald Bain

             One of the big things I have always admired about Jessica Fletcher is the opportunities she gets to travel.  In The Highland Fling Murders, she travels to England and Scotland.  Two places I would love to see.  Unfortunately for Jessica, murder gets in the way of a good time.

                Mystery writer Jessica Fletcher is finally taking her friend, Scotland Yard Chief Inspector George Sutherland, up on his offer to visit his castle in Scotland.  She will be staying there, along with eleven friends from Cabot Cove.  But first she must do some book promoting in London.  After that, she and her friends will be able to go off to the small village of Wick in Scotland.

                What starts out as a great adventure quickly turns terrifying when two of Jessica’s friends are held hostage at the Tower of London.  The man holding Alicia and Jed Richardson hostage claims he will kill them unless he gets to talk to Parliament about one of his ancestors.  That ancestor is Catherine Hayes, a woman burned at the stake in 1725.

                While the police try to talk the man down, it is Jessica who saves the day.  She manages to free her friends, which is good because the man suddenly shoots his gun.  By this point everyone is safely behind the police shield, but the experience still leaves everyone rattled.  Even if they still enjoyed London, it must have come as a great relief to move onto Scotland.

                Unfortunately, Scotland ends up even less relaxing and more full of events than London.  Right away Jessica thinks she sees the fabled Lady in White of Sutherland Castle.  She brushes the incident aside, determined to not get caught up in legends.  However, she cannot brush aside so easily the body of a young woman.

                Daisy Wemyss is killed in the exact same way as two other women in the history of the village.  It is with a pitchfork and a cross cut into her throat.  The first woman killed this way was Isabell Gowdie, a suspected witch.  She was killed in 1622.  The other, her descendent, Evelyn Gowdie, was killed in 1976, about twenty years before Daisy.

                The police, led by Constable Horace McKay, do not seem to have any interest in investigating Daisy’s murder.  They also don’t have any interest in calming down the villagers who feel Sutherland Castle is to blame for her death. 

Spiritual Energy/Artwork by Kate Dorsey

For centuries the villagers have blamed the castle and its residents for any violent occurrences that happen.  They also believe the castle is full of ghosts, and that the only way for Inspector Sutherland to bring peace to all is for him to sell the castle.  With the castle no longer owned by the Sutherland family, any curse it may have will be broken.

George had entertained selling the castle before.  Now, with one woman dead and another one suddenly missing, George is more convinced than ever selling the castle is the right thing to do.  Hopefully, Jessica can make George see things differently before he does something he regrets.

          I think this is my favorite Murder, She Wrote book so far.  This is probably because I completely let go of the TV series while I read it.  Instead, I read it as its own entity.  Not as a mystery series based off a TV show.  That seemed to make a big difference.