With the lovely Priscilla Halburton-Smythe away in London, Hamish Macbeth, the constable of the small Scottish town of Lochdubh, pines for company during the long Scottish winter.

He gets his wish—and more—when a troupe of flashy, urbane filmmakers clamors into the nearby town of Drim. Before long, bedlam erupts around their make-believe mystery—and culminates in the sudden appearance of one very real corpse.

The initial suspect in the killing is one Patricia Martyn-Broyd, the aging mystery writer who is furious that her musty old cozies are getting a risqué face-lift in their television reincarnation. Yet, going behind the scenes, Macbeth soon finds a town full of locals bitten by the movie bug and a cast of quarreling show business types, all harboring their own secrets, lies, and hidden agendas

And as the culprit strikes again, Macbeth must quickly find the right killer—or script the wrong finale to a show gone murderously awry.