A classic title from M. C. Beaton's New York Times bestselling Hamish Macbeth series

Peta Gore is the bane of her friend's otherwise successful life. Maria Worth has come to hate her old friend—a noisy, vulgar glutton. There is no other way to describe Peta. She doesn't just "have a good appetite"—she sucks and chomps and chews with relish. Not only are her table manners horrifying, but she has a habit of showing up at Maria's carefully planned singles' gatherings and spoiling everything by flirting with all the men. This time Maria is determined to keep her latest event a secret.

The gathering is to be at Tommel Castle Hotel in the remote Scottish village of Lochdubh—the perfect setting for a particularly difficult group. Nothing can go wrong. Except that somehow Peta finds out about the gathering and shows up, thoroughly disgusting everyone. Guests and staff band together in mutual loathing. But does someone hate her enough to kill her? When she is found dead, an apple stuck unceremoniously in her mouth, Constable Hamish Macbeth is on the scene. With a castle full of odd suspects, the lazy, long-limbed constable has to put his wooing of the hotel proprietress, Priscilla, on hold to solve the case.